- Where do you work and what is your role?
Hello all, my name is Mark A Morales. I'm an aspiring Geographer with a BA in Physical Geography (1996) from Buffalo State College, and an MA in GIS (2009) from SUNY Buffalo, home of the NCGIA (National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis). I've come along way really, but have yet to find employment in GIS due to some health setbacks that are proving more formidable than any of the academic challenges that I've had to date. Oh, did I mention that as an aspiring Geographer, I was awarded the prestigious Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship in 1994, while pursuing my first BA degree. Mind you, this scholarship is usually awarded to aspiring scientists principally in Math and Engineering. So, for me, a former High School dropout, it was in the words of the Dean of Natural Sciences "a real feather in my cap".
- What GIS success have you had this year and what product did you use?
Since I haven't been employed full time in two decades, its put a big pinch on my wallet. I've been doing small personal projects on an Open Source GIS that have used some of the tools that were developed in graduate school while a student at SUNY Buffalo. My interests are in Spatial Analysis, which is what brought me to this site today. I'm interested in ESRI's products like ArcGIS, Spatial Analyst, etc. And ESRI Education is a new one for me. My MA degree's subject was the Geostatistical Analysis of Nitrate Deposition to the Niwot Saddle in Colorado. I had hoped that the tool set in ArcGIS would have been the acceptable method of analysis, but alas even though Ordinary Kriging was apropos, there was some conflict with what was known as a "moving window" statistic, and non-stationarity. So, the ArcGIS tool though useful wasn't the proper tool for the job.
In graduate school I was so glad though to see that ArcGIS had incorporated such a dynamic set of statistical tools in their product suite.
- What is your expertise (GIS related or not), and how can that help the community?
Having just an MA in GIS, I'd hardly qualify as an expert. I'd really like to work on the Developer's side of GIS, and would probably benefit on seeing what's behind the .shp shapefile format. I've tried my had to some degree at Google Earth's programming, and some very basic concepts related to the Google Maps API. Its there where my world stopped turning. I don't really know how to program computers, with only having taken two courses in Pascal during my undergraduate years (1992-1996), and I don't really have the language to adequately describe my dilemma, except to say, I want to engage in GIS Development, and I have some ideas, but I just don't know where to start. I've thought of doing remedial work and starting a second bachelor's degree in CIS, but that doesn't seem feasible at this point.
If I can help in other ways, I'm more than glad to.
Favorite Location:
Its a small park in the City of Tonawanda, NY, called Clinton Park. The public gazebo, surrounded by a couple 100+ years old maple trees and some oaks, is quite relaxing to me.
43° 1'3.80"N, 78°52'53.63"W