MGIS Student 2018 Awards and Recognition
Travis Fried (pictured [center] with John Adams [right] and Lee Munnich [left]) received the John S. Adams award for his paper Evolving Supply Chains & Local Freight Flows: A GIS Analysis of Minnesota Grain Movement advised by Dr. Lee Munnich. The Adams award honors Geography Professor Emeritus John Adams and is presented to graduate students demonstrating academic achievement in policy and planning fields. Travis also won the US Department of Agriculture Best Student Paper Award at the National Transportation Research Forum, held this year in the Twin Cities. Well done, Travis!
Carly Anderson, Rebecca Barney, and Hitomi Nakamura were awarded Esri Student Conference Assistantships to participate in the 2018 Esri User Conference in San Diego, California this July! Additionally, Nicole Helgeson was named the 2018 UMN Esri Development Center Student of the Year and was selected as a Student Assistant for the 2018 Esri Developer Summit in Palm Springs, California. This spring Nicole started working as a GIS specialist intern for the City of St. Paul Public Works in their Surveying Department.
Congratulations to Kathy Dooley (MGIS) and Wing Yi (Pinki) Wong (BS, Computer Science) who are the 2018 UMN Minnesota GIS/LIS Student Scholar Award recipients. Pinki, advised by Dr. Somayeh Dodge, is the undergraduate award winner for her project, Visual Analytics of Tiger Patrolling Behavior. Pinki’s research project was supported by the University of Minnesota’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program. Kathy, advised by Dr. Eric Shook, is the graduate award winner for her project, Ecosystem Services of Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems. Pinki and Kathy did an outstanding job representing the University of Minnesota in the undergraduate and graduate student paper competition sessions at the 2018 Minnesota GIS/LIS Annual Conference held in Duluth, Minnesota this October.
MGIS students also successfully competed for national summer research and internship opportunities. Jacob Arndt, who graduated in May, was selected for the prestigious Advanced Short-Term Research Opportunity at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in their Geographic Information Science and Technology Group. Coleman Shepard received a very competitive Esri Summer Internship position where he will work as a consulting intern for the professional services branch in Redlands, California.
A number of MGIS students were recognized as 2018 U-Spatial Mapping Prize winners in the graduate student category. Rebecca Barney won Best Cartography for her impressive hand-made globe! Travis Fried won Best Use of Maps for Amber Roads of Grain: Mapping Minnesota's evolving grain supply chain and its impact on local roads and Lauren Strug received Honorable Mention for her map of the Geology of Mars and the Olympus Mons Regions.
Our location in the Twin Cities also affords students excellent summer GIS internships opportunities working with a variety of organizations and agencies. Alysha Alloway is working as a GIS intern for the City of St. Paul and as a research assistant for the Minnesota Design Center. Meric Birol is a GIS intern for Regional Water Services at the City of St. Paul. Brynn Johnson is working as a GIS intern for the City of Eagan. Venky Navuri is a GIS intern for Hennepin County. Elise Rosengren has a student position with the Minnesota Department of Health conducting spatial analytics on land use and water quality in Minnesota. Lauren Strug is a student worker para-professional for the Groundwater Contamination Mapping Project at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. Eric Thorkelson is a GIS intern at the City of Burnsville and Zhiwei Yan is working for the Minnesota Department of Transportation as part of their SEED program. Internship experiences like these are critical for our professionally-focused program so many thanks to the agencies and organizations who provide these opportunities for our students!
Special thanks to our generous donors who contributed to the MGIS Annual Fund during our last campaign! This fund helps to support professional development opportunities for our students. If you would like to contribute to the MGIS Annual or Fellowship Funds, please visit our Support page and donate today to support our bright and deserving students! Several students mentioned above received supplemental funds from the MGIS Annual Fund to support costs associated with participating in these beneficial experiences.
Finally, thirteen students completed their MGIS degrees so far in 2018. Placement information is available on our job placement page. Congratulations to all of our accomplished students and graduates!
