Geographers without Borders

Swati is a professor, consultant, founder, and leader driving change in the geospatial sciences. Swati has over 24 years experience Internationally using geospatial technologies to answer social, economic, and environmental problems. Swati is passionate about sharing the world of GIS with young people and is known for creative solutions and a positive outlook. Swati founded Anudras Geosolutions in...

Brandi is a Senior Product Engineer at ESRI, where she has worked for the last nearly 3 years on developing robust solutions for stormwater and other customers. Prior, Brandi spent over 2 decades as a public servant working in local government in the Denver Metro area helping the organizations improve service development and streamline processes with GIS.  Brandi most recently worked on the GIS Re...

Danielle is the Director at the Center for Geospatial Science and Technology at California State University- Northridge, and a founding member of Women in GIS. Daniells is GIS leader and professional with more than 25 years experience in the field. Early in her career Danielle noticed that there weren’t much resources for women in the field, and found herself at a conference with a group of women...

Eva Reid is the Senior IT Program Manager for DC Health (Data and Applications) and the Agency Data Officer for DC Health, the District of Columbia’s health department. Prior to DC Health, Eva worked for the DC Office of the Chief Technology Officer, the District’s central IT agency. With 30 years of experience in geospatial technology, and data management, Eva is a sought-after keynote speaker an...

Wanmei Liang is a Science Data Visualizer at NASA Earth Observatory. Her expertise lies in GIS, remote sensing, data visualization, and cartography. Wanmei holds a bachelor’s degree in geography and GIS from UCLA. She actively engages in the GIS industry and makes valuable contributions to communities such as the Women in GIS, #30DayMapChallenge, #GISChat, and serves as a mentor, providing guidanc...

Maggie Cawley is a geospatial professional focusing on sustainability and urban planning. Maggie began in the urban planning world and started her company, Boomerang Geospatial, a geospatial consulting company specializing in education and conservation in 2013. This is where her journey with open geospatial started, including QGIS and Open Street Maps (OSM). With her company she led mapping educat...

Michelle Williams, also known as the Survey123 Jedi, is a passionate geospatial professional specializing in, what else but Survey123! Michelle is a graduate of the University of Redlands, with a Bachelor of Science in Business and a Master of Science in Geographic Information Science and Cartography. Michelle came to the GIS realm a bit later in life and uses her knowledge and experience to teach...

Véronique, or Véro, Couttee began her journey in Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, completing a BS in Biology with a focus on Ecology and working as a wildlife biologist for 5 years. In 2018, Ms. Couttee came to the United States as a Fulbright scholar to complete an MS in Biodiversity, Conservation, and Policy at the University of Albany. During this time, she worked in a partnership with ESRI and t...

Sam Dinning, who was on a previous episode of the podcast, is the current President of Women in GIS. Sam is currently part of the URISA Vanguard Cabinet, and is here to talk about accomplishments for the group in the past year, benefits of being a member, and her recommendation for young people entering the industry. For more about Women in GIS, visit our website at: https://womeningis.wildapricot...

Naz Ali is the Senior GIS Manager for CBRE Canada with almost 18 years of experience working in GIS. She specializes in commercial real estate applications offering market analysis across sever commercial property types. Naz will discuss using massive mobile data in site location analysis, and how the data from your cell phones helps to shape the world around you in terms of real estate decisions....

Dr. Rebecca Lave is a professor at Indiana University. She has done work in advancing the research and visibility of Critical Physical Geography, or CPG. CPG combines critical attention to power relations with deep knowledge of biophysical science or technology in the service of social and environmental transformation. Her research includes CPG, historical landscape and hydroscape change, stream r...

Bonny McClain is a geospatial analyst, author, public speaker, and advocate for open data across all sectors and genres. Bonny has published books including recent titles, Python for Geospatial Data Analysis, a book for those of us in the geospatial sciences to fully immerse ourselves in python and Geospatial Analysis with SQL.  Bonny travels the world speaking about data literacy, the vulnerabili...

Geo Rutherford is an adjunct lecturer at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee teaching 2D concepts. In the summers, she is the Art Director at Bue Lakes Fine Arts Camp. She co-chairs the whyyoumatter non-profit. She also has more than 1.5 million followers on TikTok, her educational content under the name geodesaurus has more than 55 million likes, and more than 380k followers on Instagram. She is he...

Wilma is the Geographic Information Officer for the State of Idaho. Wilma began her geospatial journey as a crop consultant, and has also owned a consulting firm in Canada. In 2013, she joined the Office of Information Technology knowing that she was there to make a difference. In November of 2022, she became the GIO for Idaho. Wilma has a masters degree in Agricultural and Environmental Sciences...

Join us as we discuss what it's like to attend the ESRI UC for the first time with members of Women in GIS Madyson Bradford and Sara Thompson. Madyson Bradford graduated from Texas A&M University in 2022 with a BS in Geographic Information Science & Technology with a focus on Computation, Design, and Analysis. As a Data Scientist for the Town of Gilbert, Arizona Office of Economic Deve...

Esteemed guest Katie Grillo had the opportunity to present at the ESRI UC this year in San Diego and has returned to tell us about her experience! From selection to Jack Approved, check out how the plenary takes shape and how you could find your way to the stage! Check out her presentation here: https://mediaspace.esri.com/media/t/1_0s2tyx23   You can connect to Katie directly here:   https://www....

In this episode we talk with Katie Grillo, Geospatial Connector. Katie is a GIS Web Technology Specialist. Her mission is to empower data owners to understand how they can visualize their information through maps and digital storytelling. She provides hands-on trainings, presentations, live demos and support, all designed to help educate both GIS and non-GIS users on how to do more with their spat...

Fran Curtis is the Director of Digital Solutions for Pennoni, located at firm headquarters in Philadelphia, PA. Pennoni is a multi-disciplinary engineering firm, and ran is responsible for their portfolio of digital solutions with an emphasis on geospatial. Fran guides clients in their digital transformations, crafting solutions to help with a variety of workloads, implement solutions to extend th...

Sam Dinning is a GIS Analyst at Douglas County, Colorado, member of Women in GIS, and volunteer. Sam is passionate about GIS data, and has a BS in Geospatial Sciences and Community Planning, and a MS in Applied Geospatial Sciences from Northern Arizona University.

Kara Utter is the owner and founder of Dynamic Visions GIS, a consulting company offering services to local government, international entities, business case consulting, feasibility studies, data development, analyses and more. She also is an instructor for Geospatial Training Services, an active member of Women In GIS and URISA, and her experience is varied throughout the world. Kara recently fou...

Juliana is a GIS Professional all-star, who is currently the Chief Operations Officer of Flourish and Thrive Labs. They leverage geospatial data along with community engagement tools to support the flourishing of people and communities. Part of her work is as Career Coach—both internally to F& T Labs but for the broader GIS Community. And she leads the charge in salary transparency! Juliana is her...

Dawn Wright is currently the Chief Scientist of ESRI, and has a long list of accomplishments and accolades. These include Oregon Professor of the Year while at Oregon State University, the first African American woman to dive to the ocean floor in deep submersible ALVIN, the first Black person to dive to Challenger Deep, the deepest point on Earth and operate a portable sidescan sonar at full-ocea...

Caitlin is a Senior GIS Consultant at Locana, and the President of Women in GIS! She is here to discuss her experiences in GIS, what it’s like as President of Women in GIS and where she sees the group going in the future! Caitlin has a BS in Geographic Information Science and Cartography from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a MS in Geographic Information Science and Cartography from Sain...