GISDE News

Association of American Geographers: Student competition winners

In the Illustrated Paper category, Alicia Simonti (GISDE/MA ’08) took First Place for her project Image Time Series Analysis of SeaWIFS Ocean Color Product for the Investigation of Ocean Chlorophyll Dynamics.

Classmate Oh Seok Kim (GISDE/MA ’08) took Second Place for his Contribution of GIScience to Carbon Credit Estimation.

Neeti Neeti (GISDE/MA ’07) and present Geography Ph.D. student won second place in the Spatial Analysis & Modeling paper competition.

Current GISDE Students

In Spring 2008 semester, Nan Deng (GISDE/MA ’08) will be working as an intern with the City of Worcester. Nan will be assisting the GIS Manager, Shane White, in building a public website mainly for querying parcel information and exploring the relationship between different geographic features. “I'm glad that the GISDE program provides us this internship option that also helps to build a friendly relationship with the City of Worcester.” Also receving an internship with the City of Worcester is Anita Malpani (IDSC/MA '08).

Oh Kim (GISDE/MA '08) is a software tester and a research assistant at Clark Labs. "I have worked on the Land Change Modeler for ArcGIS, since my first year at Clark University. Currently, I am participating in the Conservation International project as a research assistant, which concerns Carbon Credits estimation based on land-use/cover change modeling; this will be my MA research paper as well."

“Over the summer, I specifically tested IDRISI's Land Change Modeler for use as an extension in ESRI's ArcMap. Over the coming academic year I will work on testing the newest version of IDRISI, not yet released. As a tester, I run through the program repeatedly in order to find bugs. Once bugs are found, I look deeply into the software to try to determine exactly where internally the bug is happening. Overall, I have learned a great deal from this position and I feel that it has been a key part of my educational experience here at Clark.”
Alicia Simonti (GISDE/MA '08), Tester for IDRISI

Claire Brill (GISDE/MA '08) was awarded the Hank Emery Scholarship from the New England chapter of GITA (Geospatial Information and Technology Association) at the GITA spring conference in May at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. She also exhibited a poster at Brownfields 2006, a national conference held in Boston. Claire’s research topic is GIS and brownfield redevelopment in the City of Worcester and has been attending the Mayor’s Brownfields Roundtable for the last year. Last summer, she helped put together a report used by then-Mayor Timothy Murray at a public forum to highlight the economic impact of redeveloped properties in Worcester. Recently, she was named chair of the GIS subcommittee. The group is considering enhancements to the Brownfields Redevelopment Inquiry Tool (BRIQ) – the GIS tool used in Economic Development to help research properties – and ways to use the tool to market the city.

Marlon Ortega (GISDE/MA '08) is interning with Amigos de Iracambi in Brazil.

Eric Solatka (GISDE/MA '08) is interning with the Boston Public Health Commission.

Shaimma Ahmed (GISDE/MA '08) is interning with ESRI in Relands, California.

GISDE Faculty

President Bassett has announced the appointment of Professor Ron Eastman to the Jan and Larry Landry University Professorship for a three-year term commencing September 1 2007.

Gil Pontius (pictured above) traveled to Astrakhan State University in southern Russia to present a six-day workshop on GIS and to participate in an international conference on the “Electronic Culture and New Humanitarian Technologies of the ХХI century.” Astrakhan State University has now formalized collaboration with Clark University to establish joint educational programs. We anticipate that future collaboration will involve intensive use of the Idrisi GIS software.

Professor Ogneva-Himmelberger (pictured above) traveled to Chile in May 2007 to participate in an international conference on the “Geography in the Americas: Collaboration on Research and Education.” Her presentation was titled “The value of community-based projects in learning GIS: students addressing health and food security issues in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA.”

GISDE Alumni

Victor Hugo Gutierrez-Velez (GISDE/MA ’07) is lead author on “Quantifying the direct social and governmental costs of illegal logging in the Bolivian, Brazilian, and Peruvian Amazon” with Kenneth MacDicken (Winrock International), which was recently published in the journal Forest Policy and Economics. The article analyzes the relationships between the main impacts of illegal logging and estimates some of the most relevant economic consequences of these practices. This past fall, Victor began a Ph.D. program in Geography at the University of Maryland. He performed the work while he was a Clark student, interning with Winrock International, an organization that frequently employs GISDE interns and hires IDCE graduates. This past fall, Victor began a Ph.D. program in Geography at the University of Maryland. Much of his research focuses on carbon dynamics and land change modeling in tropical forests.

Robert Yao-Kumah (GISDE/MA ’04) recently published “Accuracy Assessment for a Simulation Model of Amazonian Deforestation,” which was the topic of his master’s research project. His co-authors include his advisor, GISDE professor Robert Gilmore Pontius Jr, and five collaborators from Michigan State University. The December 2007 publication is in the nation’s première Geography journal, Annals of the Association of American Geographers. Mr. Yao-Kumah earned his bachelors degree in mine surveying from the University of Science and Technology in Ghana, Africa. He is now an experienced surveyor with a wide range of professional and academic photogrammetric and GIS skills. He has over eight years of experience in surveying, mapping, and GIS software development.

Two IDCE students in the Geographic Information Sciences for Development and Environment (GISDE) program have received prestigious awards this past summer. The Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA) announced that Safaa Aldwaik (GISDE/MA '07) has been selected to receive First Place in the URISA Student Paper Competition. Tomas Vaclavik was selected by the Review Committee to receive Second Place in the competition.

Two GISDE students - Victor Gutierrez Velez and Neeti Neeti - presented their master's thesis projects on Friday, August 17, 2007.

In a meeting of the Association of American Geographers in Philadelphia, GISDE student Evan Fedorko (GISDE/MA '04) (shown above) won the Best Student Poster award by the Water Resources Specialty Group.

N. Neeti (GISDE/MA '07) worked with Gil Pontius on the topic of "Uncertainty in Prediction of Land Change Under Different Scenarios" and with Ron Eastman on the "Modeling Phenological Trend." She presented a paper at the Association of American Geographers (AAG) conference held in April 2007 in San Francisco, CA.

Smitha Peethambaram (GISDE/MA '07) (shown above) is a 2006 New England GITA (Geographical Information Technology Association) Ed Forrest Scholar. As part of her master’s research with Gil Pontius, she has added a new dimension to map comparison by developing a novel technique to compare 3 soft-classified maps. After completing an internship at Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI), the world’s leading developers of GIS technology, she was asked to start a career as a product specialist with their ArcIMS team.