Welcome and thanks for visiting!

My name is Justine Blanford. I am a Research Associate at the GeoVISTA Center in the Department of Geography at The Pennsylvania State University.

I am a GIS specialist/analyst with over 15 years experience in both academic and non-academic environments throughout the world (North America, Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa).  My current research interests include using GIS and spatial analysis to investigate spatial and temporal phenomena particularly the ecology of disease, investigating connectivity between locations and for the management and monitoring of the environment.

More about myself can be found on my CV page.  However, in brief since graduating with a Ba(Hon) in Geography from Queen's University (Canada) in 1994, I have found myself intrigued with bugs of various shapes and sizes.  First with whiteflies and diseases they transmit to many crops for my MPhil in GIS at University of Leicester (UK) (2000) and then modeling the use of a bio-pesticide against locusts and grasshoppers for my PhD in Biology at Imperial College (UK) (2004).

Additional information about the current projects I am working on can be found on my Current Research page. In brief, I am involved in a number of different projects ranging from improving our understanding of the dynamics of disease across space and time in both data-rich (mosquito populations and West Nile virus in the state of Pennsylvania, USA) and data-poor (measles in Niger and the surrounding countries) environments;modeling transmission potential of malaria using different climate resolutions to understand what temporal scale is necessary to model vector-borne diseases both currently and in the future using downscaled data; as well as standardization of map symbolization and improve sharing of meaningful symbols across agencies during crisis management.