Hesburgh Libraries

GIS Day event at Hesburgh Library features campus and community research

By Becky Malewitz | November 21, 2023

GIS Day event at Hesburgh Library features campus and community research

What do traffic patterns, church properties, amphibian disease, dams, and food waste have in common? They can all be mapped using geographic information systems (GIS) based technologies.

GIS is a system of hardware and software used for the storage, retrieval, mapping and analysis of geographic data. In 1999, GIS Day was established on the third Wednesday in November as an initiative to promote the use of the technology, as well as encourage people to take an interest in geography. The Navari Family Center for Digital Scholarship recently celebrated GIS Day 2023 by hosting workshops, lightning talks, roundtables and a reception in the Hesburgh Library. The event was co-sponsored by the Hesburgh Libraries, Center for Research Computing, and The Lucy Institute for Data and Society.

“This year marks the 10th GIS Day that the Center for Digital Scholarship has hosted,” said Julie Vecchio, co-interim director of the Center. “It’s really inspiring to think back on all of the research projects and the on-the-ground initiatives–both from within the university as well as the broader Michiana community–that we’ve come together to learn about at GIS Day lightning talks and campus spotlight presentations over the years.”

During this year’s lightning talks, attendees heard how individuals from the University and the local region use GIS in their daily work. The presentations included a graduate student’s dissertation research regarding community-level factors that may influence the persistence of amphibian disease, the church properties initiative, which presented their efforts with church-owned properties through GIS data looking at land use and preservation, and a pair of neuroscience majors who presented their research about how dams impact the spread of a chronic parasitic disease.

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City of South Bend GIS Manager Bill Moody also presented work on the city’s traffic calming initiatives.

“This is always a neat event because we get to see different projects and meet different people that are doing GIS related things,” said Moody to the audience. “We have a small group here in South Bend, so our only interaction with GIS is with each other and what the city does. It’s so interesting to see people from other fields doing neat things.”

Teddy Daubenspeck, a senior from the College of Science and research assistant with the Lucy Institute, presented his work mapping food waste reduction. He partnered with Jim Conklin, executive director of Cultivate Food Rescue, a local nonprofit, to map where the organization gets their food donations from, where the nonprofit distributes that food, population density, poverty levels and the locations of traditional food pantries. By doing this, Daubenspeck was able to identify what he called “pantry deserts,” which are low-income areas that suffer from food insecurity and don’t have a traditional food pantry within one mile.

“The takeaway I had from this experience is that I was a guy who knew how to use GIS but didn’t have a lot of inspiration, and Jim was a guy who had a lot of inspiration and passion but didn’t know how to use this technology,” said Daubenspeck about the partnership. “By bringing those two groups together, you can really make some meaningful discoveries.”

GIS duo

At the conclusion of the lightning talks, Matthew Sisk, associate professor of the practice of (GIS and Data Science) at the Lucy Institute for Data and Society, announced that the institute was launching the Geospatial Analysis and Learning Lab (GALL). The lab will support GIS and remote sensing to elevate geospatial research at the University of Notre Dame and the broader community.

“Thinking forward, I can’t tell you how excited I am to imagine what GIS teaching, learning and research is going to look like with Mat Sisk at the helm of the new Geospatial Analysis and Learning Lab that the Lucy Family Institute just launched!” said Vecchio. “The Navari Family CDS is eagerly anticipating opportunities to collaborate with the GALL and to continue to support the campus GIS community.”


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