Assistant professor, Geospatial Data Sciences 

I am a geographer, land change researcher and data scientist. My research aims to describe, project, and explain land change, and map the material and non-material benefits we derive from land systems, testing how digital visualization of these data can add new place-based knowledge in science and community decision-making. My growing body of interdisciplinary work uses social science theory, community engagement, and advanced computational techniques in GIS, big data, machine learning, spatial statistics, and spatial-temporal computer modeling (e.g. agent-based and cellular automata). I completed my PhD in Spatial Analysis and Decision Support in 2012 at the Vrije University, Amsterdam. After my doctorate, I engaged in postdoctoral research at The Ohio State University, North Carolina State University, and finally as an ORISE Fellow at the EPA. I joined the School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) in 2019, tasked with contributing a data science, geovisualization and design perspective to the school.  

E-mail: dbvanber at umich dot edu

Education: B.A. - Geography, University of Calgary (2005); M.Sc. – Human Geography, Utrecht University (2007); PhD - Spatial Analysis and Decision Support, Vrije University (2012)

Postdoctoral Researcher

Nathan Fox is a Research Fellow in Environmental Science at the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability. His research focuses on the use of novel big datasets for assessing a range of environmental challenges including; the use of big data from social media to assess human-nature relationships, and how gamification can facilitate citizen participation in environmental planning. His work aims to understand how people can have equitable and sustainable access to nature while conserving it for future generations and it uses a variety of methodological  and theoretical approaches from a range of disciplines including; data science, ecology, geoscience and social sciences. Within the rapidly developing field of environmental driven data science Nathans’s work carries the underlying ethos that open-source software and collaborative approaches provide the best opportunities for finding solutions for these multifaceted challenges.

E-mail: foxnat@umich.edu

Education: MEnvSci - Masters of Environmental Science University of Southampton (2017); PhD - Ocean and Earth Sciences, University of Southampton (2021)

Associated Researcher

Associated Researcher, Ramiro Serrano Vergel, is working on how gamification can facilitate citizen participation in environmental planning.  His Ph.D. is in Information Science and his Master’s Degree is in Systems and Computing Engineering. Vergel's research addresses augmented and virtual reality (AR and VR respectively), and the development of interactive graphical applications based on the cross-platform game engine Unity3D. His applied perspective focuses on the design and conception of new solutions based on immersive and interactive visualization of massive data contexts.

E-mail: ramiros@umich.edu

Education: BEng. System Engineering Universidad Industrial de Santander, Colombia (2004); MSc Systems and Computing Engineering Universidad de los Andes, Colombia (2013); PhD Information Science University of Arkansas at Little Rock (2020).

PhD Student, Geospatial Data Science

My doctoral study addresses how values, beliefs, and behavior are linked to sustainability outcomes. In particular, I am interested in understanding land use decision making in sacred sites and its relation to decision making in the surrounding landscape under multiple decision criteria. My key research question asks how values for nonmaterial and nonmarket goods and services motivate sustainability decision making in the presence of competing values and in the context of tradeoffs. My educational background includes completion of the Master of Environmental Management and Master of Divinity degrees from Duke University, and the Bachelor of Arts degree from Warren Wilson College. I'm active on Twitter @faith_ecology

E-mail: dagrace at umich dot edu

Education: MEM – Ecosystem Science and Conservation; Duke University (2017)

PhD Student

Devin Gill is studying the production of actionable knowledge, specifically how to ensure greater equity and scaling up of community engagement in climate research. She has a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan’s Program in the Environment and History, as well as a Master of Science from UM SEAS with concentrations in Behavior, Education, and Communication as well as Conservation Ecology. With more than 10 years experience working as a stakeholder engagement practitioner, she has worked on issues of deforestation in Malawi, non-native invasive species control in West Virginia, and on a range of water quality management issues in the Great Lakes region. As a Graduate Student Research Assistant with GLISA, her future work will focus on assessing the role of co-produced knowledge in building adaptive capacity in the Great Lakes region in response to climate change.

E-mail: deving@umich.edu 

Education: 

Visiting PhD Student

I am a visiting PhD student majoring in land resource management from the Zhejiang University in China. My research focuses on the dynamic interactions between humans and the environment within the land system. Specifically, I employ interdisciplinary approaches to measure and explain the land use/cover change and analyze the impacts of these changes on human well-being. Throughout my PhD studies, I have actively participated as a core contributor in several projects in collaboration with local governments. These experiences have prompted me to reflect more profoundly on the gap between scientific research and effective land governance and planning. My current work is about the land use functional conflicts among

stakeholders under the context of rapid urbanization in China.

E-mail: xiaoqif@umich.edu

Education: Bachelor of Management – Land Resource Management, Zhejiang University, China (2019) 

Masters Student

I am a Geospatial Data Science student at SEAS, currently pursuing my master's thesis. My passion lies in harnessing the power of geovisualization techniques to create GIS tools that support informed sustainable development decision-making. Currently, my thesis focuses on developing and testing decision-support tools for urban flooding management. In pursuit of this goal, I leverage open-source data and design GIS tools adhering to OGC standards, using a combination of JavaScript and Python. My work aims to address the critical challenges of urban flooding and pave the way for more resilient and sustainable urban environments.

E-mail: limqq@gmail.com

Education: Bachelor of Geographic Information Science, Northwest University (China)

Email: ningzr@umich.edu

I’m a MS student majoring in Geospatial Data Science in SEAS, My research focuses on exploring the impact of climate change anomalies on human behavior. To do this, I am utilizing a social media dataset as a valuable source of information. Social media platforms have become significant repositories of human interactions with the environment, making them an excellent resource for studying how people respond to and are influenced by climate-related anomalies. By analyzing user-generated content on social media, I aim to identify patterns and trends in behavior that are associated with climate change anomalies. These anomalies could include extreme weather events, unusual temperature fluctuations, or other environmental disruptions that deviate from expected or historical norms. 

Education: Bachelor of Science – Atmospheric Science, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology , Nanjing, China (2023)