Scott Beigel

Geography teacher Scott Beigel, 35, was one of the 17 people killed in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting on February 14, 2018, in Parkland, Florida. According to various news reports, Beigel hid several students in his classroom, saving them from the gunman.

Beigel studied education at the University of Miami and settled in Deerfield Beach. He was originally from Long Island, NY.

Beigel’s students shared what they’ll remember most about their beloved teacher with CBS This Morning.

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Emilio Casetti

Emilio Casetti, who has died at the age of 89, three weeks short of his ninetieth birthday, made important contributions to both geography and regional science. He was honored at Ohio State with the designation Distinguished Research Scholar in 1992, and in 1994 the Association of American Geographers bestowed upon him the Honors Award, the organization’s most prestigious recognition for research excellence. He was also an unforgettable person.

He acquired his bachelor’s degree in law at the Sapienza University in Rome at the early age of 20 and earned a doctorate from the University of Rome in three years. He then practiced law in Rome and had begun work towards a doctorate in geography at the same university before leaving to do a Master’s at McGill. Afterwards, he and his wife Gabriella spent several years in a remote part of Saskatchewan teaching in a very small rural school. He did not have to be pushed to regale the listener with hair raising tales of the winters there, all told with his standard deadpan grin. Quite what had led him in the direction of geography is unclear, but by 1964 he had graduated from Northwestern deeply steeped in the quantitative methods for which the Geography Department there was, at that time, notable. His first appointment was at Toronto but in 1966 he moved to the Department at Ohio State, where he would remain until his retirement.

He would become an important influence in graduate work in the Department and a renowned advisor. What made him so effective was his ability to see the unique strengths of each of his students, help them recognize it, and then allow them to deploy that strength to its fullest advantage. Not surprisingly, his students – and nine of his twenty-three doctoral students were, significantly for the time, women – have gone on to successful careers of their own, each in a direction that no doubt Emilio saw early on. They speak affectionately of him, and of the time he decided that they must call him ‘Emilio.’ He cared deeply for them and would defend them vigorously against pettiness.

His work was notable for its combination of simplicity, power and imagination. He himself thought that his development of what he called the expansion method was his major contribution. What this involved was taking some relationship, like Fourastié’s model of sectoral shift in a national economy, describing it with a regression model and then expanding it by setting the coefficients as functions of other pertinent variables, like, perhaps, the date at which an economy took off. This would then create a set of relationships that could stimulate further investigation. This would be a precursor to spatial regression models where the coefficients are a function of absolute or relative location.

Emilio’s expansion method led to a number of dissertations at Ohio State in the 1980s and through the 1990s. As he came to view things, however, it was not simply a method but a new paradigm for research, one that challenged scientific geography – of which he was a strong proponent – to entirely rethink the nomothetic (or law-seeking) enterprise. Instead of assuming that parameter instability was an aberration due to model misspecification or systematic biases in data and error terms, Emilio came to see the search for contextual variation in causal processes as part-and-parcel of the explanatory effort itself. For any model, the question of parameter variation opened up new questions, ones often more important than the first order explanatory questions tested in what he called the ‘initial model’.

Though he was well known for the expansion method, he was also the early inventor of what later became popularized as geographically-weighted regression (GWR). In his ‘drift-analysis-of-regression parameters’, or DARP, he constructed a grid across a set of spatially distributed observations and proceeded to run separate cell-by-cell regressions, weighting all observations according to an exponential distance-decay function from the cell’s central point. The result was a moving lattice of regression analyses that varied by the degree of information content from nearby data points, thus producing a series of ‘local’ regressions for which investigators could track and map parameter variation. Depending on the exponents determining the distance-decay of information from near or far away cases, the models could adjusted to be ‘regional’ as opposed to local. The insight led him to argue that spatially weighted regression is not a special case of regression; rather, analyses that don’t explicitly involve weighting are equivalent to assigning each case a value of 1, which is the norm for most models. Hence DARP, or geographically-weighted regression, as it became popularized, was the more general case. It is a sidebar in the history of geography that DARP preceded a now popular GWR by a decade and furthered the development of quantitative geography away from its search for universal laws to something much more sensitive to issues of context.

As a person he was a curious mix of strong views strongly held, and a sweet innocence. He was dedicated to his research but found lots of time for other things, the most notable of which were cats. Emilio was a cat lover, par excellence; not one who hoards them but who, along with his wife, took in strays in sufficiently modest numbers where they could develop an attachment to them. And he was attached. An invitation to dinner would be accepted but on his insistence, he and his wife would arrive in separate cars so that if one was involved in an accident, the cats would not go wanting. He was a very kind man and not just to cats. There are many stories of Emilio’s consideration of those students who had trouble with the quantitative methods that he taught.

There are other interesting stories about him. As a young adult growing up in postwar Italy, Emilio developed a strong aversion to traditional social institutions that he saw as oppressive and antithetical to progress. He joined the Italian communist party, but after several years concluded that the party itself reproduced the social hierarchies that he opposed. Many years later when he applied for a U.S. green card, he had to respond to a question about whether he had ever been a communist party member. He was honest in his response, and attached a statement describing how and why he was no longer a communist: nepotism and cronyism. He must be the one and only person who was given a green card after openly admitting that he had been a communist party member!

In the late 60s, he acquired, quite cheaply, one of the earlier analog computers and put it in his basement. This meant that he did not have to submit his jobs to the computing facility at the university, as was the custom at that time. The problem was, that it was huge. Being shown it was like walking down the book shelves in a library. Emilio was also an early adopter of desktops and laptops, and once they became available, getting rid of his heap of metal – whose only real purpose was in solving partial differential equations – was a nightmare. Through it all one could see Emilio’s usual sense of humor and self-deprecation.

He liked people who he judged to be without guile and who he perceived to be honest. He will be deeply missed by those touched by his unique blend of kindness, considerateness and innocent disbelief that you might disagree with him. His life will endure through the major contributions that he made to spatial-quantitative geography and through the affectionate recollections of his students.

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Peter Meusburger

Peter Meusburger, a professor of human geography at the University of Heidelberg, died on December 18, 2017. He was 75 years old.

Peter was born on March 14, 1942 in Lustenau, Austria and earned his doctorate in geography from the University of Innsbruck.

Meusburger’s research interests were on the geographies of education and skills, labor market research, and regional women’s research. As a scientific advisor to the Vorarlberg state government, Peter studied the emigration of highly qualified people from Vorarlberg. He also examined the state’s educational history.

Peter was appointed to the Ruprecht-Karls-University Heidelberg in 1983, serving as chair in economic and social geography at the Institute of Geography until he retired in 2007. He was named the university’s first Distinguished Senior Professor after his retirement. Meusburger held many positions at the University of Heidelberg, including Dean of the Faculty of Geosciences in 1987-1988 and 1988-1989, Vice-President in 1991-1992 and 1992-1993, and Member of the Senate from 1999 to 2006, as well as Senate spokesman and curator of the University of Heidelberg. He has been a visiting professor at various universities in Japan, China and Brazil.

Between 2001 and 2003, Peter served as president of the German Geography Society. His awards and honors include the 1968 Johann Hampel Prize of the Austrian Geographical Society, 2006 Franz von Hauer Medal of the Austrian Geographical Society, and 2010 Vorarlberg Science Award. In 2010, Peter was named Honorary Doctor of Eötvös Loránd University and Honorary Member of the Hungarian Geographical Society. That same year, Peter was awarded the 2010 AAG Presidential Achievement Award from the American Association of Geographers.

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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.

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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.

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Robert J. Mason

Robert J. Mason, a professor in the Department of Geography and Urban Studies at Temple University, died on November 15, 2017.

Rob was known for his work on environmental policymaking and land use management. He believed in international educational opportunities for students and was passionate about teaching the next generation of environmental leaders. A prolific author, Rob published Collaborative Land Use Management: The Quieter Revolution in Place-Based Planning (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), Contested Lands: Conflict and Compromise in New Jersey’s Pine Barrens (Temple University Press, 1992) and the Atlas of United States Environmental Issues (Macmillan, 1990, with Mark Mattson).

In addition to teaching at Temple University, Rob has taught at Ohio State University, Temple University Japan in Tokyo, and Kobe College in Nishinomiya, Japan. In 2016, Rob taught at Temple Rome. He was serving a three-year term as Regional Councillor of the American Association of Geographers and had previously served as President of the Middle States Division of the AAG. He also served for many years on the Board of Directors of the Kobe College Corporation/Japan Education Exchange including as Co-President.

Rob earned his doctorate in Geography from Rutgers University in 1986, received a master’s in Geography and Environmental Studies from the University of Toronto, and held a bachelor’s in Geography and Environment Studies from the University of Buffalo.

Tribute from Camille Elliott in the Temple University Department of Geography and Urban Studies

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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.

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Carol L. Hanchette

Carol L. Hanchette, Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Louisville, died unexpectedly on a hiking adventure in the mountains of Wyoming on October 9, 2017. Hanchette received her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill in 1998 after having worked in a variety of fields including archeology and as a land surveyor for Billings, MT. She joined the University of Louisville in 2002. Hanchette’s work as an applied medical geographer cut across a wide-range of topics which included the links between ovarian cancer and pulp and paper manufacturing in the U.S., and the effects of coal ash on children. Her 1992 study on prostate cancer and ultraviolet radiation, cited over 700 times, was considered an important contribution to the field. More recently, Professor Hanchette had taken an interest in social and environmental justice and the uses of Qualitative GIS. Her work was funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the NIH.

Hanchette was particularly active in the development of the applied master’s program at U. of L. Her vision and passion structured that program from the ground up. Her leadership and popularity with students is well reflected in the many recognitions she received including the Faculty Favorite Award, the Distinguished Service Award and the Community Engagement Faculty Award. Carol was a long-time member and local leader of the Sierra Club. In addition, she loved hiking, ice skating, kayaking and almost any activity outdoors. Her collegiality, professionalism and dedication to geography will be missed by all of the lives she impacted.

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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.

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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.

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