Presenting My Ph.D. Research: A Full-Circle Moment at IALE-NA 2025

Editor’s note: Each semester, students in the Geospatial Analytics Ph.D. program can apply for a Geospatial Analytics Travel Award that supports research travel or presentations at conferences. The following is a guest post by travel award winner Brit Laginhas as part of the Student Travel series.

Last April, I finally attended the International Association for Landscape Ecology-North America (IALE-NA) conference—a moment I had been looking forward to since the beginning of my graduate studies. Landscape ecology combines my passions for ecology, big data, and geospatial analytics, so I was excited for the opportunity to present my research at this conference. However, the pandemic and other hurdles have prevented me from attending IALE-NA until now, making this trip feel even more significant.

I presented my PhD. research on how coarsening grain size affects the predictive accuracy of pest spread. This question is central to landscape ecology, as changing spatial resolution can dramatically alter our understanding of ecological processes. When I learned I would be presenting in the final slot (5:10 pm!) on the last day of the conference, my mind quickly conjured an image of myself presenting to an empty conference room. However, when I entered the room, I was thrilled to see it packed and included many colleagues from the Center for Geospatial Analytics in attendance.

Presenting to a live audience energized me in a way that Zoom calls never do. I spent countless hours refining my slides and rehearsing, and I loved seeing real-time reactions. The audience’s thoughtful questions sparked new ideas for improving my analysis. One stand-out moment was when my former undergraduate statistics professor, Dr. Gil Pontius, a Geography faculty member at Clark University, raised his hand at the end of my talk. Years ago, he encouraged me to pursue a Ph.D. in “Geospatial Analytics,” although we called it Geography at that time. I instinctively braced for a stats question, which, of course, he asked, and then, promptly after questions, he offered a hug and congratulations on my successful presentation. At that moment, I felt a full circle connection between my undergraduate aspirations to pursue a career in Geospatial Analytics and my current doctoral work at NC State.

I left the conference feeling energized and with a more profound sense of belonging in the landscape ecology community. This experience has motivated me to incorporate feedback and seek collaborations that challenge and inspire me. This conference reminded me that open dialogue drives our discipline forward, and it renewed my resolve to share my findings—even if my name appears at the end of the schedule.