Open-Source Geography

To all those biogeographers googling and coming across this article, this is not a piece about a biogeographer. Although I appreciate the topic immensely, I have not delved into that body of literature. As such, I thought I would provide, in narrative form, my biography as a Geographer. It is long and boring, so read on only if interested in my history.

My primary weakness as an academic is my writing skills. I have no problem absorbing the information and have methodologies well thought out. But writing is a requirement. To get more practice, I am waiting until Fall 2009 to start a PhD program. At this point, attending George Mason University’s School of Public Policy is attractive and would allow me to keep my job with Arlington. However, I am actively lobbying for funding for a PhD in Geography.

My current research interests are varied and am excited to use this next year to narrow down a topic. Currently , I am interested in the Geography of Ubiquitous Computing and the policy apparati, energy, infrastructure requirements and general economics of the Industry. However, having studied medical geography, business geography, global cities, spatial segregation studies, the Pioneer Fringe, teaching community college and voting patterns, I anticipate a vivacious future in Geography and the Geographic Information Sciences.

That said, I would also like to share my academic experience as a Geographer. I started at James Madison University in 1992. It was not until 1994 when I was torn between studying ecology and archeology that both departments recommend Dr. Glen Gufaston’s Introduction to Aerial Photo Interpretation. So, I started my academic career wanting to be a photogrammetrist. Then, Dr. Stephen Wright got me interested in Digital Cartography. Both got me interested in the Geographic Information Sciences.

So, I have made a few mistakes in my life. Nothing has turned out bad financially, but I feel some tarnish on my reputation after leaving SUNY-Binghamton and the first year of graduate school they provided me. In this position, I served as a GIS Lab Assistant and data analyst on a GPS data collection project studying waterwells and location to contiminants as listed by the EPA. I also taught a Weather and Climate Lab.

I recieved my Master’s of Science in the Geographic and Cartographic Sciences program from George Mason University. While their, I participated in several interesting research positions under Dr. David Wong and worked as a GIS Lab Assistant under newly en-doctored Erwin Villiger.

Please consider the following highlights to the attached resume and academic transcripts:

• Master of Science in the Geographic and Cartographic Science from George Mason University

• Teaching Experience at the Community College Level

• Experience with non-academic technical training for Federal employees using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology

• Daily use of geographic concepts in my non-academic professional experience provides for real world examples

• Thorough working knowledge of demographic and socioeconomic data products

• Oliver MN, Matthews KA, Siadaty M, Hauck FR, Pickle LW. Geographic bias related to geocoding in epidemiologic studies. International Journal of Health Geographics. 2005;4:29.

• Acknowledged Cartographic Contribution in the Wand JN, Shotts KW, Sekhon JS, Mebane, WR Jr., Herron MC, Brady HE. The Butterfly Did It: The Aberrant Vote for Buchanan in Palm Beach County, Florida. The American Political Science Review, 2001;95:4.

EDUCATION

George Mason University, Geography and Earth Science Department, M.S., Geographic and Cartographic Science, December 1998

James Madison University, Center for Geographic Information Sciences, B.S. Geographic Information Science, May 1996

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Urban Research Planner, Planning Research and Analysis Team

Arlington County Government

01/2007 to present

• Content Management System Team Lead
  
• Database Development of Residential and Commercial Tracking system
• Ad hoc cartographic requests
• Develop original research for the Planning Information Reports Series
  

County Demographer

Prince William County Government - Woodbridge, VA: 12/2006 to 12/2007

• Perform spatial and statistical analysis of population trends in the County
• Develop forecasts of County housing and population growth
• Serve as spokesperson for Demographic activities

Assistant Professor - Adjunct Piedmont Virginia Community College - Charlottesville, VA: 08/2005 – 12/2006

• Delivered 18 credit hours of Cultural and World Geography lectures
• Developed lesson plans and evaluation criteria
• Engaged students in the subject matter and fostered a challenging and supportive learning environment

Learning Lab Director - Computers4Kids, Charlottesville, VA: 06/2006 – 12/2006

GIS Specialist University of Virginia - Health System, Charlottesville, VA: 10/2004 - 7/2006

• Provide research support for medical study entitled: Prostate Cancer in Blacks: The Role of Poverty and Diet
• Responsible for geographic & statistical analysis and cartographic output

Social Science Research Analyst US Dept of Commerce - Minority Business Development Agency, Washington, DC: 05/2000 - 10/2004

• Develop, train, and provide GIS support for MBDA staff and clients
• Provide statistical research for agency policy reports.
• Served as a liaison between information technology and federal staff

Survey Statistician US Bureau of Census, Suitland, MD: 02/1999 - 05/2000

• Compiled GIS database and prepared cartographic visualization of statistical data
• Assisted in development, design, and analysis of statistical surveys
• Performed a quality control functions for database errors

PUBLICATIONS

Oliver MN, Matthews KA, Siadaty M, Hauck FR, Pickle LW. Geographic bias related to geocoding in epidemiologic studies. International Journal of Health Geographics. 2005;4:29.

ACKNOWLEDGED CARTOGRAPHIC CONTRIBUTIONS

Wand JN, Shotts KW, Sekhon JS, Mebane, WR Jr., Herron MC, Brady HE. The Butterfly Did It: The Aberrant Vote for Buchanan in Palm Beach County, Florida. The American Political Science Review, 2001;95:4.

The Minority Telecommunications Development Program, National Telecommunications and Information Agency, The US Department of Commerce. December 2000. Changes, Challenges, and Charting New Courses: Minority Commercial Broadcast Ownership in the United States.

PROJECT WORK AND OTHER ACTIVITIES

Virginia Tech Urban Planning Department - Alexandria Campus: Fall 2003. I worked in preparing a matrix of Cities connected by Ambassadorial resources (Embassies) in support of the Globalization and World Cities project. (http://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/)

The Institute for Public Policy: Fall 1998, Worked on an environmental justice grant from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as primary Geographic Information Scientist to statistically model the relationship between the location of hazardous waste sites and population segments using spatial econometric methods.

University of Maryland/George Mason University: Summer/Fall 1998, Research Assistant for a Housing and Urban Development (HUD) funded project at the University of Maryland, on the Potential of GIS for housing policy research using microdata for Section 8 subsidized housing.

The College of Arts and Sciences at George Mason University: Summer 1998, Development and presentation of a geographic information systems demonstration for the 1998 World Conference on Technology at George Mason University.

The National Consortium for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA): Summer 1998, assisted with the development of curriculum for the NCGIA’s Core Curriculum Development for the Geographical Information Sciences Project.

Below is a list of Geography term paper titles generated by students at Piedmont Virginia Community College. These selected titles were chosen because the students that prepared them approached the topic from a personal level while applying the geographic principles we learned in class. They acted like Geographers:

1. Internet Infrastructure: The Tangled Web We Weave - M. Murphy
2. The Geographic Variation of Tattooing Technology - C. Motley
3. Globalizing “Miller Time”: Industrial Location of the American Beer Industry - S. Oberhauser
4. The Geography of Golf: Conquering the World and the Environment - S. McKeown
5. The Changing Political Landscape of Post-Katrina New Orleans - K. Kiss
6. The Spatial Diffusion of Reggeaton - J.Cortez
7. A Nursing Shortage in The United States - P. Catlett
8. The Geography of the Hearing Impaired - C. Rosenberry
9. The Geography of Jazz -J. Pleasant
10. The Geography of Counter-Stike: A Global Phenomenon - M. Murphy
11. The Dances of North Africa and the Middle East - J. Jackson
12. Cancer Incidence Around the World - J. Stathos
13. The Geography of Beatlemania: The Atlantic Echo-Chamber - M. Schaeder
14. Disparity of Internet Access in Urban and Rural America - P. Thompson
15. Invaded Country: The Pre-September 11 Military Invasions of Afghanistan - T. Lacy
16. A Cultural Geography of the Diffusion of Opera - J. Slohada
17. The Geographic Signficance of High School Drop Out Rates - D. Bryant
18. The Ukrainian Diaspora: One Family’s Journey - F. Bakke
19. The Forum of Sao Paulo: a 2005 Assessment of Communism’s Resurgence in Latin America
20. Where is Margaritta-ville? The Geography of Jimmy Buffett songs

I wondered when a major party presidential candidate would assemble a Geographic Information Sciences Team. It was confirmed when the Campaign put out a call for volunteers over at the GIS Jobs Clearinghouse. I signed up to help and heard the electrical thumps of the team getting slammed with volunteer cartographers and other GIS folk clamoring to help the put their candidate’s train in motion.

To the candidate, I would like to say that it is fantastic that the GIS Team you assembled are applying the technology in some very interesting ways. I wonder if the other campaigns are running their GIS teams as effectively. I offer the floor to the techno-critics over at the Low Tech Times for their position on the role of technology in presidential campaigns.

Give up? Barack Obama is taking a crowdsourced, collaborative approach to his GIS Operations. Will Obama be the first Open-Source President? As an academic advisor, I would suggest to any student working on the campaign to treat this like a laboratory of ideas worthy of doctoral dissertations. But remember, there will also be a lot of boring old production cartography. Either way, the Obama Campaign has embraced an important technology and an interesting method of crowdsourcing.

Also, the Low-Tech Times has asked that you not use the GIS as a  campaign SPAM-building effort.

In preparation for the academic world, I have sought and found a new adjunct teaching position in Geography at Virginia International University. Deals aren’t done until contracts are signed, but I am confident I will be in the classroom this fall. I am still seeking used Geography Textbooks if anyone has any to share, Donate Used Geography Texts for Open-Source Geography Project

Anyway, below are my notes from my sample lecture about Boundary-Making Processes in Washington DC, as well as a statement of my teaching philosophy.

Teaching Philosophy

• Conversational
• I am No Smarter Than You, I have Only Read More about Geography
• A Student’s Work Has Value Beyond The Classroom
• The Student Should be able to teach a concept
• Assignments should be Personally Relevant
• Authentic Assessment Strategy
  • Class Participation: Successfully Conversant
  • Homework: Engage the concepts
  • Final Project: Editorial Standards
  • Final Examination: Open Book, Research Based
  • Self-Assessment (more…)

In Geography is Dead, Warwick E. Murray’s revisits the economic geography theory that Globalization is the end of Geography. Using Amazon as an example, he claimed brick-and-mortar book sales losses would collapse the bookstore industry. We know they adapted and survived and his thesis is deftly countered by Kevin Morgan’s “Exaggerated Death of Geography.”

As a PhD applicant actively seeking Graduate Funding, any one of these topics is a viable PhD dissertation topic. There are observable geographic patterns of Internet Activity that can be measured and statistically modelled within commonly understood models of Industrial Location.

• Mutually Beneficial Economic Development as Optimization Variable in Industrial Location: A Google, Government and Energy Management Case Study
• Patterns of Starbuck Store Closure: A Correlation with the Commercial and Residential Development Market.
• Geographic Patterns of Crowdsourced Loans: A Prosper.com Case Study (for Academic purposes, Prosper offers a download of its entire dataset).
• The Economics the Pioneer Fringe: An Empirical Revisit to Isaiah Bowman
• Pre-Revolutionary Land Use Patterns and Concepts of Ownership
• Open-Source Micro-Franchising: A Distributed Distribution Method for Incubating Crowdsourced Content
• The Geography of Long Tail Economics-(Perhaps this one actually is killing the record store).

So, I found a teaching gig I am interested in at Virginia International University in Fairfax, VA. They are a recently accredited academic program and I am interested in learning more about them. Their emphasis on collegiate level ESL would indicate an international student body of international students. It would be an exciting if that assumption is correct; what a perfect academic demographic for a Geography Course. Wish me luck, I submitted the application today. If interested, I attached a copy of my cover letter and resume here. (more…)

Having taught four semesters (18 credit hours) as an Adjunct Geography Professor at Piedmont Virginia Community College in Charlottesville, VA, I have come up with a few conclusions about the relationship between a students and their professors. These few points are intended for both students and aspiring professors. As a student, remember these so that you can walk into the classroom with confidence that you are an adult. As an aspiring professor, keep these tips in mind as your prepare for your student’s.

• A student’s work has value beyond the classroom.

• Student’s should tailor their work, papers and presentations, to the class not the professor.

• The professor is no more intelligent than you. They have only read more than you.

• The professor should not view themselves as a lecturer but as a developer of colleagues.

• Conversations are more informative than lectures.

• Its not what you know, but how to find it.

• Focus on quality, not the grades.

• You learn more by being wrong than you do by being quiet. Speak Up!

• A student is an early stage of professional life and should be expected to act and work in a professional manner.

• A professor should be able to use the tools of their students and vice versa.

• To Reiterate: A student’s work has value beyond the classroom. The professor’s job is to show the student that value.