Spatial Signals

Santosh Panda from the University of Alaska Fairbanks joins us to talk about coal mine reclamation in India, a choice between petroleum and remote sensing, helicopter flights to remote field sites, Alaskan permafrost modeling and mapping, AlaskaView, statewide forest health and change, boreal forest change through time, MOOC development for GIS and remote sensing, a traveling permafrost exhibit, s...

Robert Washington-Allen from the University of Nevada, Reno joins us to kick off 2026 with an extra-length episode where we talk about Robert’s time as a Peace Corps volunteer in Lesotho, the Curlew National Grassland, time-series imagery analysis, kudzu bug distribution, the REDD program, applications of Terrestrial Laser Scanner technology around the world, the dynamics of the Niassa Special Res...

Jeong Chang “JC” Seong from University of West Georgia joins us to talk about staying up all night to beat Tetris, the power of a PhD degree, working for Erdas with Landsat 7 data, being a faculty member at Northern Michigan University, a database for managing AmericaView’s activities, the state of Georgia atlas project, GeorgiaView mini-grants and collaborations, the Geographical Bulletin online...

Pablo Viramontes from the New Mexico Department of Agriculture joins us to talk about his time as an ROTC cadet, GIS in the intelligence field, an internship with the Bureau of Land Management in New Mexico, gathering data at the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument, geospatial work with the TRIO Upward Bound program, K-12 geography education, visiting the White House, the National Space...

Paige Brochu from University of Vermont joins us to talk about the influence of Jurassic Park, archeology in the Caribbean, mapping Lake Champlain shipwrecks, Benedict Arnold’s gunboat, the Spatial Analysis Lab (SAL) at UVM, interning with the Nature Conservancy in Rhode Island, a spatial connection via Strava that ended up in a Postdoc position, planetary health, meeting with policy makers on Cap...

Tyler Erickson from VorGeo joins us to talk about foldable paper maps, working with remotely sensed data at a technology non-profit, the founding of MichiganView, open Landsat data, Google Earth Engine, Tyler’s time working at Google on the Earth Engine project, the founding of VorGeo and the work being done there, CTrees and above-ground biomass measurement, OpenET and water data, SAR data, SatCa...

Nancy French from the Michigan Tech Research Institute at Michigan Technological University joins us to talk about the Environmental Research Institute of Michigan (ERIM), SAR applications, field data in conjunction with radar remote sensing to analyze fire effects, the Bettles fire in Alaska, MichiganView, wildfires and remote sensing, wildfire smoke and health, estimating fuel consumption, fuel...

JB Sharma from the University of North Georgia joins us to talk about JB’s transition from a physics background to geospatial technologies, grassroots STEM literacy, how to get students interested in remote sensing, JB’s work with AmericaView, AI-based techniques for handling the volume of remote sensing data, deep learning, GEOBIA for classifying UAS data, learning communities in online learning,...

Joseph Kerski from Joseph Kerski LLC, University of Denver and Auburn University joins us to talk about growing up in a motel in western Colorado, making maps as a kid that included address ranges, working at USGS, being part of the Esri Education team, Joseph’s passion for teaching geography, spatial thinking concepts, multidisciplinary teaching, mathematics and spatial thinking, teaching with ge...

Lisa Wirth, the Program Director of AmericaView, joins us to talk about Lisa's graduate work in Fisheries in Alaska, tagging fall chum salmon on the Yukon River, having field instruments freeze up, tracking fish with radiotelemetry, thermal remote sensing of rivers, using SAR imagery in Alaska, using a FLIR camera on a Cessna, the Alaska Geobotanical Center, AlaskaView, Augmented Reality sandboxes...

This is Round Two 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 Dr. Donna Delparte from the University of Idaho, Dr. Bruce Millett from South Dakota State University, and Dr. Lance Yarbrough from the University of Mississippi, and we're discussing all things drones. We talk about the state of th...

Geoff Bland, Andy Henry, Lisa Ogiemwonyi, and Sallie Smith from the NASA AREN (Aerokats and Rover Education Network) team join us to talk about the beginnings of the AREN project, Aerokats and remote sensing via kites, flying the first educational UAS with sensors on the Channel Islands of California, RSESTeP, ICARUS, incorporating remote sensing into K-12 classrooms, place-based education, the de...

Robbyn Abbitt from Miami University joins us to talk about working at an underground storage tank unit in Indiana, planning to work outside in Idaho but being assigned to an indoor GIS lab, the concept of lumping and splitting, getting hired as the GIS Coordinator for Miami University, the Ohio GIS Conference, Robbyn’s work with the original Gap Analysis Program and NHD, the Blue Line Program, the...

Happy Earth Observation Day, everyone!  Our guests for this special Earth Science Week episode are Rebecca Dodge of Midwestern State University and Tom Mueller from the Massachusetts Bureau of Geographic Information (MassGIS), the founding parents of Earth Observation Day which is celebrated this week.  We delve into how Earth Observation Day came about, how it's grown, materials that have been de...

Forrest Bowlick from University of Massachusetts-Amherst joins us to talk about finding Svalbard on a globe at two years old, National Geographic Bees, a life-changing locked door, the McNair Scholars Program, taking Introduction to GIS three different times, the scholarship of teaching and learning, Forrest giving a TED talk on GIS, the development of MassachusettsView, the Geographer’s Craft, st...

Joe Ortiz from Kent State University joins us to talk about using micro-fossils to learn about how climate changes over time, the Beaver-SCAT instrumentation, spending two months at sea in the North Atlantic, remote sensing and collecting sediment cores at sea, research at the Bering Strait, spending 3 days stuck in the ice, strategies for avoiding polar bears, identifying algae from space, harmfu...

Greg Bonynge from the University of Rhode Island joins us to talk about working on a Alpaca farm in Pennsylvania, an internship with the USDA forest service, modeling the spread of the southern pine beetle, spatial statistics, working at a neuroscience lab, being a beta-tester for ModelBuilder, land cover change in Tanzania, SSEER (Scientific Support for Environmental Emergency Response), ingestin...

Carter Wang from Towson University joins us to talk about his introduction to Google Earth in high school in China, urban heat islands in Arizona, MarylandView, the AmericaView Journal of Earth Observation and Geospatial Applications, the annual Geospatial Technology Summer Camp at Towson University, urban forestry analysis, land cover change related to tree loss, NAIP imagery, and the AAG remote...

Scott Powell from Montana State University joins us to talk about Scott’s work at the Guadalupe Mountains National Park in Texas, mapping cave openings in the Carlsbad Caverns area, Scott’s time as a firefighter fighting wildfires, Landsat imagery time series printouts, the Oregon Cascades. geologic carbon sequestration, using aerial hyperspectral sensors for detecting leaking carbon emissions, dr...

Larry Biehl from Purdue University joins us to talk about a prophetic high school paper about computer applications in farming, the Laboratory for Applications of Remote Sensing (LARS), Skylab, the development of MultiSpec, the vision to keep MultiSpec free and available, the Terrestrial Observatory, the birth of IndianaView, Useful 2 Usable, remote sensing agricultural applications, spectrometers...

Tom Mueller from the Massachusetts Bureau of Geographic Information (MassGIS) joins us to talk about Pchem ending Tom’s time as a Chemistry major, building an atlas of nursing homes, the importance of service learning for students, the GeoTech Center, Humanitarian OpenStreetMap, Mapathons, mapping and analysis of water samples and contamination, MassGIS, the Massachusetts Spatial Data Infrastructu...

Lance Yarbrough from the University of Mississippi joins us to talk about an encounter with a Floyd Sabins textbook at a university book sale at a young age, examining geology through stereopairs, the Year of the Satellite, remote sensing application in North Dakota. lidar data analysis, 3D models and Structure from Motion, GeoAI tools, the appeal of retro analog maps and tools, giving expert witn...

Kyle Fredrick from PennWest University - California joins us to talk about teaching a middle-school class in college, groundwater modeling, user-friendly vs. user-surly software, his fantastic geologic mapping summer field class that he teaches each year, remote sensing of Utah landscapes, the growth of the sand spit and new habitats at Presque Isle in Erie, and the potential for critical and rare...

This is Round One 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 Dr. Aaron Maxwell from West Virginia University, Dr. Bruce Millett from South Dakota State University, Dr. Dana Peterson from the University of Kansas, and Dr. Doug Ramsey from Utah State University, and we’re discussing all things...

Dana Peterson from the University of Kansas joins us to talk about the Yellow Pages of class descriptions, the Kansas Biological Survey, archiving Landsat imagery from 9-Track Tapes, spectroradiometers, watersheds and green-up, field work on the Rio Grande, the Sentinel GreenReport that leverages Sentinel-2 imagery for vegetation monitoring over time, eastern red cedar woody encroachment, and mapp...