Wei Li

Education: Ph.D. in Geography (University of Southern California), M.Sc. in Geography (Peking University), B.Sc. in Geography (Beijing Normal College)

What attracted you to a career in education?
My parents worked at Chinese universities as aprofessor and administrator, respectively, and I grew up at their university campuses in Beijing and had always thought education was my destiny. My path to become a university professor, however, took a number detours. I became a ‘set-down youth’ after high school in China, then tried out other possibilities as an ABD in Los Angeles to see if I might be passionate about or good at something other than education. I also worked at a large American company as a GIS intern and volunteered to help my friends run a small business. These experiences convinced me that I am most passionate about and good at education.

How has your background in geography prepared you for this position?
I was taught mostly physical geography courses in China during my undergraduate years, then took largely human geography courses since coming to the U.S. I have benefitted from such training, not to mention earned my 1st year TAship teaching physical geography labs. Therefore, I am able to juggle between physical and human geography traditions and be more comprehensive in dealing with complex geography issues. Part of my faculty line is not in geography, but I am able to bring geographical knowledge and skills to that discipline as well.

What geographic skills and information do you use most often in your work? What general skills and information do you use most often in your work?
Geographic skills and information: spatial thinking, considering different scales, census geography.

General skills and information: critical thinking and reasoning.

Are there any skills or information you need for your work that you did not obtain through your academic training? If so, how/where did you obtain them?
The skills and information needed at work that I did not obtain through academic training include those relating to public policies, including consultation, decision-making, analysis and critic, and recommendation. I learned such skills and information through my 10-year service as an Asian American advisor to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Do you participate in hiring, screening, or training of new employees? If so, what qualities and/or skills do you look for?
Yes, I did participate in those processes. The most important qualities we look for, first and foremost, are critical thinking, questioning existing knowledge, and the ability/willingness to perform hard work in order to advance knowledge. I look for people who are passionate with the work, motivated and self-disciplined, and are curious and willing to acquire new knowledge and skills.

What do you find most interesting/challenging/inspiring about your work?
As a geographer working in two different academic units, what I find most inspiring/interesting is an academic career itself – it is a very challenging job as it is not a 9 to 5 type, but almost 24/7. But it is a rewarding career. Despite all of the challenges, at the end of each semester when you see students learn something new and read their feedback, there is an immense sense of satisfaction. For me personally, the most rewarding part of this career is to mentor graduate students – comparing students to when they first walk into graduate school to when they obtain their degrees with a rewarding career option, the sense of accomplishment makes all the hard work so much more meaningful as we grow with them.

What advice would you give to someone interested in a job like yours?
The same as my previous answer about important qualities and skills in new employees, but also to 1) have good self-assessment – know your own strengths and weaknesses in order to play up the former and overcome the latter; and 2) have a strong support/mentoring network – in the same department, university and beyond.

What is the occupational outlook for career opportunities in your field/organization, esp. for geographers?
GIS and environmental studies have the most promising career opportunities for geographers. However, folks need to keep their own passion, as that is the first predictor for a successful career. Continue to expand your skill and knowledge horizon to fit the job market, and be open to other opportunities.

See All Profiles

Julie Urbanik

Education: Ph.D. in Geography (Clark University), M.A. in Women’s Studies (University of Arizona), B.A. in History (Randolph-Macon College)

Describe your job. What are some of the most important tasks or duties for which you areresponsible?
As a Legal Consultant, I am an expert witness for defense teams and I assist with the mitigation portion of a case providing exhibits and any needed expert testimony. It is the defense team’s goal during mitigation to provide as holistic of a perspective as possible for a client to assist a judge/jury in coming to the best decision possible. I produce what I call “geonarrative designs” that combine multi-media storytelling with participatory mapping techniques bundled in the context of geographical research connected to particular phenomena (e.g. poverty & crime). My job is to help the defense team make the case that a client’s geography played a mitigating role in their life choices. In essence, I am applying the adage that “place matters.”

As the Executive Director of The Coordinates Society I manage a small, non-profit organization focused on cultivating geographic curiosity. Right now, this is a passion project where we are developing ways to help people connect to the personal, lived experience of geography through workshops.

What attracted you to this industry?
After spending over a decade in academia I found myself being increasingly isolated into the proverbial ivory-tower – teaching classes, publishing, attending conferences, etc. I missed being out in the world! I realize that many geographers are able to find a balance between the academic bubble and the so-called real world, but my particular situation was not conducive to that. I wanted to use my geographic skills in a different way and I decided to leave academia. While a difficult decision to make at the time, I’ve since been able to pursue many other avenues within my love for geography.

How has your education/background in geography prepared you for this position?
As a trained researcher, I would say that my research skills definitely prepared me to step out on my own. Doing the background research and then being able to reach out to specific people for guidance has made all the difference. My training has helped me to think critically and see multiple perspectives, and these skills have helped me navigate the pathways that have been available to me.

What geographic skills and information do you use most often in your work? What general skills and information do you use most often i your work?
The main skill I use across my work is the ability to synthesize. I am an inherently synthetic person – always looking for and seeing connections. Geography, for me, is also inherently synthetic. In both my consulting and non-profit work, my goal is to help others learn how to make connections they would otherwise not have seen.These connections allow them to see themselves or their clients differently, both as individuals and as members of socio-economic-political groups across space.

In my consulting work I focus on educating the legal community about the interplay between identity and place using participatory mapping techniques. In this way, I rely much more on a social/cultural/humanistic geographic framework than a GIS-based or demographically-based (quantitative) perspective.

Communication is central to everything I do. Teaching for so many years certainly helped me learn what works in engaging the public. Your insights into a given topic are only as powerful as your ability to communicate them. Unfortunately, many academics are unable to communicate beyond their conference/journal bubbles; knowing your audience, adjusting your methods, and seeing engagement as a two-way street is essential to bringing geography out into the world.

Are there any skills or information you need for your work that you did not obtain through your academic training? If so, how/where did you obtain them?
On my own I have had to learn non-profit business management, and I am also teaching myself media techniques (e.g., photography, video, editing, audio, web design).

Do you participate in hiring, screening, or training of new employees? If so, what qualities and/or skills do you look for?
My goal for my non-profit is to be able to hire geographers. To date, I have worked with a variety of interns and volunteers that I have been fortunate to have. I look for several qualities in considering both paid and non-paid employees/interns:

Does this person demonstrate an understanding of my organization and its mission statement?
How has this person combined their creative and intellectual skills? I look for people interested in their own self-evolution because this means they will contribute to the organization’s growth and not just “phone it in.”
Does the individual have solid baseline work skills? The right person can be trained and supported to do any kind of work, but they must have a strong foundation to build from. If you cannot organize and self-manage your own life then you are not cut out for the non-profit world.

What advice would you give someone interested in a job like yours?
If you are a geographer looking for non-traditional geographic careers then I think you have to be a real self-starter and risk-taker. You have to be prepared to constantly evolve, pivot, and try things; personally, I believe geographers are optimally positioned to innovate in terms of careers.

What is the occupational outlook for career opportunities in your field/organization, esp. for geographers?
As I have moved out into the world I have found that people and businesses are always looking for “good” partners. I think the greatest opportunity for geographers is to show all manner of employers what the full spectrum of geography is. Most people have no idea and think geography is only GIS or Google maps – but we all know that our field is much more than that – so this goes back to communication. You must help employers see what geography can help them do.

See All Profiles

Joseph Kerski

Education: Ph.D. in Geography (University of Colorado Boulder), M.A. in Geography (University of Kansas), B.A. in Geography (University of Colorado Boulder)

More information on: https://www.josephkerski.com

Describe your job. What are some of the most important tasks or duties for which you are responsible?
I focus on GIS-based curriculum development, research in the effectiveness of GIS in education, professional development for educators, communication about the need for geographic skills, tools, and perspectives through keynote addresses, articles, social media, and workshops, and fostering partnerships to support GIS in education. I am active in creating and teaching online courses in spatial thinking and geotechnologies. I teach online and face-to-face courses at primary and secondary schools, through MOOCs, and universities such as Sinte Gleska University, Penn State, and the University of Denver. I am active in educational nonprofit organizations, including NAAEE, AAG, NCSS, and I served as president of the National Council for Geographic Education. Since 2006, I have served as Education Manager for Esri, on a team that emphasis thought leadership in geospatial technologies in formal and informal education at all levels, internationally.

I have written books such as Interpreting Our World, Spatial Mathematics, International Perspectives on Teaching and Learning with GIS in Secondary Schools, The Essentials of the Environment, Tribal GIS, and The GIS Guide to Public Domain Data. I am on work travel about 1/3 of the time, to regional, national, and international conferences to speak about geotechnologies in education and to learn from others, and to university campuses and even some primary and secondary schools.

What attracted you to geography?
First, I grew up in a motel that my parents ran, so instead of having a yard like other kids, I had a parking lot. But I loved it, especially meeting guests from a wide variety of backgrounds, ages, and ethnicities staying at the motel and hearing about their travels far and wide. Second, my childhood was spent exploring western Colorado—the canyons, the mesas, the badlands, the river bottoms. I loved being outside and visiting even ordinary places—railroad yards, vacant lots, all of the places that Richard Louv says are important in his book Last Child in the Woods. Third, much of my indoor time was spent reading. One book I read was The Last Great Auk. When the auks go extinct at the end of the book, I was greatly saddened and became committed to working in an environmental field. Fourth, I spent a lot of time, into my mid-teen years, reading and making maps. I was the family navigator with the map on my lap on vacations. I also made enormous maps on large poster board of made-up places, complete with urban renewal districts, harbors, freeways, and each street with a name and – pretty geeky, I realize – address ranges. Fifth, an experience after a field trip in Grade 7 taught me an important lesson. My classmates and I were sitting with our backs against the bricks of the middle school building in Colorado, listening to the teacher. While some of the other kids were complaining that they were too hot and wanted to go inside, I was truly enjoying the moment. What’s more, I realized for that moment and into the future that I didn’t have to ‘go along with the crowd,’ but that it was perfectly fine to value experiences that not everyone else valued.

How has your education/background in geography prepared you for this position?
I served for 22 years as geographer and cartographer at NOAA, the US Census Bureau, and the US Geological Survey. These opportunities, as well as teaching since 1994 at the university level, and since 1991 giving workshops at the K-12 level, prepared me for my current positions. I have three degrees in geography so you might say I’m rather passionate about the subject—geomorphology, population change, natural hazards, water, ecoregion studies, and geography education and GIS. I also have nearly 4,000 geo-related videos on https://www.youtube.com/geographyuberalles. But I’m also keenly interested in spreading geographic skills, content knowledge, and perspectives to other disciplines—business, language arts, history, mathematics, biology, hydrology, sociology, and others. I believe that geography provides me with the abilities to be able to speak a common analysis language amongst other disciplines which resonates with many faculty and students outside my own discipline.

What geographic skills and information do you use most often in your work? What general skills and information do you use most often i your work?
I most often use: Spatial thinking, examining patterns, relationships, and trends. I use critical thinking, assessing the quality of my data, and my methods. I use oral and written communications skills on a daily basis. I also use skills in learning from others, listening, decision making, and working as a team member.

Are there any skills or information you need for your work that you did not obtain through your academic training? If so, how/where did you obtain them?
Yes, the skills in presenting and teaching and much of my work in GIS, I did not obtain through my academic training. I obtained this—and am still learning—on the job. I also gain these skills through reading books, blogs, guidelines, and lessons, and by interacting with others, at conferences, via courses, in webinars, and via other means.

Do you participate in hiring, screening, or training of new employees? If so, what qualities and/or skills do you look for?
I advise our hiring team that is active in working with universities, even though I do not hire them myself. We refer qualified people that we meet at events and other means to our university human resources team, and they follow up with those people. At Esri, we look for people with vision, communication skills, teaching skills, technical skills (spatial analysis, Web APIs, mobile apps, coding, writing curriculum; and so on), motivation, ethics, and energy. I did have a large role in hiring people at the U.S. Census Bureau, in the past, and have a great deal of respect for those in Human Resources!

What advice would you give someone interested in a job like yours?
I have posted other career advice on: https://www.youtube.com/user/geographyuberalles/search?query=career and on the Green Guru Career blog: https://green360careers.net/author/jkerski/

I encourage you to identify your interests and career first and foremost, then think about what organization would best help you to achieve your goals. Equally important, think about what organization you would most like to contribute to in order to help meet their goals, because, of course, it’s not all just about you. The two most important qualities I believe for all of you looking for a career or job position is: Be Yourself, and Be Curious. What do I mean?

Be Yourself means being honest about your own job and personal strengths and your own weaknesses, or areas that you are seeking to improve. Don’t pretend in an interview to be anything you’re not. Be Curious means asking questions. This means to ask questions at the interview, of course. But beyond the interview, on the job and while you are still in school, ask lots of questions. Be curious about the world. Good questions lead to good investigations. Investigate and solve problems. If you don’t have some of the skills needed to solve those problems, acquire and practice those skills.

About 6,000 people work at my company, Esri (Environmental Systems Research Institute). Our headquarters is in southern California (Redlands), we have 10 regional offices in the USA and some smaller satellite offices, and more than 80 worldwide distributor offices. We are the largest Geographic Information Systems (GIS) organization in the world and as such receive a lot of applications for every job we post. If you are serious about making a positive difference on our planet with GIS, I encourage you to gain those skills and apply at Esri!

What are the five most important skills that a successful professional in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) should have? I have recorded a three-part video series (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3) wherein I address these skills. I begin the video series by presenting two ways of thinking about GIS in your career: (1) As a toolset that you use in your career as an environmental researcher, planner, biologist, public safety officer, marketing analyst, or in another career where GIS is listed only as a required or advised set of skills; and (2) As a GIS manager, technician, analyst, or another career where GIS or a variant is a part of the title and primary job duties.

I see GIS as a three-legged stool, one that incorporates content knowledge, skills, and the geographic perspective. In other words, the skills alone will not guarantee success, but are a fundamental part of it. Equally important is the content knowledge–whether in GIScience, meteorology, energy, water resources, planning, or another field. Finally, don’t be discouraged by my mention of the geographic perspective if you feel inadequate here. It is one of the most interesting parts of the stool, and one that might take years to develop. Indeed, as most things in GIS, it is a lifelong endeavor, which leads me to my #1 top skill: Be curious. But also: Understand geographic foundations, and geotechnologies. Be flexible and adaptable. Know how to communicate and teach. Be a lifelong learner. But the most important is: Be curious.

On Staying Motivated. Throughout my career, four things have kept me motivated. First and foremost, choose something that you feel passionate about. Then, every day at work, you don’t just have a job, you have a career. You are working not just for a paycheck, or for quitting time, but for larger goals that can make long-term positive impacts on people and the planet. In my field of geotechnology education, I feel that I am having a positive influence on research, partnerships, curriculum, educators, policymakers, and students, and that in itself keeps me motivated on a daily basis.

That’s not to say, though, that I don’t experience times when I need to work actively at staying motivated. These times often occur for me at the start of a long project, such as a book I am committed to writing or a public relations campaign to universities. So, the second thing that has kept me motivated, particularly during these times, is to keep an eye on the long-term goal, and think of the long-term impact and benefits that the project will have. Thinking specifically on who will benefit and why and how they will do so can also provide energy. Third, think of the project in smaller components, in weeks, days, or even just a few hours: What can you accomplish by, say, noontime, today, on this project? How will you measure that you have accomplished it? Breaking up large projects into smaller pieces has helped me stay motivated. Along with that, the fourth recommendation I have is to just start. Sometimes, thinking about a project is more daunting than diving in and starting on it. Just do it! Yes, planning is important, but working hard and putting some tasks behind you can provide motivation to go on to the next steps.

Final Words: Don’t Toss Your Brain. In my work in environmental education and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), I have seen many computer technologies and methods come and go. In one of my videos, I discuss some of them, including punch cards, floppy disks, and CD-ROMs. Yet one tool has remained vitally important in analyzing our world–your brain! Making sense of our world through maps and spatial data is more important than ever. As the deluge of data increases, it will be important in your career to think critically about data, understanding if and when to use it, evaluating its quality, managing error, and making decisions based on data. Keep thinking! The point is: Toss some tools, but don’t toss your brain!

What is the occupational outlook for career opportunities in your field/organization, esp. for geographers?
First, I would say that there is no time better than the present to get into a career in GIS or geography—no matter whether you are 20 years old or a mid-career person looking for a change and an opportunity to make a positive difference on our planet. We have more pressing issues in need of the geospatial perspective than ever before—global issues are becoming more pervasive, complex, and increasingly affecting our everyday lives. We also have more spatial data, and more powerful, mobile, and easy-to-use tools for you to learn and begin using GIS and applying geography to solve problems. What’s more, you don’t have to slog through the “old clunky days” of GIS that many of us went through when it was frankly more difficult to do GIS work. Lastly, be willing to go international! There are many exciting opportunities out there but you do still need to market yourself and also market what GIS is and what it can bring to organizations—making them more sustainable, efficient, profitable, and able to meet their goals.

See All Profiles

Marcello Graziano

Education: Ph.D. in Geography (University of Connecticut), M.Sc. in International Economics (University of Turin), B.Sc. in Foreign Trade and Economics (University of Turin)

What attracted you to a career in education?
The opportunity to combine independent research with teaching was the main reason behind my choice to pursue an academic career. Working within a university allows me to continue researching on my favorite topics, while interacting with students and policymakers, and contributing to the welfare of my communities.

How has your education/background in geography prepared you for this position?
I had quite an eclectic training, changing three departments throughout my doctorate. My geography background has helped me to think and to operate across disciplines, integrating space and time, and always considering the role of space and place in understanding the relationship between local and global dynamics.

What geographic skills and information do you use most often in your work? What general skills and information do you use most often in your work?
Spatiality and Place/Regionality are broad, geography-specific concepts I use in my work. These become ‘applied’ when dealing with space-dependent analyses in econometrics, or economic analysis looking at regional development.

As an economic geographer (broadly speaking), I utilize mainly my economic and policy analysis skills during my work, particularly those associated to sustainability and energy uses. Additionally, I have to thank my humanistic background for giving me the ability to read and to analyze quickly massive amounts of information.

Are there any skills or information you need for your work that you did not obtain through your academic training? If so, how/where did you obtain them?
I had quite a comprehensive training, but I benefited from my additional work as Research Assistant in the School of Business, where I mainly learned how to link research results to policies and investment decisions.

Do you participate in hiring, screening, or training of new employees? If so, what qualities and/or skills do you look for?
I had the opportunity to sit on a panel for hiring a postdoctoral fellow. In terms of qualities/skills, I look for a strong background in the discipline, which endow the applicant to work easily across focuses/disciplines, along with integrity and enthusiasm for the research. An additional deal-breaker is honesty: candidates trying to forge a competence are the first to be discarded. I prefer someone who does not know and is ready to learn, than someone trying to please.

What do you find most interesting/challenging/inspiring about your work?
Interesting? The opportunity to support real-world policies and decision-making, working with stakeholders from several different backgrounds.

Challenging? The way academia is funded, both for research and for personnel. Shrinking research budgets in Western Counties, along with an overuse of temporary posts make it difficult to pursue long-term, game-changing research.

Inspiring? Working alongside some of the most dedicated, prepared, and professional folks I have met both in academia and in the private sector. Also, the opportunity to see students grow and build their path through life.

What advice would you give to someone interested in a job like yours?
Be tough, be professional, and don’t lose sight of your own happiness. Think of yourself as a Society’s MD: you need the same passion and integrity as a surgeon needs when on the operating table. Also, be flexible in terms of ‘where’ you look for positions: departments are increasingly interdisciplinary, and positions can be found globally in places and institutions that will support you.

What is the occupational outlook for career opportunities in your field/organization, esp. for geographers?
Good. The ability geographers have to work through multiple perspectives make them quite desirable, whether in positions related to environmental sciences/management, GIS applications, or economics. Furthermore, the increasing ease of access to spatial technologies makes economic geographers particularly well-suited both to fill academic and private-sector positions.

See All Profiles

Lisa Brownell

Education: Ph.D. in Geography (University of Kentucky), M.A. in Geography (University of Kentucky), B.A. in Individually Designed Interdepartmental Major with focus on Community Planning (University of Minnesota)

Describe your job. What are some of the most important tasks or duties for which you are responsible?
I am responsible for managing the Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credit program. I work with applicants at all stages of the process, administer the application, oversee the competitive scoring, and work closely with the state historic preservation office, our partner in the program.

What attracted you to this organization?
They pay me to go out and poke around abandoned buildings! What could be more fun? And then I get the joy of seeing these buildings rehabbed and brought back to a place of value in their communities.

Historic buildings and landscapes have always been so compelling to me as well as the ways that communities value and engage with places. This job sometimes means hours putting numbers in boxes but overall lets me help communities reinvest in places they love.

How has your education/background in geography prepared you for this position?
A background in historic/cultural geography has helped me to understand urban development patterns and historic architecture. The big picture/holistic approach that geography offers has been valuable as we work in cities and places that experience conditions that are the result of a wide variety of variables. Instead of looking at the scale of just the building, or even the specific architectural elements of the building, I can help my team look at the broader neighborhood, city, and regional scales to understand a project or a problem better.

What geographic skills and information do you use most often in your work? What general skills and information do you use most often i your work?
Geographic skills: Using and making maps, spatial thinking, and understanding how places are nexuses for all sorts of flows and forces and meanings (economic, cultural, historical, politics, environment, memory, power, settlement patterns, etc.).

General skills: Problem solving and listening are big. Looking at big picture needs and translating that to day to day policy and procedure. The ability to help others learn but also to keep learning and being teachable are skills that are very important.

Are there any skills or information you need for your work that you did not obtain through your academic training? If so, how/where did you obtain them?
Local knowledge and familiarity with local stories and meanings plus how things “work” in different places. This came from experience and from reading, watching, working with people in the places, and listening over time.

Patience and people skills came from working in childcare, having my own children, and from working as an academic advisor.

What advice would you give someone interested in a job like yours?
Persevere. As a geographer in a field full of historic preservation folks (most with either history, planning, or architecture backgrounds) you have to work hard to educate others what a geographer can bring. Folks don’t understand that geographers know cities and buildings and economic development. We have to show them that we bring a holistic understanding of places that is valuable.

Intern, volunteer, get involved, and get to know people in the field. It’s a small field and there aren’t a ton of job openings.

What is the occupational outlook for career opportunities in your field/organization, esp. for geographers?
I’d say it’s good, in the sense that geographers make great candidates in historic preservation/government program admin. But it’s not a large field so the opportunities are somewhat limited.

See All Profiles

Frank Boscoe

Education: Ph.D. in Geography (Penn State University), M.A. in Geography (Kent State University), B.S. in Civil Engineering (Carnegie Mellon University)

Describe your job. What are some of the most important tasks or duties for which you are responsible?
I would describe my primary responsibility as finding interesting and useful applications of the vast amount of cancer data collected by the State of New York. These tend to revolve around several themes: Why are there different cancer rates in different places? What makes some people live longer with cancer than others? Which cancer treatments work better than others? In pursuing these questions, I get to work with many outside researchers from hospitals and universities.

What attracted you to this position/career path/organization/industry?
As with so many careers, there was an element of chance. In 1999, before my Ph.D. was even completed, I applied for a number of jobs from government to private industry to academia. The job I landed is the one I thought I was least likely to get. But at the time, New York was interested in producing some detailed cancer maps, and my graduate school work on the design of a digital disease atlas made me attractive for the job.

How has your education/background in geography prepared you for this position?
What has been most valuable has not been the specific technical skills (I don’t do a whole lot of GIS, in fact), but the repeated application of geographical thinking: repeatedly asking the question, why does something exist more in one place than in another place? Approaching problems from that angle often leads to an insight no one else has had before.

What geographic skills and information do you use most often in your work? What general skills and information do you use most often in your work?
I find that if an effect is strong enough to matter to public health, it will be evident through maps and scatterplots and straightforward regression models. More sophisticated methods can help tease out subtle differences, but while these may be statistically significant, they are rarely clinically significant. In other words, we needn’t worry too much about differences of 10% when there are enough 50% and 100% differences to go around. Accordingly, I still rely quite heavily on the spatial analysis techniques and methods I learned in my master’s level courses, in particular.

A general skill that I use daily is the seemingly simple one of counting and categorization. Do these two different records represent the same person, or not? Did this patient have cancer, or was it pre-cancer? Did these people actually live in New York during the study period? Is this person still alive, or just lost to follow-up? Ignore these questions, as many researchers do, and your study will be biased. But spend too much time on them, and you’ll never finish anything. The trick is to make quick but defensible decisions, something that sounds easy but really benefits from years of experience.

Are there any skills or information you need for your work that you did not obtain through your academic training? If so, how/where did you obtain them?
I use a commercial statistical software package called SAS every day; it is ubiquitous in public health. I had to teach myself on the job. During graduate school, I had done some coding in other (now obsolete) languages, so it was not too difficult of a transition.

Do you participate in hiring, screening, or training of new employees? If so, what qualities and/or skills do you look for?
I am involved whenever a junior research scientist position opens up, typically once every few years. I have found the most useful part of an interview is to show the candidate a cancer map and ask them to speculate on what might be causing the patterns and trends they see. No one has ever given an especially accurate answer; we choose the ones who generate the most interesting hypotheses.

What advice would you give to someone interested in a job like yours?
Take an introduction to public health or introduction to epidemiology course while pursuing your geography degree. If these disciplines are not available at your school, there are outstanding courses available online through sites like Coursera. Don’t worry that it will not appear on your official transcript; I have never looked at anyone’s official transcript.

What is the occupational outlook for career opportunities in your field/organization, esp. for geographers?
It is still strong despite some current short-term funding pressures. The average age within my field is in the 50s, and retirements are outpacing recruitment. I myself am almost 50 and still occasionally find myself to be the youngest person attending a meeting. There has been some progress against cancer during my career, but there is still much more that we don’t know than we know. We will need plenty of smart people to help collect and interpret cancer data for the foreseeable future.

See All Profiles

Adelle Thomas

Education: Ph.D. in Geography (Rutgers University), M.S. in Geography (Rutgers University), B.S. in Civil Engineetring (University of Minnesota), B.A. in Engineering Science (Macalester College)

What attracted you to a career in education?
After graduating from undergrad and taking on a full time job in engineering, I realized that I missed the rhythm of the school year and the constant learning required when being in school. After two years of an office job with only two weeks of vacation per year, I decided to pursue a career in academia. I knew that I wanted a career where I would be constantly learning and challenging myself as well as creating new knowledge.

How has your education in geography prepared you for this position?
I specifically chose geography as a field for my graduate studies due to the broad nature of the field. In graduate school I was able to take classes in both physical and human geography as well as in other related social sciences. This exposed me to a plethora of schools of thought and approaches to understanding the world that we live in. In my research field of human dimensions of climate change, it is particularly beneficial to be able to understand both the physical processes that lead to climate change as well as the implications for society. Having a background in geography has prepared me to understand the multiple aspects of climate change as well as other environmental issues.

What geographic skills and information do you use most often in your work? What general skills and information do you use most often in your work?
Geographic skills: explaining human-environment relationships, GIS skills, deep understanding of globalization and how the world is connected.

General skills: analysis of literature, critical thinking, writing for both scientific and general audiences, presentation skills, teaching students of all ages and backgrounds.

Are there any skills or information you need for your work that you did not obtain through your academic training? If so, how/where did you obtain them?
Organizational skills have been imperative when trying to juggle teaching multiple classes, conducting and publishing research and acting as an advisor for governmental institutions. The ability to break down complex concepts and ideas into easily digestible information for sharing with the general public, as well as presentation skills.

These skills were obtained through trial and error and through involving myself in situations that were outside of my comfort zone. Speaking at public events forced me to hone my presentation skills and learn to translate my research into information that anyone can understand and want to explore further. You can’t be afraid to challenge yourself and learn some new skills.

Do you participate in hiring, screening, or training of new employees? If so, what qualities and/or skills do you look for?
Yes. I look for people that are comfortable in their own skin, that recognize their past challenges and have grown from them, that are confident in what their research has to offer, that are open to learning new skills, that are open to a challenge, and mostly those that have a sense of humor!

What do you find most interesting/challenging/inspiring about your work?
There’s always something new. As a geographer in a small island setting, I am constantly being called upon to be involved in projects that have anything to do with the environment. I’ve been involved in projects that are far outside of my area of specialization, but since I am a trained geographer, I am often viewed as the most suitable to learn about the new area and to offer insight. This has exposed me to things as diverse as marine protected areas, sustainable development planning, ballast water management, access and benefit sharing for genetic materials and climate change adaptation planning. All of these opportunities have allowed me to interact with different groups of people and to increase my knowledge about the particular challenges facing small island states.

What advice would you give to someone interested in a job like yours?
Be open to new opportunities and don’t be afraid to get involved in areas that may be outside of your area of study. Translate your research to be understood by people outside of academia and get involved with NGOs. Involve students in your research efforts.

What is the occupational outlook for career opportunities in your field/organization, esp. for geographers?
There are many opportunities in the area of climate change that are specifically looking for geographers. The way that geographers understand the world and spatial relationships are in high demand as we attempt to pursue a global solution to climate change. With our broad backgrounds, geographers are in an ideal position to engage in many different research areas and we bring a unique perspective to understanding issues. GIS is in high demand so having this skill set will also be a bonus.

See All Profiles

Nancy Tian

In November 2011, Dr. Nancy Tian was commissioned to active duty as a Public Health Service (PHS) officer in the Scientist category. She was transferred to the ASPR as a public health analyst from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in March 2012. One thing is certain: her colorful career path began in geography.

Tian’s interest in geography was first ignited by her brother’s Global Positioning System (GPS) related career in China. Shaped by her early exposure to and belief in visualization of geography and public health, Tian’s dissertation research was squarely focused on using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and spatial statistics to understand health disparities in female breast cancer including stage of diagnosis and mortality. Over the last decade, she has observed the rapid evolution of geospatial technologies and how they have become powerful tools in analyzing the relationship between humans and their environment.

Nancy’s career trajectory has closely followed her strong technical skills in GIS and statistics which stemmed from her dissertation research. When she began looking for employment, Nancy knew that a doctoral degree in geography can lead to a range of careers outside of academia, and decided to extend her application to positions in the government sector. After completing her doctoral degree in geography, she landed a postdoctoral position at the EPA, followed by her current work at ASPR which builds on her research on the influence of place and space on public health. As a Public Health Analyst, she is integrally engaged in developing and analyzing the performance measures in the Healthcare Preparedness Program.

Reflecting on geographic skills used in the workplace, Tian recognizes the importance of the applications of GIS and spatial statistics in public health, especially in Emergency Management. Equally important, she observes, are project management skills that include the ability to think independently and “break down a project into smaller pieces to sequentially complete each part and then to bring the individual parts together”. Since higher education tends to encourage specialization, Nancy continually upgrades her knowledge by reading current literature on disasters to complement her technical strengths. She stresses three major, high value skills needed in the workplace that are usually not part of graduate school curricula: communication with colleagues, teamwork, and the ability to adjust to the professional environment.

Nancy enjoys the dynamism of her role as a PHS officer and finds inspiration in her work through its application of theory, where one “can see the direct impact of our work”.

Her geography background is unique in her unit, standing out from such degrees as a master’s in Public Health or a MD. Nevertheless, geography is critical to her work; she stresses the value of GIS and mapping skills in providing visualization to the management team, which can be as simple as information about where healthcare facilities are located. Tian’s advice for current students is to broaden their technical skills by taking GIS related courses, as well as those in statistics and programming. To strengthen her knowledge as a public health analyst, she is working towards sharpening her SAS programming skills through training and reading related technical articles. Her continuing education goal is to purse a master degree in public health to enhance her comprehensive understanding of public health issues. As a final word of advice, Nancy suggests that current students be flexible and active in learning new skills and related knowledge required in whichever career path they choose.

This profile was published in 2013 by Niem Tu Huynh and Mark Revell

See All Profiles

Ashok Wadwani

Ashok and Ishu Wadwani came to the U.S. in 1970 with two bags and $200. Today, the couple own and operate Applied Field Data Systems (AFDS), a company specializing in field-based GPS, GIS, and mapping services, consulting, and training.

After obtaining his master’s degree in physics from the University of Lucknow in 1963, Ashok landed his first jobs in marketing at the Indian partner offices of U.S. companies such as Perkin Elmer, Hewlett-Packard and Honeywell. After he and his wife got visas based on their educational backgrounds and obtained green cards, they relocated to Chicago, where Ashok was employed at Central Scientific, a company specializing in lab equipment. While working full-time, both Ashok and Ishu continued to attend school. After Ashok obtained his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, he moved among locations and jobs for several years, finally ending up in Houston. By 1984, he had started his own business designing handheld computers for the forestry industry – one of the forerunners of modern GPS.

Because GPS technology was still in its infancy in the mid-1980s, Ashok’s entrance into the field came by complete accident. “Early on, I had no clue what GPS even was,” he says. Provisions of the Clean Air Act moved him into the realm of fugitive emissions monitoring by 1986, when his company began supplying rugged handheld computers to refineries and petrochemical companies. His clients soon began requesting geospatial information for their emissions data points. “It was a customer-driven process,” he explains. “GPS technology was developed elsewhere, but AFDS developed the interface not only for petrochemical industries but others.” As the company grew, Ishu decided to join the business, giving up her lucrative job in the health care industry.

Ashok and Ishu stress that their success did not come easily. While they were able to find jobs quickly upon their arrival to the U.S., Ashok notes that the transition can pose a challenge to immigrants not accustomed to American culture. “Asian and European cultures are quite different from American culture, although Americans tend to regard all cultures as similar,” he observes.

In 27 years of running their own business, Ashok and Ishu take pride in the fact that they never had to fire a single employee and have remained debt-free. They strongly believe in encouraging and mentoring students and new graduates, and they continue to hire student interns and offer them flex time so they are able to attend classes. Perhaps most importantly, Ashok and Ishu look for people they can trust. Because running a small business means that often both of them are traveling and are frequently away from the office, they must be able to trust employees to get the job done under minimal supervision.

Small businesses operate with fewer financial resources than a large company, and the burden of accountability ultimately rests on the owners’ shoulders. However, there is also a great deal of personal freedom and flexibility. “You’re the boss – you make a commitment, and that’s it,” Ashok says. For anyone hoping to start his or her own business, he offers some advice: be open to working many hours, be prepared for failures and financial hardships, and be prepared to do odd jobs or “wear different hats” within the company. “We firmly believe there are skills we can teach,” say Ashok and Ishu, “but we can’t teach attitude.”

See All Profiles

Darryl Cohen

Darryl Cohen is a Geographer in the Population Division of the U.S. Census Bureau, where he has worked since 1998. He has worked on reviewing and revising the federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) standards for defining metropolitan areas. He also works on maintaining the geographic base for the Census Bureau’s intercensal population estimates. In addition, Darryl helps design and maintain various metropolitan and micropolitan statistical area data products, including Census 2000, and post-censal population estimates table packages, and various definition and geographic relationship files publicly available on the Census Bureau’s website. Frequently, he responds to inquiries from the media, congress, other government agencies, and the general public.

Darryl’s research on settlement classification, census geography, and population data has been published in journals and government reports, and serve as the subject for numerous conference presentations. He holds a master’s and a bachelor’s degree in Geography with concentrations in Urban Planning from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, as well as a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy. In 2001, Darryl received the Department of Commerce Bronze Medal Award as a member of the metropolitan area standards review team. He currently lives in Upper Marlboro, Maryland.

This profile was published in 2004. Darryl is currently still a geographer in the Population Division of the U.S. Census Bureau.

AAG: Did you always know you wanted to be a geographer?

Darryl: No, actually I found geography almost by accident. My original intention was to become an urban planner. I have always been fascinated by cities, which probably stems from having grown up in the District of Columbia, and learning about the L’Enfant plan and how the city was laid out. Finding the right undergraduate program was a bit of a journey for me, but in the end I was fortunate enough to find an urban planning concentration in the geography program at UNCG.

AAG: And now you have the rare job title of Geographer. How does that feel?

Darryl: It’s not as important to me as the fact that I enjoy what I’m doing. It doesn’t really matter what’s on my business card, as long as my work is intellectually stimulating and I’m contributing something valuable.

AAG: Well said.

Darryl: I think the variety of job titles among geography professionals speaks to the nature of our discipline. There are so many different opportunities and areas of specialization that often your job title is not going to be geographer. Even here at the Census Bureau, there are a lot of people who have degrees in geography, but do not have the job title of geographer; they are statisticians, or cartographers, or social science analysts. There are a lot of different jobs for which people with degrees in geography are qualified.

AAG: What is your favorite part of your job?

Darryl: Probably the research. Discussing — from a conceptual standpoint — what constitutes a metropolitan area and how the areas should be defined.

AAG: What kinds of discussions come up?

Darryl: One fascinating thing . . . is taking a look back at research done previously and finding that many of the same issues come up over and over again. Say, 50 years ago they were having some of the same discussions that we are having today regarding determining the extent of metropolitan boundaries, what measures of integration to use, how to assign titles . . . all those things have been addressed by various people here at the Census Bureau and other agencies since the 1940s. That’s something that I’m working on – a history of the development of the standards for defining metropolitan areas.

AAG: What major new research potential do you see on the future horizon?

Darryl: Well, one is certainly on the micropolitan statistical areas, since OMB has only been defining them since 2003. We only have 4-5 years of data using those definitions, so that’s an area that’s certainly becoming ripe for research.

AAG: What do you see about your work that is important for others?

Darryl: It is important that the definitions add value to our data products – and that they are as good as they can be – because so many people depend on the data for various levels of decision-making, whether it’s setting policy at the federal level, state or local government planning, location analysis in the private sector, academic research, and so on.

AAG: Do you get to make it to the AAG Annual Meeting every year?

Darryl: Usually, yes. The Census Bureau is very supportive of our participation in professional associations and conferences.

AAG: Why do you most like to go?

Darryl: Mainly to build contacts with people, particularly people I may not know personally, but I may share a research interest with them. Over time, you develop a professional relationship with folks and look forward to seeing them year to year.

AAG: Why is that important?

Darryl: Part of the reason why we try to remain active in the AAG and participate in meetings is that our work is and should be done in an open manner – not only do we want to share what we are doing, but we also want to learn about how people are using the data that we publish.

AAG: What do you think would inspire more young people to do geography like you?

Darryl: Looking at how geography has grown in leaps and bounds, I think they are already inspired. That may be in part because we live in an increasingly global society, and it’s more important now to have information about places that aren’t necessarily close to where you live. Since so much information from different parts of the world is so readily available, geography has become more important now than ever. And . . . it can be a very fulfilling career choice.

Dr. Patricia Solis, 2004

See All Profiles