Charting a New Course: How I Found My Way to GIS and Spatial Data Science

[MeredithMartinez]

My career path has been anything but conventional, and each new role has added a unique layer to my professional journey. My name is Meredith Martinez and I am a graduate student pursuing a M.S. in Spatial Data Science with Pennsylvania State University World Campus, YPN Ambassador, student member of URISA, and military spouse. 

GIS is the discipline that connects my diverse background and fuels my passion for making a positive, large-scale impact. I truly think GIS/spatial data is an “everything” discipline - it touches everything, and everything touches it. I like to think that my varied experiences make me a more well-rounded professional, and allow me to draw from personal experiences when working with GIS. 

Keep reading to see how I found my way to GIS and spatial data science, how I’ve transformed a personal adventure into a meaningful GIS project, and why I believe GIS is the key to understanding and improving the world around us.

Finding My Niche in GIS

My undergraduate studies were not related to GIS at all. I graduated with my Bachelor’s of Arts in International Conflict Analysis and Resolution from George Mason University. For a taste, these classes involved a lot of international policy, political analyses, and some fun Model-UN-esque simulations. I also studied abroad in Cambodia to focus on post-genocide reconciliation. I grew up moving around overseas, all the way up until high school, and that childhood played heavily into my undergraduate studies. I knew I wanted to make a positive, large-scale impact, and that major seemed like the best way to do that.

Armed with my fresh Bachelor’s degree, I entered the workforce hopeful to find my niche and make a difference. I found myself gaining a very wide range of skills, wearing lots of different hats, and casting a wide net. Although versatile, my career didn’t seem to have a common thread. I wrote news briefs for a DC think tank, I analyzed White House correspondence for a federal agency, I was a Contact Park Ranger for a Virginia State Park, and I managed a Navy library in Sasebo, Japan, among other roles. After 7+ years of ping-ponging, I knew I needed to specialize in something. I wanted to find a field that would allow me to bring in all of the skills I’d already gained, but in a specialty that would grow with technology, allow me to keep my creative side, and still have that potential to make a positive, large-scale impact.

I first learned about GIS during my time as a State Park Contact Ranger. It piqued my interest as something that could meet all of the requirements I was looking for in a new field; it’s widely-applicable, will evolve & grow alongside tech advancements, allows you to use both your creative and technical skills, and GIS can be applied in many ways to make positive impacts. I knew it would be a lot of work on my end coming from a B.A./liberal arts background, but even then, I could see the huge value in GIS.

Building a Solid Foundation: From Zero to Spatial Data Science

I started my graduate studies with a certificate program with Michigan State University. I didn’t have any STEM-related prerequisites and needed courses that would help me work my way up from virtually zero in this new field. The Professional Certificate in Geographic Information Systems program with MSU was exactly what I needed, and provided an incredibly solid foundation for me to work from. 

I started getting my footing with ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS Pro, and remote sensing principles. I was actually taking my Remote Sensing course while in the process of moving from Virginia to Southern Japan - a hectic time, of course, with reports being submitted from airport bars and spotty airport wi-fi. But, I remember being in the plane, looking out the window and down onto the ground we were flying over, and being able to apply principles that I was actively learning in my Remote Sensing class to the farmlands and foliage I was seeing below. 

With my first GIS certificate complete, I then moved on to my second. I dove into the Master’s Certificate in Geospatial Programming and Web Map Development with Penn State. I didn’t have any programming experience prior, so I taught myself Python, ArcPy, SQL, and Javascript as I went. Not only did I learn so much from these courses, but I also proved to myself that I could excel in a STEM discipline without a STEM background.

With my second GIS certificate, I set my sights on a Master’s degree. Currently pursuing the M.S. in Spatial Data Science, I’m loving my new discipline and can’t wait to apply these skills to real-world problems. Crafting a Python script tool to analyze real-time wildfire data in ArcGIS, developing interactive web maps showcasing changes in protected lands over decades, and creating an online hub for fishing and hunting enthusiasts in Pennsylvania are among the projects I’ve completed during my courses, and they have deepened my appreciation for the power of GIS in effecting positive change.

Pulling From Personal Experiences for GIS Projects

In July of 2020, my best friend & I drove her Tesla Model 3 from San Francisco to Washington, DC. She moved back home to her parents’ place temporarily during the pandemic and needed to safely & quickly get her vehicle across the country. We decided that we’d stay at campgrounds for the whole trip to keep costs down, minimize social interaction (avoiding COVID-19), minimize the environmental footprint of the trip, and to maximize our sightseeing. We both love the outdoors, hiking, camping, and the National Parks. We try to be environmentally-minded in many aspects of our life, including using alternative fuel options (hence the Tesla) and enjoying the outdoors (hence the camping). What we didn’t realize is that finding and accessing electric vehicle chargers would be what our next two weeks would solely revolve around. 

Most outdoor recreation areas (parks, trails, campgrounds, etc.) tend to be located in more rural or less-densely populated areas. That is not surprising; what is surprising is how few & far between  electric vehicle chargers, and alternative fuel options in general, are when you find yourself in these areas. It would make sense that the theoretical Venn diagram of people who are environmentally-minded about their fuel choices and people that enjoy the outdoors has quite a bit of overlap. And yet, this demographic is not provided with the adequate resources to do so. Even aside from those that wish to use the outdoor recreation areas, the populations of the surrounding areas (rural towns; tend to be lower-income), are also not able to own electric vehicles due to the inaccessibility of charging stations. Making electric vehicle chargers more accessible to these demographics would help a wider range of people select alternative fuel options long-term that may be less harmful to the environment.

A few years later, I realized I could use my new skills in GIS to highlight this geographic disparity and provide a visual on the inaccessibility of EV chargers in rural and natural areas. I was able to find data on multiple U.S. states, but had to scale this down to just two states during the process of data prep and to keep the project on the more manageable & user-friendly side. I focused on Michigan and Massachusetts as my case studies for this project.

I started off by gathering data from various states’ Open GIS Data Portals online, available to the public. Both Michigan and Massachusetts have a robust and thorough offering of GIS data on their portals, and make it easy for users to download these in workable files (.shp, .kml, .csv, gdb.zip, etc.). The Massachusetts Department of Transportation has a very recently updated dataset of the state’s electric vehicle charging stations, and the Massachusetts Bureau of Geographic Information (MassGIS) has an updated dataset of the state’s recreational spaces and the trail networks, all of which I used for the project. Michigan Open GIS Data is always a great resource, and is where I found all four datasets that I used on the state’s electric vehicle chargers, State Park boundaries, campgrounds, and trails. I downloaded all of these datasets and imported them into ArcGIS Pro. After data prep and symbology in ArcGIS Pro, I moved all of the data into an ArcSDE geodatabase in SQL Server Express so that I could allow the user to edit the data – if new electric vehicle stations are built over time, my web map/app could still stay updated and relevant.

I separated my data out into reference layers (campgrounds, park boundaries, trails) and editable layers (EV chargers), and I was able to successfully serve my editable layers as FeatureServers on my ArcGIS REST Server, along with serving my reference layers as regular MapServers so they could be layers in my web map. 

Once my data was on the server, I began working with Javascript, HTML, and CSS to create a customized, interactive web map using the data. Using the ArcGIS API for Javascript, I was able to make a site that showed both maps (one of Michigan and one of Massachusetts), one on top of another, with helpful pop-ups enabled and widgets around them that allowed the user to interact with the data in ways that are relevant, including directions, layer list, legend, and zoom.

I wanted to be sure to include the directions widget to allow the user to pinpoint an outdoor recreation area and its nearest EV charger and be able to quickly see how far of a drive it would be between the two. 

I also went ahead and used the same data from my server to create an Experience app in ArcGIS Online (using Experience Builder). I uploaded the data to my ArcGIS Online account using the add-by-url feature to grab them straight from the server. In Experience Builder, I set the two web maps side-by-side, surrounded by their corresponding widgets as described above.

My web app and experience both highlight the geographic disparity of EV chargers in and around outdoor recreation areas. Unfortunately, camping and other outdoor recreation is inaccessible if traveling in a vehicle that requires electric chargers. This can also serve as an indicator that owning/operating an EV is also inaccessible to those who live in rural areas. This shouldn’t be the case, and hopefully this disparity changes within the coming years.

For a video demo of this project, visit my online portfolio at meredithmartinez.com.

Sources:

The Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDoT)

Massachusetts Bureau of Geographic Information (MassGIS)

Michigan Open GIS Data

Reflecting On My Journey

Finding my way to GIS felt like assembling a jigsaw puzzle where each seemingly unrelated piece now has the opportunity to fit into a place. From State Parks to White House correspondence to Navy libraries, every experience has contributed to my unique perspective and skill set in GIS. The field's versatility and potential for positive impact have proven to be the common thread I was searching for. 

Through my studies, professional roles, and personal projects, I've seen firsthand how GIS can illuminate issues, solve problems, and inspire change. Whether you're an aspiring GIS professional or simply exploring new career paths, remember that every twist and turn in your journey can lead to something extraordinary, and that GIS is all around us! You can use personal experiences - like a pandemic road trip with your best friend - and turn them into GIS projects. My own journey is a testament to that—and it's only just beginning.