Celebrating Student Achievements 2020–2021

Despite challenges, this past academic year brought a lot to celebrate at the Center for Geospatial Analytics! Below is a sampling of the outstanding work accomplished by the Center’s graduate students since last May. Congratulations to all!

Doctoral Students           

• Published 12 peer-reviewed articles, including first-author papers in ­­­Remote Sensing of Environment, Drones, Ecosystem Services, and Computers, Environment and Urban Systems.
• Excelled at CNR’s Graduate Research Symposium:
  • 3 students presented posters
  • Megan Coffer won the Ph.D. student prize in the Land, Wildlife, Water and Forest System Management category with her poster, “Eyes in the Sky Support Seagrass Mapping in Coastal Environments.”
  • Vini Perin won the Ph.D. student prize in the Human Dimensions and Community Health category with his poster, “A Multi-Sensor Satellite Imagery Approach to Monitor On-Farm Reservoirs.”
• Excelled in NC State’s Graduate Student AssociationPackPicsinfographic competition.
  • 13 Ph.D. students submitted entries
  • Muyiwa Adeyeye won first place for the Outreach award.
  • Nikki Inglis won first place in the Impact category.
  • Nick Grokhowsky won second place in the Content category.
  • Caitlin Haedrich won third place in the Content category.
  • Martine Mathieu won third place for the Outreach award.
  • John Polo won third place in the Impact category.
  • Ariel Saffer won third place in the Design category.
• Received multiple honors and awards:
  • Muyiwa Adeyeye received a Diversity Enhancement Grant.
  • Megan Coffer and Ian McGregor both received a USGIF scholarship for 2020-2021.
  • Ian McGregor received a NC Space Grant Graduate Research Fellowship and NASA FINESST Grant for 2020-2021.
  • Megan Coffer and Shannon Ricci received NC Sea Grant-NC Space Grant Graduate Student Fellowships.
  • Caitlin Haedrich and Ariel Saffer were awarded University Graduate Fellowships.
  • Kate Jones received a Joint Fire Science Program Graduate Research Innovation Grant.
  • Katie McQuillan received a Nature Conservancy NatureNet Fellowship.
  • Uchenna Osia received a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF GRFP) and a GEM Fellowship.
  • Josh Randall received an Energy Data Analytics Ph.D. Fellowship.
  • Nikki Inglis won second place in the Graduate Student/Postdoc Graphics category of the 2020 NC State Envisioning Research Contest.
  • Josh Randall won the Center for Geospatial Analytics’ Advocate Award.
  • Ian McGregor won the Center’s Beacon Award.
  • Garrett Millar was on the team that won the Center’s Collaboration & Innovation Award; additional assistance was provided by Kellyn Montgomery, Payam Tabrizian and Nikki Inglis.
  • Melinda Martinez won the Center’s Interdisciplinary Advancement Award.
  • Byron Ifediora won the Center’s Gladys West Award.
  • Brit Laginhas won the Ecological Society of America’s George Mercer Award.
  • Vini Perin and Xiaojie Gao received NASA FINESST Grants.
  • Shannon Ricci won second prize in the Student Lightning Talk Awards at the 2021 UCGIS Symposium; watch her award-winning talk on YouTube.
• Served NC State community and beyond:
  • Ian McGregor spoke at the International Society of Tropical Foresters August 2020 virtual meeting.
  • Megan Coffer was invited by POLITICO to serve as an expert panelist for a conversation titled “Out of This World: The Future of Satellite Imagery” about satellite data and privacy. Her thoughts were quoted by Space Policy Online.

Professional Master’s in Geospatial Information Science & Technology (MGIST) Students

• Over the academic year, 30 students collaborated with 25 community or industry partners to develop geospatial solutions as part of their service-learning capstone experience.
• In the Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 semesters, graduating MGIST students competed in a poster competition to showcase their service-learning projects: Alex Reinwald won in Fall 2020, and Justin Oakley won in Spring 2021.
• Alex Reinwald was named NC State’s 2021 Esri Innovation Program Student of the Year.
• Research by MGIST alum Will Reckling was covered by DroneDJ
• Alum Christen McNamara Watts won the Center’s Beacon Award.
• Jaimie Nevins, Laurel Krynock and Jack Cummings were on the team awarded the Center’s Collaboration & Innovation Award.
• Gardner Pierson won the Center’s Creativity in Teaching Award.
• Zach Tunstall won second place for the Outreach award at NC State’s Graduate Student Association PackPics infographic competition and graduate research showcase.

Geospatial Graduate Student Organization (GGSO):

The GGSO is a university-recognized community that supports all graduate students affiliated with the Center, both on-campus and online (M.S., Ph.D., MGIST and Graduate Certificate in GIS). Led by students for students, the GGSO advances networking in the geospatial community, provides a platform for research and offers social events. This year, the GGSO:

• Coordinated three virtual Lunch & Learn workshops: “Why I do R programming in Visual Studio (VS) Code instead of RStudio,” “Tips and Tricks for Virtual Presentations,” and “Career Pathways in Geospatial Analytics.”
• Hosted a four-part Race and Place seminar series intended to highlight research that contextualizes race by speaking to environmental justice, equity, diversity and inclusion in the geographical and geospatial sciences.
• Held a Fall 2020 fundraiser and planned events for GIS Week 2021.
• Organized virtual game nights and a virtual holiday party to build community during the COVID-19 pandemic.