Open-Source Geography

Perhaps I am biased, but I believe Geography is a great major with excellent career opportunities.  If you do not know what to study in college, consider taking a Human Geography or Physical Geography course to get a taste for how interesting the science of Geography actually is.  Also, don’t think of Geography in terms of what you may have learned in grade school about where places are.  Geographers do ask “Where” but then they follow up with “WHY?”  This is why I say “science” in that, unlike psychology, it is a discipline recognized as a science by the National Science Foundation complete with rigorous and accepted methodologies.

So here are some reasons to consider Geography as a major:

1. It is intellectually challenging, but relatively intuitive which is another way of saying that it is an “easy” discipline

2. There are more jobs than qualified people. Check out the Geography Jobs Clearinghouse if you need specific examples (http://www.gjc.org)

3. Like statistics, Geography can be applied to every discipline. I can make the case that the social and hard sciences rely on some sort of spatial reasoning.

4. The job market continues to expand and like #2 above the number of jobs outpaces the number of qualified applicants

5. Considering #2 and #4, its a field that continues to grow despite recessionary economic conditions

6. Again, because it is underlooked but a growing field, graduate funding in the form of assistantships (i.e., tuition waivers and paid living expenses) is typically available upon acceptance. Though I don’t have the statistics to support this statement, I imagine that the rate of graduate funding in Geography is the highest amongst all disciplines. I was not a stellar undergraduate, but gained acceptance and funding in all 5 master’s level Geography programs I applied to. With my overall undergraduate 2.9 GPA (admittedly with a 3.8 in Geography) I don’t think the same can be said for psychology or the hard sciences.

7. Finally, and back to my point, since Geography is at least tangentially ubiquitous in every field of the academy, you can choose topics that uniquely interesting to you and still increase your odds for a successful career.

8.  Extremely Cool Technology!

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

Even though I made Wednesdays “no-blogging days” so that I can get some rest, the SP Gass at Low Tech Times has an interesting article called There’s No Substitute for Looking At A Real Map.  Open Source Geography (dot org, FYI), soon to be moving to its own site, fully endorses this notion of looking at a Real Map.

I am interested in SP Gass’s view on the accuracy of the AAA TripTic.  SP Gass is talking about reference maps and how one’s on paper are much more usable.  Beyond portability of a paper map, paper allows one to come up with their own route.    SP Gass knows what he means when he is choosing a route.  But without expert knowledge or human behavior factored in as a determinant in the route choice algorithm, the computer can never approximate what means, his geographic semantics.  Dr. Martin Raubal at University of California-Santa Barbara teaches a course in Geographic Semantics.

Anyway, flexibility in route choice using online mapping software would greatly improve the service.  As a Geographic Information Scientist, by training, I would suggest to Google that they open their street network dataset to allow a local crowd to suggest alternate routes.  Another option would be to generate a sample of automobiles and collect GPS points along their chosen routes, rather than the predictive routes.

I am still imaging the algorithm and/or data-structure required to enable a sample link on a chosen route be chosen to improve the predictive path.  Especially considering that the data would need to be split into nodes and links.  Not to mention, the process of formatting.  Unless of course, you are generating an cloud-enabled database with a G-Phone Android Program in which these points are collected real-time.

Is this possible?  It seems like it should be considering bluetooth tracking and cell-phone tracking would be a great medium for updating Google Maps.

Also, check out Google’s Newest Feature:  GoogleWalking.  Its still in Beta, but there is a smattering of commentary around the web.

Google Walking Maps by Daily Wireless

Google Maps Walks the Long Way Around by Google Maps Mania.

And this list of 100 Google Earth Mashups isn’t particularly about GoogleWalking, but it is still useful information for improving the semantic web rich with digitized human knowledge.

Letter of Motivation

The term geographic relevance is new, but is still a familiar concept. With my Master of Science in the Geographic and Cartographic Science and ten years of work experience, I can offer a wide range of real-world contexts in which mobile computing could be studied. I have worked in the geographies of disease, elections, census gathering, business and local urban planning. I can imagine geographic informational relevant applications for each of these and other more popular activities.

To reiterate my understanding of the funded PhD Research Assistant position at the University of Zurich, Department of Geography, Geographic Information Visualization and Analysis Group, the goal of this project is to:

1. Develop methodologies for evaluating the human response to geographic relevance in mobile contexts, starting with activity theory as the research framework.
2. Development of mobile geographic informational applications using Java and data source Mash-Ups
3. Prepare a dissertation

I am interested in this research project as I seek to specialize in the Geography of ubiquitous computing and the energy, infrastructure, policy and locational requirements. I have been looking for a PhD program in this area as they relate to Educational Technologies in Geography. This funded PhD opportunity would enable full development of my ideas, while in direct synergy with the requirements for this project.

My strength would be in the development of the models for human subjects. I was responsible for handling confidential patient data and accountable for adhering to the University Research Protocol Regarding Experimentation with Human Subjects at the University of Virginia. And I was introduced to Activity Theory in my University of Virginia Graduate-level Theories of Learning course. In regards to application development in java, I have a vested interest in strengthening my programming skills. In my spare time, I tinker with the Internet and my latest project is working with the Android programming environment. Android is an open-source java-based programming language on which the GooglePhone (G-Phone) is compiled.

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).

This is cross-posted at Robot in the Woods

As a former Geography professor, I still think of interesting projects to work on. I have one here that I think you could Wow a Geography professor with. That is, what is Science Fiction like in developing countries. Does it exist? And the same for Robotics. How do the following nations (the United Nation’s Group of 77 developing nation) participate in Robotics and/or science fiction. What are the economic and social factors that lead to this participation (or lack thereof). What themes emerge in their writing. If you take on this project, please send me your results.

(more…)

I wrote this for my PhD application to University of Virginia Curry School of Education’s Instructional Technology Program in 2006. For personal reasons, I had to leave Charlottesville but am considering submitting this application again.

When reflecting upon my career since earning my Master of Science in the Geographic and Cartographic Sciences from George Mason University’s Department of Geography in 1998, there is a commonality in the diverse positions I have held. That is, my favorite role in each position has been one who explains things. Whether it be how to make a map, how to interpret the results of statistical analysis, how to explain a methodology or merely explaining the technical capabilities and limitation of a new technology, in many ways I have always been a teacher. The teaching position at Piedmont Virginia Community College (PVCC) has formalized that role. (more…)