Spatial Signals

Mike Taylor from NASA’s Landsat Project Science Support Team joins us to talk about job fields merging computers and the outdoors, a life-changing 14-day geography field study course, the work of the Landsat Science Team, continuity of Landsat imagery, levels of imagery resolution, the development of STELLA, applications of STELLA in relation to satellite imagery, approachable and affordable STELLA instrumentation and technology, the democratization of instrumentation, the Landsat 9 launch, geocaching at Lompoc to tell the story of Virginia Norwood, EarthLens, and much more.   Show notes and photos are available at:  https://americaview.substack.com

Mary Schorse from the University of Delaware joins us to talk about her background in education and how it connects with geospatial technologies, the expansion of geospatial technologies into a multitude of fields, the Delaware Center for Geographic Education (DCGE), inserting GIS and remote sensing into K-12 lessons, Mary’s collaborations with Tracy DeLiberty, Mary’s work with environmental impact assessment in Trinidad, payment for ecosystem services and applications and issues of scale with that, inserting geospatial technology tools into instructor resources, summer education outreach programs for students, the challenges of working with K-12 students and teachers, dual enrollment courses, and much more.  Show notes and photos are available at:  https://americaview.substack.com

Parinaz Rahimzadeh from the University of Maine joins us to talk about finding GIS and remote sensing on her first day of university, creating map layouts and band combinations, Parinaz earning her doctorate in Japan, and the birth of MaineView, forest health, detecting the severity of pathogen-induced damage on the landscape, forest susceptibility, applied research with GIS and remote sensing, pest monitoring, defoliation detection, the abundance of forests in Maine, worksforce training for GIS and remote sensing forest health monitoring, creating products for decision making, and much more. Show notes and photos are available at:  https://americaview.substack.com

This is Round Five of our special “Squared Circle” episodes, where a group of guests gets together to wrestle with a particular topic. For this episode, we're joined by Ms. Robbyn Abbitt from Miami University, Dr. Forrest Bowlick from University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Dr. Courtney Poirier Chicola from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and we’re discussing all things about teaching GIS today. We talk about approaches to teaching GIS, mixing fundamentals and application, students working on local projects, producing tangible products, incorporating topoquads and remote sensing, students taking on different roles in projects, relevancy of tasks, incorporating maps from current events, the challenges of online GIS courses, showing why things are happening, collaboration on GIS problems, fundamental changes in what’s been taught in GIS courses, data handling challenges, GeoAI, and much more.  Show notes and photos are available at:  https://americaview.substack.com

Jason Lorenzon from Kent State University joins us to talk about his wanting to be a pilot from an early age, sneaking to the Windsor airport to get a private pilot license, Jason's training as a concert pianist, teaching aviation law, leading the UAS program at Kent State, training both manned and unmanned aircraft pilots, the NTSB and the definition of an aircraft, the 100th anniversary of the Air Commerce Act of 1926, Bessie Coleman and barnstormers, aircraft regulations, the tiny percentage of people who have actually touched aircraft controls, never losing the awe of flying after takeoff, the intersection of aviation and geospatial technologies, a dynamic Earth, the development of laws related to UAS, the usage of drones by first responders, air taxis, collaboration and cooperation with aviation and remote sensing, national airspace and geospatial technology, and much more.  Show notes and photos are available at:  https://americaview.substack.com

Russ Congalton from the University of New Hampshire and Kass Green from Kass Green and Associates return to talk about how they briefly met a first time, a second meeting at the first national GIS conference, Russ’ heading up the next GIS conference in San Francisco, Russ working with Kass on mapping old growth forest with Landsat imagery, the partnership of practical ideas and new technologies, the critical importance of quantitative accuracy assessment, the impact of Chernobyl on remote sensing, co-authoring two books, CART analysis, Cluster Magic, both Russ and Kass’ serving as ASPRS Presidents, an attempt to hire Robin Williams to entertain at a banquet, both Russ and Kass being recipients of the William T. Pecora award, and much more.  Show notes and photos are available at: https://americaview.substack.com/. 

Aaron Maxwell from West Virginia University returns to talk about his first book in supervised learning being publishing, where the book’s concept came from, Aaron’s co-authors, the whole writing process behind the book, designing figures and graphs, visual design, how Aaron learned about the book’s release, the storytelling of science, the supervised learning process being more spatial, advice for future authors, having passion for the topic, the development of a companion e-book, R, the tinymodels framework, and much more.  Show notes and photos are available at: https://americaview.substack.com/. 

Umesh Haritashya from the University of Dayton joins us to talk about trying to major in zoology and ending up in geology instead, then trying to get into petroleum and ending up in remote sensing instead, ASTER data evaluation and the Global Land Ice Measurement from Space project, glacier datasets that paved the way for modern geospatial studies of the cryosphere, research in Nepal, the long trek to Lake Imja, the advantages of learning through field work, studying changes to glaciers in relation to climate, the impact of glaciers on freshwater resources, the effects of melting glaciers, using DEMs and field measurements for measuring glacial changes, scenario modeling of lake outburst floods, machine learning applications, and much more.  Show notes and photos are available at:  https://americaview.substack.com