Speakers

—A—

Juliann Anesi: Juliann Anesi is an Assistant Professor of Gender Studies at the University of California - Los Angeles. Her research interests include disability and indigeneity, educational policies, and decolonial feminisms. As a community educator and activist, she has also worked with non-profit organizations and schools in American Sāmoa, California, Hawai ́i, New York, and Sāmoa.

—B—

Carlos Barahona: Carlos Barahona - I am a Data Scientist & Systems Architect for the UC Davis Department of Environmental Science & Policy. I have worked in IT in everything from desktop support to application developer, and now support UC Davis supporting all things ArcGIS
Nicolas Barth: Nicolas Barth is an Assistant Professor of Geology at the University of California, Riverside. He specializes in utilizing high-resolution topographic data (lidar, structure-from-motion photogrammetry) to answer natural hazard problems related to faults and landslides, and more broadly to understand landscapes.
Heidi Batchelor: Heidi Batchelor earned an MA in Geography from San Diego State University and specializes in Geographic Information Systems for the marine environment. Heidi teaches classes in GIS at Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) and through UCSD Extension. She is an experienced data analyst having worked with a wide variety of oceanographic data including side scan sonar, sub bottom profilers, vessel and AUV-based multibeam, and acoustic arrays. At SIO she manages data repositories and databases for marine data, prepares data for 3D visualization and VR, and assists with many aspects of oceanographic research both in the lab and in the field.
Karen Beardsley: Karen received her Ph.D. in Geography from the University of California, Davis, and before that, a Masters in Geography from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She worked for over 20 years as a researcher and GIS project manager for the Information Center for the Environment at UC Davis. Since 2014 she has served as Director of the Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program at UC Davis, and for four years has been the Director of Global Professional Programs for UC Davis Global Affairs. She was a Fulbright scholar, teaching GIS in Bhutan (2015‐2016), and a US Peace Corps Volunteer in Kenya in the late 1980’s, where she taught math and science in a rural secondary school. Her GIS career began shortly after her Peace Corps service, also in Kenya, working for the United Nations Environment Programme on elephant conservation. In addition to her position with Global Affairs, Karen continues to teach GIS for UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education and for UC Davis. She taught Introduction to GIS as a summer abroad course in 2018 and 2019 in Bhutan, and taught a virtual summer GIS class for UC Davis in 2020.
Maylei Blackwell: Coming Soon!
Katherine Brenner: Katherine Brenner is a UCLA undergraduate student majoring in environmental sciences and minoring in public health. She has been working in the Fielding School of Public Health Environmental Health Sciences Department as a student researcher. She is currently working on 2 projects- one in the Marlier Lab mapping 2018 California Wildfire PM2.5 emissions as well as on a Natural & Working Lands scenario-based tool for the California Air Resource Board (CARB), focusing on greenspaces and health. She has a passion for protecting marginalized communities against unequal burden of diseases and plans to pursue an MPH after undergrad.

—C—

Kian Tyler Carson: Kian Tyler Carson I am a third-year student at UCLA majoring in Economics with minors in Geospatial Information Systems and Technologies as well as Geography. I plan to graduate this spring and pursue either an MA in Applied Economics or an MS in Geospatial Sciences or Remote Sensing. I am a Washington native, born in Seattle.
Jamie Chan: Jamie Chan is the Management Services Officer at the UCLA American Indian Studies Center. She oversees the Center’s administration, budget, payroll/personnel, events, and special projects. Chan graduated from UCLA in 2010 and received a BA in political science. In her free time, she enjoys binge-watching shows on Netflix and playing video games. Her role in the Hate Crime Map project was overseeing the student workers who researched and collected reports of hate crimes to add to the dataset.
Heather Noel-Chien Chou: Heather Chou is a second-year UCLA undergraduate majoring in Geography and minoring in Geographic Information Systems and Technology (GIS&T) with a potential minor in Public Health. She is also UCLA's 2020-21 Geography Association GIS Representative. She is beginning her journey in learning GIS through courses and self-learning, and has a strong interest in combining Healthcare and Public Health disciplines with GIS technology. Heather is also a database research committee member and client navigator for UCLA's Asian Pacific American HEALTH Care organization where she performs health screenings for underserved Asian and Pacific Islander communities throughout San Gabriel Valley, California at health fairs and conducts research with other organization members. She is also a new member of UCLA's PILOT (Public-Health Initiative: Leaders of Tomorrow) Pre-Professional Public Health organization, as well as a Clinical Care Extender Volunteer for UCLA's Ronald Reagan Hospital. She is beyond excited to learn more GIS and apply its amazing capabilities to real-world issues in hopes to benefit and improve the well-being and quality of people's lives.
Claire Chua: Claire, who graduated from UCLA Class of 2020 with a B.A. Psychology was inspired by her frequent travels to take up GIS courses in her sophomore year. Her favorite part about GIS is cartography and making pretty maps. GIS exposed her to the world of data analysis and motivated her to pursue the Master of Social Science that she is currently working towards at UCLA. Pre-covid, you'd be more likely to find Claire at LAX than in the library, but these days she enjoys staying home and drinking a lot of coffee.
Sachi R Cooper: Sachi Cooper is a third-year Geography student at UCLA. She serves as the USAC Facilities Commissioner, representing students with disabilities at the student government level.

—D—

Cam Denney: Cam received a Master's in Geography from UC Davis in 2018. He currently works as a researcher for the Alameda County Community Food Bank. Cam uses GIS to understand the complex issue of food insecurity, and how food banks can better distribute food and advocate for policies to reduce food insecurity. He also teaches QGIS courses in the evenings through BayGeo. Cam previously worked for Kaart @ Facebook, curating the data that goes into maps on Facebook. While at UC Davis, Cam's thesis was under the Institute for Transportation Studies where he created automated GIS tools to analyze wildlife-vehicle conflict.

—E—

Ethan Ebinger: Ethan is a graduate student at UC Berkeley pursuing a Master in City Planning and a Master of Science in Transportation Engineering. He is interested in how GIS and data science can be used to improve transportation access and equity. Ethan currently works as a graduate student researcher at the Terner Center for Housing Innovation and in his spare time enjoys making wheel-thrown pottery. https://ethanebinger.com/.
Ahmed Eldawy: Ahmed Eldawy is an Assistant Professor in Computer Science at the University of California Riverside. His research interests lie in the broad area of databases with a focus on big data management and spatial data processing. Ahmed is the main inventor of SpatialHadoop, for big spatial data processing, and UCR-Star, an interactive repository of big spatial data. Ahmed has many collaborators in industrial research labs including Microsoft Research and IBM Watson. His work is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Emily Esposito: Emily Esposito is a graduate student studying psychology at UC Riverside. As a part of the Riverside Social and Spatial Cognition Lab, she studies how the qualities and characteristics of places interact with individual-level characteristics, such as attitudes or identity, to predict different behaviors. Her research interests are beginning to look at how people perceive places, and how social environments and physical places may differentially shape people's attitudes, experiences, and actions.

—G—

Max Andrew Gardner: Max is a Ph.D. Candidate in Civil Systems Engineering interested in econometric modeling of intra-urban migration patterns.
Anusha Goyal: Anusha Goyal I am a 4th-year student at UCLA, majoring in Geography and International Development Studies with a minor in Geospatial Information Systems and Technologies. I'm an international student, from Dubai, who is looking to enter the geospatial data solutions market after graduating.
Burke Greer: Burke Greer has been mapping and analyzing geographic data for over 15 years and holds an MA from UC Santa Barbara’s Department of Geography and a PhD from the College of Forestry at Oregon State University. As a geographer and scientist he has deep expertise in gathering and turning real-world data into information and products ready for mapping and spatial analysis. Burke’s experience working in agriculture, natural hazard planning, military facilities planning, and research science means that he knows how to leverage geographic data into real insights to help customers. Burke acts as a bridge between cutting edge GIScience and real-world implementation. He is currently the Geospatial Lead at Geosite, a startup in Palo Alto, California where he is working to help make geodata more accessible to end users.
Joy Guey: Joy Guey is establishing an innovation studio at Social Sciences Center for Education, Research, and Technology and works as an Emerging Tech Advocate at UCLA.

—H—

Alyssa Hemler: Alyssa Hemler is the Project Director of UCLA Undergraduate Student Association Council Facilities Commission's Access on Board. Our work centers around fighting for the rights of students with disabilities on institutional, cultural, and infrastructural levels. Project MetaMap is an integral part of USAC FAC's work in making UCLA a more accessible and equitable place.
Cassie Hoeprich: Cassie Hoeprich, cityLAB UHI Fellow Cassie is an urban planner and community development specialist. Building off of her experience at the City of San Francisco where she worked on public realm and economic development strategies, she is currently pursuing a Masters in Urban and Regional Planning at UCLA. While at UCLA, Cassie's research focuses on public-private partnerships and government policies that advance spatial justice and undo racialized patterns of land dispossession within vulnerable communities. Cassie works for the Hollywood Partnership, a business improvement district, as their Research Manager and is a cityLAB Urban Humanities Initiative Fellow for the 2020-21 school year.
Ryan Horne: Ryan is UCLA's Sinai Manuscripts Digital Library Data/Metadata Coordinator. He came to UCLA from the University of Pittsburgh where he served as Research Associate in the World History Center. There, his work focused on developing open data standards to describe and model historical artifacts, geography, and events in order to visualize and inform our understanding of the social, political, and economic networks. Prior to this position, Ryan served as Director of the Ancient World Mapping Center at UNC-Chapel Hill and he currently serves as an Associate Editor of the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places, an authoritative source for data on over 35,000 ancient locations in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Ryan received his Ph.D. in Ancient History from UNC-Chapel Hill.

—I—

Pushkar Inamdar: Dr. Pushkar Inamdar is a Data Scientist in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). His Ph.D. is in the field of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. His previous research experience is in the Geospatial Sciences, including an application of geostatistics in understanding temporal-spatial patterns. Since, joining UCSF, he has gained experience in characterizing neighborhood attributes for epidemiologic studies, including cohort and electronic health records studies as well as conducting geospatial analyses (e.g., spatial autocorrelation, proximity analysis, kriging, geocoding, remote sensing image analysis). He is applying more advanced concepts like deep learning to perform remote sensing data analysis for the neighborhood characterization, and application of machine learning on geospatial datasets to understand underlying patterns of health risk factors and outcomes.

—J—

Jamie Jamison: Jamie Jamison is a collection manager in the UCLA Library Data Science Center. She recently completed the UCLA Extension GIS and Geospatial Technology Certificate Program.
Marta Jankowska: Dr. Jankowska is an assistant research scientist and Geographic information system (GIS) specialist at the Qualcomm Institute, University of California San Diego. Her expertise is in spatial analytics including GIS, GPS, and spatial statistics as applied to health-related problems.
Alicia Jensen:Alicia Jensen is a seasoned environmental professional with an environmental policy degree from UC Davis (during which she first encountered GIS as a student intern and unofficially double majored in whitewater rafting), a Master’s Degree in Geography from San Diego State (where she became interested in the wildland urban interface), and 20 years of experience in land use planning, CEQA, and Phase 1 site analyses - mostly in support of project approvals at UC’s Office of the President. While in UCOP’s capital programs office, Alicia distinguished herself as co-chair of the 10-campus committee that formulated UC’s first sustainable water practices policy. In UCOP’s Risk Services office, Alicia has applied her land use planning background to UC systemwide emergency management for natural and human-caused disasters, a combination that is especially pertinent to the threat of wildfires. Most recently Alicia has taken an interest helping realize the possibilities of a systemwide GIS tool for emergency management by teaming with colleagues from across the system.

—K—

Albert Kochaphum: Albert Kochaphum works for the Institute for Digital Research and Education and serves as the campus GIS coordinator for UCLA.

—L—

Rayne Laborde: Rayne Laborde, cityLAB Research Fellow Trained as an architect and urban planner, Rayne's interdisciplinary work links design, planning, and collective memory to produce interventions focused on spatial justice. Her current research includes re-thinking the role of Los Angeles Parks to serve the immediate needs of unhoused residents; tracing the spatial network of migrant labor in the greenhouses of Almería, Spain; and analyzing inequity in unincorporated LA County. In addition to her work with cityLAB, Rayne is a Levine Distinguished Fellow at the Ziman Center for Real Estate.
Chris Lam: Chris Lam is a fourth-year undergraduate studying computer science. His experience with programming began prior to entering UCLA, but he became involved with the Hate Crime Map project and mapping roughly two years ago. As a side task for his job in Social Sciences Computing, Lam picked up the Hate Crime Map where another student worker—now an alumnus—left off, developing it simultaneously with his skill set. He notes that this project was a learning experience and an eye-opener to data mapping in general, and is delighted to feel more equipped to tackle projects like this now.
Dan LaSusa: Coming soon!
Carolanne Link: Coming soon!

—M—

Sierra Mabanta: I became involved in the geospatial community after I transferred to UC Davis. I pursued my minor in GIS and started routinely attending #maptimeDavis workshops each week. I was lucky enough to become an intern in Robert Hijman’s Lab and gained knowledge about different types of open source GIS platforms as well as unmanned aerial systems. I spent year at the lab, gaining valuable experience processing aerial imagery, and using OpenStreetMap for humanitarian efforts. I also got my Part 107 pilot’s license to fly drones used for one of the long-term projects. I began applying to jobs at the state shortly before I graduated and became a Scientific Aide at the Department of Water Resources (DWR). I assisted the GIS Analyst and helped with the new Drone Program. I have since become an Environmental Scientist and still utilize my mapping skills often, attending DWR’s Open Source GIS meetings, and staying involved in the Enterprise GIS Committee.
Hoda S. Abdel Magid: Hoda Abdel Magid, PhD, MHS is a postdoctoral research fellow working with Dr. Lorene Nelson and Dr. Michelle Odden in the Department of Epidemiology & Population Health and the Center for Population Health Sciences at Stanford University. She is also a fellow in the Big Data-Scientist Training Enhancement Program (BD-STEP) at the Palo Alto VA. Her graduate career research promoted the understanding of new and emerging tobacco products use among adolescents and young adults. She received her Masters of Health Science in Environmental Epidemiology from The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2015 and her Doctorate in Epidemiology from the University of California, Berkeley in 2018 with a focus in Social Epidemiology. Dr. Abdel Magid’s current research builds upon her previous training to further understand chronic disease risk behaviors and leverages spatial epidemiology to examine health disparities among socially- marginalized communities.
Joseph Mascaro: As Director of Academic Programs, at Planet, a San Francisco-based aerospace company that operates the largest fleet of Earth-imaging satellites, Joe created Planet’s Education and Research Program, and managed science, environmental, and humanitarian engagement, building Planet’s efforts to improve forest monitoring and conservation, track glacier retreat and cryosphere change, enhance food security, and promote ecological resilience for some of the world’s most vulnerable communities.
Andre Mere: I am a graduate student in the Earth and Planetary Sciences department of UC Riverside working with Dr. Nicolas Barth. I utilize a combination of field, digital, and laboratory research methods to study active tectonic processes operating proximal to Alpine Fault in the South Island of New Zealand.
Martha Morrissey: Martha is a machine learning engineer at Development Seed. She brings expertise around applying ML models to solve urban challenges and is expanding our modeling capabilities for detecting urban infrastructure like uncommon building types and energy grids faster and more efficiently. Martha is passionate about bringing open geospatial data to academics and innovators as a basis for addressing large-scale global issues. She previously worked at Maxar Technologies (formerly DigitalGlobe). Martha has a M.A. and B.A. in Geography from the University of Colorado, Boulder and the University of California, Berkeley. Her graduate research involved modeling bike commuting at high spatial and temporal resolutions in urban areas using a variety of data sources including crowdsourced cycling data and OSM data.
Erin Mutch: Erin Mutch is the founding Spatial Analysis and Research Center (SpARC) Director, of UC Merced’s interdisciplinary cross-campus research center supporting faculty, graduate, undergraduate and staff in geospatial training, geospatial implementation and research services. Before coming to UC Merced, Ms. Mutch worked in private GIS consulting for 15 years and has a Masters of GIS from Pennsylvania State University. Ms. Mutch has experience with GPS data collection and training since 1997. She has worked on projects with the US Army, small municipalities and water districts, mining companies and her first GPS/GIS project was mapping golf courses for a personal autonomous robotic golf caddy. /li>

—N—

Brenda Nicolas: Dr. Brenda Nicolas (Zapotec) is an Assistant Professor in Chicana/o and Latina/o Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Dr. Nicolas received her PhD in Chicana/o and Central American Studies from UCLA where she finished her dissertation, Zapotec Generations Across Settler Colonial Borders: Gendering Identity and Belonging. She will continue her book project at LMU that looks at the transborder communal experiences of Zapotec diasporas in Los Angeles.
Andrew Nguyen: Andrew Nguyen is a recent public health graduate from UC San Diego. He works in and has a passion for interdisciplinary community health projects that utilize practical technological applications and human-oriented design.

—O—

Debby Oh: Debby is a data scientist from the University of California, San Francisco' department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics. She has a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of California, Los Angeles and has worked on a range of public health topics including HIV/AIDS, cancer, childhood adversity, and health disparities. Her current work involves analyzing and visualizing large data sources including data from the cancer registry, electronic health records, census, and other public data sources.
Elizabeth Owen: Elizabeth Owen is a first-year graduate student in Urban & Regional Planning at UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. She is also a 2020 alumni of UC San Diego's undergraduate Urban Studies & Planning program. Elizabeth's interests are focused in transportation and land use planning, spatial analytics, affordable housing/ADU development, and tactical urbanism.

—P—

Nicole Pereira: Nicole Pereira is a PhD student in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and a Graduate Student Researcher at the UCLA Center for Healthier Children, Families, and Communities. Her primary research goals are to explore the value of measuring spatial equity to support alternative payment reform efforts with an interest in advancing population health outcomes. Specifically, she is keen on leveraging spatial information to better understand how neighborhood level factors can influence the integration of community resources and health spending.

—R—

Sri Ramesh: Sri Ramesh is a Master of Development Practice (MDP) candidate at UC Berkeley where she studies applied data science and GIS for public policy. For the last 5 years, she has lived and worked in the development sector in India, Sri Lanka, South Africa, and Washington DC, working on projects ranging from government finance, girls' education in former war zones, and randomized evaluations. Most recently, she led strategic monitoring and evaluation initiatives at Cloud to Street, a remote sensing startup providing flood analytics to African governments. Sri is an alumna of the US Fulbright Program as well as the US Department of State.
Fernando Roman: Fernando Roman is a 4th year undergraduate Environmental Engineering major at the University of California, Merced. Since June 2020, he has been a part of a UC Center awarded COVID-19 emergency seed grant research team led by Assistant Professor Colleen Naughton at UC Merced entitled "Integrated Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment and Geospatial Analysis of SARS-CoV-2 in Wastewater for Vulnerable Populations." As part of Dr. Naughton’s team, he 1) contributes to our global dashboard of wastewater monitoring for SARS-CoV-2, 2) maps wastewater treatment plants in California and 3) analyzes their proximities to residential and commercial areas. Mr. Roman is currently enrolled in a UC spatial analysis and modeling course, and is applying what he learns in the class to his research. He loves all things related to water, and is interested with any tool related to the distribution of both wastewater and potable water. Mr. Roman is currently applying to graduate programs in Civil and Environmental Engineering.
Michelle Vasquez Ruiz: Michelle Vasquez Ruiz is PhD Candidate in the department of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. She is a USC Mellon Humanities in a Digital World PhD Fellow. Her research considers the ways Indigenous populations in Los Angeles have historically navigated spatial and racial inequalities in the city.

—S—

Charles Schafer: Charles Schafer: Charles works as an Emergency Manager for UC Davis Health and is one of the Co-Chairs for UC Emergency Management Council subcommittee on GIS for Emergency Management. His role is to prepare and respond to internal and external emergency events for the UC Davis Health system including a Level 1 Hospital. Past roles include Emergency Preparedness Specialist for the California Department of Public Health, where he implemented GIS technology for tracking health facility closures during disaster events.
Jane Schafer-Kramer: Jane is a Geographic Data Specialist with the California Department of Water Resources working as the Technical Lead for the California Stewardship of the National Hydrography Dataset. She learned GIS at American River College in Sacramento to enable her mid-life career shift She is serving as Chair of the California GIS Council, July 2020 - June 2021 - http://cgia.org/cagiscouncil; is a member of California Geographic Information Association - https://cgia.org/, an active member of URISA - https://www.urisa.org/ , and a job steward with SEIU Local 1000.
Jared Schor: Jared Schor is an Analyst and Program Designer at the UCLA Center for Healthier Children, Families & Communities, where he works to build Learning Communities around child and family health and develop tools to share data in ways that engage and motivate communities. He is particularly interested in applying human-centered design principles to the field of public health and aspires to build systems that help people live better lives. Jared holds a master’s degree in Sociology from Columbia University and a bachelor’s degree in Economic History for the London School of Economics.
Elia Scudiero: Elia has a PhD in Crop Science from the University of Padua, Italy, which he got in 2013. He has been in Riverside since 2014, as a postdoc at the USDA-ARS US Salinity Laboratory, which is located on UCR's campus.Since January 2018, he is an Assistant Research Agronomist at the Department of Environmental Sciences. His "Digital Agronomy Lab" includes 2 postdocs and 2 jr. specialists. Elia's lab uses near-ground and remote sensing measurements to characterize and model multi-scale agro-environmental soil-plant processes to support sustainable agriculture and water management practices. His extramural funding includes The Lawn Institute, the California Department of Food and Agriculture, and USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, from which he received a New Investigator award in 2019.
Pat Seed: Oxford Map Companion: A Hundred Maps in World History. (2014); ESRI Map Book “Rising Sea Levels at Cape Blanco,” (best software maps) American Geographical Association representative to UN Climate Change Conference (Marakesh) (2016). Currently working on origins of magnetic variation on nautical charts ca 1460.
Mōno Simeone: Mōno Simeone (he/him/his) works for UCSF Real Estate Business Intelligence as the UCSF GIS Manager. His role is to support UCSF business systems by incorporating spatial analytics and location intelligence. Other roles include: Co-Chair of the UC GIS Leadership Committee, Co-Chair the UC Emergency Management Council subcommittee on GIS for Emergency Management, and the current Education representative for the California GIS Council, a state-wide body. Past roles include President of BayGeo URISA Chapter, Director of the GIS Education Center at City College of San Francisco. Past Projects include: Development of the California Stranded Marine Mammal GIS database (NPS), Development of the 2012 SF County Election Precincts, and GIS for Construction Logistics (UCSF).
Shannon Speed: Shannon Speed is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation. She is Director of the UCLA American Indian Studies Center and is Professor of Gender Studies and Anthropology. Dr. Speed has worked for the last two decades in Mexico and in the United States on issues of Indigenous autonomy, sovereignty, gender, neoliberalism, violence, migration, social justice, and activist research. She has published numerous journal articles and book chapters in English and Spanish, as well as published six books and edited volumes, including her most recent, Incarcerated Stories: Indigenous Women Migrants in the Settler Capitalist State. Dr. Speed currently serves as Past President of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA).

—T—

Arianna Tariq: Arianna Tariqi is a fourth year Environmental Engineering major at the University of California, Merced. She found her love for mapping in March of 2019 when she joined Dr. Naughton’s research team, mapping nitrate contamination in drinking water wells in California and it’s potential relationship to thyroid cancer with a focus on disadvantaged communities. She also works on the mapping team for the COVID-19 emergency seed grant entitled "Integrated Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment and Geospatial Analysis of SARS-CoV-2 in Wastewater for Vulnerable Populations". Using her prior knowledge of ArcGIS Pro, she assists in the mapping of wastewater treatment plants and finding statistical significance of their proximities to residential and commercial areas. Arianna hopes to continue researching after graduation and is currently applying to Civil and Environmental Engineering graduate programs. When she isn’t finding the perfect color scheme for her maps, she spends time playing tennis and learning how to cook food with her family.
Michele Tobias: Michele Tobias is the Geospatial Data Specialist at UC Davis DataLab: Data Sciences & Informatics. She has a BA & PhD in Geography from UCLA and UC Davis, respectively, and an MS in Ecology from University of Michigan. She is a biogeographer who uses her geographic and geospatial research skills to assist researchers of many fields in learning and applying geospatial methods to their research. She oversees long-term geospatial data development projects like the American Viticultural Areas Digitizing Project and geospatial research projects at DataLab. Her personal area of research interest is in California’s sandy beach vegetation.

—V—

Michelle Vasquez: Michelle Vasquez Ruiz is PhD Candidate in the department of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. She is a USC Mellon Humanities in a Digital World PhD Fellow. Her research considers the ways Indigenous populations in Los Angeles have historically navigated spatial and racial inequalities in the city.
Cecilia Vu: Cecilia is currently working at Esri as a Solution Engineer. Prior to her role at Esri, she studied Urban Studies and Planning at UC Berkeley with a minor in GIST. Her work focuses on creating products to help stakeholders adopt new approaches for making faster and better-informed decisions. She works with professionals specializing in infrastructure and asset management; transportation, and architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC). Her passion lies in transforming cities using technology as a catalyst.

—W—

Julie Wartell: Julie Wartell has spent 25 years working with local, state and federal criminal justice agencies and communities around crime analysis, research and prevention; including as a crime analyst for police and prosecution, managing a regional crime mapping initiative, conducting research and evaluation for non-profits, as a National Institute of Justice fellow, and as an independent advisor. Julie has performed a wide range of research and analysis of crime problems, conducted studies of police and prosecutor processes, and assessed information technologies. She has conducted extensive training and presentations to officers, prosecutors, analysts and community internationally on topics relating to analyzing crime and problem solving. Julie has edited or authored numerous publications and teaches at the University of California–San Diego. She has an MPA from San Diego State and a Postgraduate Diploma in Applied Criminology and Police Management from University of Cambridge.
Joakim A. Weill: Joakim (Jo) Weill is a PhD candidate at UC Davis working on the economics of environmental inequalities. His research leverages microeconomic tools and causal inference methods to study (i) how environmental changes impact the most vulnerable populations, and (ii) the distributional impacts of public policies that aim to increase environmental resilience. Current projects investigate the unequal adaptation to flood risk in the United States and the distributional impacts of the flood insurance program, as well as the economic origins of inequalities in air pollution exposure. Prior to his doctoral studies, Jo worked as a consultant at the World Bank’s Environment and Natural Resources division. He holds masters in environmental sciences and environmental engineering from AgroParisTech, France.
Parker Welch: Parker Welch - Parker has worked on the Physical Planning, Development & Operations (PPDO) team for over 3 years. He primarily supports the Physical and Environmental Planning group but has a hand in operational GIS and CAD services across all of PPDO.
Amy Work: Currently the GIS Librarian at UC San Diego. I support students, faculty, researchers and staff with their geospatial needs. I instruct workshops and helps curate geospatial data within the Library and across campus. In the past I ran a non-profit in Costa Rica engaging community members to use GIS to investigate community issues and worked with K-12, community colleges and universities across the U.S. to integrate geospatial technologies into their curricula.

—Y—

Jiue-An (Jay) Yang: Jiue-An (Jay) Yang: Dr. Yang is a geospatial research scientist and developer at the Qualcomm Institute, University of California San Diego. His research focuses on the dynamics between place, human behavior, and health outcome. He is passionate about bringing this connection alive and accessible through spatial analytics and visualization.
David Yu: David Yu is a Data Scientist with the GeoAI team at Esri, where he works on applying machine learning solutions to problems in the imagery space such as object tracking & anomaly detection, pattern analysis and generative networks. His interest is in exploring the intersection of machine learning and GIS and its application to solving real-world problems.

—Z—

Bingyu Zhao: Dr Bingyu Zhao is a postdoc in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at UC Berkeley. She specializes in city and regional scale traffic and transport system modeling. Her research experiences include pavement degradation, emission modeling, wildfire evacuation and post-earthquake resilience assessment. She uses a variety of GIS and spatial data analysis tools in all stages of her research, from initial conceptualization to visual verification of the results. By participating in the UC GIS week, she wishes to learn about new tools and ideas that can help her and colleagues to overcome the visualization/mapping performance bottleneck in their current research.