The Center of Remote Sensing was established in 1972. Michigan State University was one of the first universities to employ remote sensing technology for land use issues. It was later renamed Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Science as part of the Department of Geography. It was jointly administered with Social Science, Agriculture and Natural Resources, and Engineering. According to its website "annual grants from NASA supported activities to advance applications of remote sensing in Michigan by means of collaborative research, technology transfer, and training programs in four core areas: Applications of Low-Altitude Aerial Photography, Analysis of Imagery from Satellite Sensors, Land Cover and Forestry Inventories, and Geographic Information Systems" (http://www.rsgis.msu.edu/about/history.php). As of 2015, the name of the unit was Remote Sensing and GIS