My Story
After being at undeclared at Eau Claire for a while, I took Geography 104 with Harry Jol to fulfill a liberal education credit. The material of the course came really easy to me and I enjoyed the class a lot, so I decided to give geography a try!
Ever since I made the switch I have absolutely fell in love with the program at the university. I love that I can make deliverables such as maps as part of my coursework; the feeling of producing something that I am proud of and can share with friends has always been an academic drive for me. As a life-long learner I have found that the diversity of the discipline allows me a lot of exploration and empowers the discovery of new topics that I can enjoy studying. I can certainly say with confidence that geography is where I belong.
Geographical Cravings
At the university, I've got my hands full with a multitude of projects including courses, research, maps and other interests. One of my newest and biggest endeavors yet is my research. I'm fortunate enough to work under a outstanding professor and mentor, Dr. Harry M Jol and with my project leader and research partner Josh Katcher. Our work utilizes the ever-emerging field of ground-penetrating radar on the Nebraska Sandhills. I'm excited to be attending my first conference and presenting our research this spring for AAG 2023 in Denver, CO. For map making, I'm workshopping ideas for map competitions at the conferences WLIA and NACIS. I believe in and take a holistic cartographic approach, merging clear data visualization with stunning design.
I also have goals for my career and academics that extend beyond the scope of my active projects. I am currently self-learning R scripting from the tremendous free and interactive book R for Data Science written by Hadley Wickham and Garrett Grolemund. If you are at all interested in data science and making maps with code, I recommend you look into it. I'm also looking into the potential of Blender and it's GIS add-on, as both it's 3D visualization and animation capabilities are currently unmatched by any orthodox GIS program; these two freshman cartographic elements are challenging and fascinating to me. In the future I hope to link these skills to my personal interests in urban planning/geographies, transportation, and skiing.
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Approach and Values
To me, Geography is all about connections and interactions. Connections between disciplines, people, places, thoughts and methods are all central to the way resources, culture, and ideas move around our planet. When I make a map, I think how can I connect this concept to anyone, and how can I make them want to connect to the project. I believe that both the material and the way it is presented are equally important to effective communication. Half of the battle when it comes to sharing your work is striking the first spark in someone's interest to give you their attention. This is especially paramount in Geography, which is one of the least understood disciplines by the general public, even though it's broad effects are some of the most far reaching in everyday life. Geography 104, the class I mentioned before was my spark; now I try to share my spark by being a student instructor for the class and showing my peers what geography is really all about.
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