Spatial Signals

Tim Stryker from Hudson Passage, LLC joins us to talk about the Presidential Management Fellows Program, Tim’s time being a guide for a traveling exhibit in the former Soviet Union, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the US Group on Earth Observations, Tim’s time at the USGS, connections with international remote sensing programs, NOAA and international coordination of weather satellites, remote sensing ground stations across the planet, the impact of Landsat, public data and imagery and its multiple applications, Tim’s consultancy Hudson Passage LLC, and much more. Show notes and photos are available at: https://americaview.substack.com

Tim Warner from West Virginia University joins us to talk about enjoying the view from above as a kid, a career-defining course in photogeology and remote sensing, Spectral Africa, studying patterns in aeolian sand, a chance meeting on an airplane that changed the direction of Tim’s life, traveling by canoe, geological mapping with remote sensing and GIS, the origin of WestVirginiaView as the second StateView program, developing a statewide consortium, Tim’s time as an editor for multiple journals, hiking in the Italian Alps, advice for new geospatial professionals, and much more. Show notes and photos are available at: https://americaview.substack.com

Peder Nelson from Oregon State University joins us to talk about his father's time working at EROS in Sioux Falls, Landsat as Peder’s other sibling, simulating with cameras what digital Landsat images would be like, being part of a tech migrant family, graffiti from space, the development of digital sensors, stewarding data to make it useful, planning for the future of remote sensing, people’s first light to connect with remote sensing, the GLOBE program, the GLOBE Observer App, a need to collaboratively continue remote sensing and data into the future, and much, much more. Show notes and photos are available at: https://americaview.substack.com

Tracy Shane from the University of Nevada-Reno joins us to talk about her backpacking trips with her grandmother as a kid, learning to read topo maps at age seven, the Nevada Youth Range Camp, Tracy’s time as a Student Conservation Employment Program (SCEP) student, the Society for Range Management, the Drone Rangers, a drone named Betty White, working with drones in outreach and a 4-H program, range management, the use of virtual fencing in ranching, the scale of the Great Basin, hyperspectral analysis with drones for biomass estimation, and pairing drone data with NAIP imagery. Show notes and photos are available at: https://americaview.substack.com

Yuting Zhou from Oklahoma State University joins us to talk about a long trip where flat land turned into mountains, tools for understanding landscape changes, studying ecology and agriculture applications, Yuting’s journey from China to Oklahoma, OklahomaView and the national network of AmericaView, the climate and agriculture of Oklahoma, studying agriculture at different scales, UAS filling the gap between satellite data and in situ measurements, invasive species detection with UAS, Red Cedar mapping, GIS Day in Oklahoma, flash drought analysis, and much more. Show notes and photos are available at: https://americaview.substack.com

Jan Eitel from the University of Idaho joins us to talk about going from plot scale to landscape scale, the McCall Outdoor Science School, introducing K-12 students to lidar measurements, STELLA, teaching outdoors and winter research, IdahoView, engaging students in data collection, point dendrometers, a Tree EKG, NISAR imagery and analyzing plant water status, data fusion, AI and extracting meaningful information regarding forest growth and forest health, the response of forest ecosystems to hotter and dryer conditions, lidar and forest management, and much more. Show notes and photos are available at: https://americaview.substack.com

Paige Williams from Virginia Commonwealth University joins us to talk about traveling to the Esri conference in San Diego with her mom while in high school, being inspired by Will.i.am, working in software distribution, maxing out on GIS classes, collecting data and mapping as part of a water study team in Burkina Fasa, flying drones in research at NASA Goddard, forestry analysis at spatial and temporal scales, and Paige’s work at VCU, a student-driven drone class, teacher training with UAS, hands-on learning, working with STELLA and using STELLA on a drone, and much more. Show notes and photos are available at: https://americaview.substack.com

John Millard from Miami University joins us to talk about the career of Keanu Reeves, becoming a librarian from a business program, technology based jobs for librarians, Dad Lore, Mosaic, building your own digital library of information, a collaboration that would become OhioView, licensing of Landsat data, the cost of data storage, OhioLink and the process of satellite imagery transfer, technology training for librarians, metadata, data storage, the first file cabinet, how AI is changing the game, AI deriving meaning out of disparate data, award winning chili recipes, and much more. Show notes and photos are available at: https://americaview.substack.com

Mary O’Neill from South Dakota State University joins us to talk about a work study job in the plant science department, the Remote Sensing Institute (RSI) at SDSU, remote sensing from a retrofitted WW2 aircraft, SADE (Signal Analysis and Dissemination Equipment), watching the first scenes from ERTS / Landsat 1 come off the printer, Mary’s participation at the start of AmericaView and her time with the consortium, the establishment of a Geospatial Science Center of Excellence, workshops for K-12 teachers, why EROS was established where it was, Mary’s second retirement, SouthDakotaView, and much more. Show notes and photos are available at: https://americaview.substack.com

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

Morgan Crowley from the Great Lakes Forestry Centre joins us to talk about growing up with maps and aerial images, Russ Congalton’s mentorship of Morgan at the University of New Hampshire, Ladies of Landsat, WildFireSat, fire monitoring, Canadian wildfires, Morgan’s co-editing a book on Google Earth Engine, deep learning models, trusting data, using remote sensing data for fire management and monitoring, science outreach, knowledge exchange, and much more. Show notes and photos are available at: https://americaview.substack.com

Ramesh Sivanpillai from the University of Wyoming joins us to talk about his taking a mandatory remote sensing class for his physics degree, remote sensing data access, how Wyoming and Kazakhstan look striking similar, the 25th anniversary of WyomingView, training the future workforce, students connecting satellite imagery to what’s on the ground, Congressional outreach, Ramesh’s time on the AmericaView Board of Directors, Ramesh’s work with disaster management as Project Manager for the International Charter, student involvement with disaster activations, and much more. Show notes and photos are available at: https://americaview.substack.com

Anita Simic-Milas from Bowling Green State University joins us to talk about her encounter with GIS and Unix in her very last course as an undergraduate student, GRASS GIS software, developing net primary productivity maps, Anita’s time working at the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing (CCRS), groundwater modeling with remote sensing, the development of SPLIT, the SPLIT summer programs and field data collection, OhioView, students learning from their peers, remote sensing connecting science and art, and much more. Show notes and photos are available at: https://americaview.substack.com