Click each award to expand the category and read more about each winner.
Winner - Jenna Leveille (former Deputy State Cartographer with Arizona State Land Department)
For recognition of her years of service as the Arizona State Land Department Deputy State Cartographer and the numerous achievements she made while coordinating AGIC and its activities.
Winner - Kasey Green, Arizona State Land Department
I would like to nominate Kasey Green for the Outstanding Service Award. Kasey has managed the state’s data clearing house, AZGeo, over the past several years. He is an active member of the AZGeo Advisory Committee, and he has supported AGIC with kindness and customer service in mind. Kasey recently supported ADOT with language translation functionality for improved discovery of research documents. Something that required him to perform research and coordinate with others. Kasey is a pleasure to work with and deserves to be recognized.
Winner - Sage Donaldson, Arizona Department of Transportation
I would like to nominate Sage Donaldson for the AGIC Chairperson’s volunteer award. Sage is the co-chair of the outreach committee and she has been instrumental in the success of the committee’s activities but also in its work groups. Sage took the lead on developing documentation on defining authoritative data sources for AZGeo. She has supported the logistics of AGIC quarterly meet ups throughout the state. She has supported the AGIC mentoring program with her time and expertise in the community. I depend on Sage greatly. Furthermore, Sage is kind and a big star wars and harry potter fan like I am.
Winner - Phoenix Mapping Archaeology Project Team
In 2019, volunteers working at the S’edav Va’aki Museum (an archaeological site and park owned by the City of Phoenix) began PMAP, the Pueblo Grande Mapping Project. The goal was to digitize archival material including field maps, data forms and excavation reports and then enter that spatial and attribute data into a geodatabase. At first the small group (5 people) of mostly retired archaeologists and GIS specialists focused on one large Hohokam archaeological site, Pueblo Grande, located on land owned by the City of Phoenix and now renamed the S’edav Va’aki Village. As more volunteers joined the effort, work has expanded to include several dozen Hohokam archaeological sites within the City of Phoenix, and PMAP has become the Phoenix Mapping Archaeology Project.
Archaeological survey, testing and excavation has been conducted in Phoenix for over 140 years. During most of that time maps, notes, records and reports were hand-written, hand-drawn, and typewritten; only in the last 20 years have digital records been available. Typically, these notes, maps and reports were not published, and few copies of the documentation from each site exist. Not only does that limit the accessibility of the information, but it creates a dangerous situation because these unique and valuable paper documents are at risk of damage, loss or destruction. PMAP volunteers scan the documents, georeference the site information and create attribute data that links the separate tables and charts found in the reports.
To succeed with such a massive undertaking – compiling spatial data from dozens of sites, containing hundreds of thousands of excavated archaeological features and examining thousands of field maps, forms, and reports – required a well-designed geodatabase that could then be made available to a wide audience of users for analysis. The City of Phoenix has agreed to host the data and make it available through Story Maps, as well as more directly to students, researchers and others with GIS training.
Through staff members at the S’edav Va’aki Museum, PMAP volunteers are able to collaborate with members of local Native American descendant communities. Hohokam sites were the villages of their ancestors and represent important, tangible landmarks that relate directly to the oral traditions and values of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, the Gila River Indian Community and others.
Team Members:
Laurene Montero, City of Phoenix Archaeologist
Steve Rascona, Arizona Department of Water Resources GIS Hydrologist (retired)
Mary Whelan, GIS and Archaeology
Zach Rothwell, Volunteers with team, currently working as a GIS Developer for PaleoWest Consulting
Doug Mitchell, Archaeologist (retired)
Stephanie Sherwood, Volunteer with team, currently working for Desert Archaeology Consulting
Lauren Tennison, Volunteer with team, currently working for North Wind Consulting
Margaret Tueller, Volunteer with team, currently working for WSP USA
Chris Caseldine, Volunteer with team, currently working as a professor with the Arizona State University School of Human Evolution and Social Change (ASU SHESC)
Matt Peeples, Volunteer with team, currently working as a professor with the Arizona State University School of Human Evolution and Social Change (ASU SHESC)
Chis Schwartz, Volunteer with team, currently working for Terracon Consulting (archaeology no GIS)
Winner - Jack Avis, Arizona Professional Land Surveyors (APLS)
Jack Avis has been a long time contributor to AGIC. As a member of the Arizona Professional Land Surveyors (APLS) Jack chaired the APLS Geospatial Committee and led the initiative to update the APLS bylaws to include geospatial professionals. This effort was instrumental in bringing APLS and AGIC together to provide a venue for ensuring the interest of all geospatial professionals (surveyors and GIS) are recognized.
Jack also served on a variety of other AGIC workgroups including the 911 Working Group, the Cadastral workgroup (co-chair), and the State Plane Coordinate System 2022 workgroup (co-chair).
Jack has often given presentations at the annual AGIC Symposium and never hesitates to help others with geospatial guidance. He is a true professional who has continual given back to the AGIC community and deserving of the Gene Trobia Lifetime Achievement Award.
Winner - Garrett Raubinger, Maricopa County
The Iron Cartographer was a 60-minute cartographic challenge between Garrett Raubinger, GIS Analyst/Cartographer for the Maricopa County Enterprise Technology & Innovation Program, and Jennifer Psillas, GIS Project Manager for the City of Tucson. The competitors were provided a theme, data, and a computer to work on. They had 60-minutes to create a map while the audience watched their progress on big screens and learned some tips along the way.
This year, Garrett was voted by symposium attendees as the winner, defending the title he earned last year. To view the maps Garrett and Jennifer created, please visit the 2024 Maps & Apps Gallery.
A special thanks to Works Consulting and Mil Geospatial, LLC for sponsoring this year's contest.
The AGIC Maps & Apps Contest provided a chance for the Arizona GIS Community to submit printed maps or online maps & applications they were proud of and wanted to share with AGIC Symposium Attendees. Multiple entries were received for each category but only one winner was selected by vote from symposium attendees. All entries, including the winners, can be viewed on the Maps & Apps Contest Winners website.
Maps & Apps Categories
Winner - Jared Causseaux Map Gallery, submitted by Shaun Perfect, Arizona Department of Transportation
Each year, AGIC selects a special category for their Maps & Apps Contest. This year’s special category put the spotlight on how GIS is used to support volunteer efforts. This year's winner was Shaun Perfect with the Arizona Department of Transportation for his Jared Causseax Map Gallery storymap collection, which is a collection of map submissions from the 2024 AASHTO GIS in Transportation (GIS-T) Conference.
Winner - Envisioning Mesa's Transit Future, submitted by Mihir Sriram Aranala, AECOM
The City of Mesa Transit Master Plan is a 25-year plan designed to meet the needs of the city for both the short and long term. The plan helps ensure that the transit network responds to growth and change, provides connection to significant activity centers, and maintains a strong link to the regional network. The future transit network is a result of public engagement and technical analysis using various current and future data. The outcome of this exercise stems from processing various data. Automated analysis of data sources aided in increasing efficiency of the process and reduced analysis time by up to 75%. The map displays the proposed short-term, mid-term and long-term routes along with microtransit zones. Maps of the data used for analysis have also been shown.
Additional Contributor - Daksha Masurkar.
Winner - Ensuring Meaningful Public Engagement in Pinal County, submitted by Ruoshui "Rosie" Liu, AECOM
This poster presents a detailed breakdown of Pinal County’s Limited English Proficiency (LEP) Four Factor analysis. This analysis is essential for guiding and ensuring inclusive and effective public participation in future transportation projects within the region.
Winner - Lower Colorado River Habitats, submitted by Sam Draper, Audubon Southwest
Exploring important habitats along the Lower Colorado River and what they mean for birds and people.
Winner - Neighborhood Transit Study Community Engagement Application, submitted by Mihir Sriram Aranala, AECOM
The Neighborhood Transit Study Community Engagement application is a one-stop app to educate the public about the project, serve as a platform to explore demographic and existing conditions data, and as a medium to communicate and solicit comments on the proposed changes. The application was built using the Experience Builder tool to maximize functionality while displaying different content for each project phase. The existing conditions and transit demographic interactive maps help the user understand the current transit options and visually see where the transit-dependent population lives. When the comment period was active, they could add points on the map to indicate origins and destinations for their transit trips, as well as other comments related to the service. After that, the user could use the service options map to look at proposed routes, see what key destinations it served, and identify which routes they preferred. The app could also be translated to other languages.
Additional contributor - Daksha Masurkar.
Winner - Physical Geography of Arizona in LEGO Style, submitted by Atlas Guo, University of Wisconsin-Madison
With prior experience of making the award-winning LEGO style topographic maps of Wisconsin and Colorado, I am interested in exploring the visualization of physical geography with "layers", and Arizona is a perfect case. Furthermore, I try to combine this casual form of cartography with precise labeling of geographic features. I would assume both LEGO enthusiasts and map nerds would love it, and it might be used for education or tourism.
Winner - Consequences of Colliding Cultures in the Grand Canyon, submitted by Izzie B & Isabelle A, Corona del Sol High School
A 21st century analysis of the relationships between Indigenous Tribes and non-native populations and laws.