My Journey to GeoVis

The journey that led me to taking this class started back in the spring semester of my junior year. During that year it was a time where I was unsure of exactly what I wanted to do with the education I have been getting at the University of Richmond. I had not done any research at that point nor did I have a clear understanding of what it meant to be a Biology student in terms of options that were available to me post-graduation. There were a series of events that happened to me that really set me on the trajectory that I am currently on.

I began taking two classes, one was called Advanced Ecology and the other was Introduction to Geographic Information Systems (GIS). In the beginning the overlap was not very apparent to me, but it wasn’t long before the overlap was revealed to me. In Advanced Ecology we covered topics of a wide range. Some of those topics included animal migration, why animals react certain ways, how are animals affected by anthropogenic activity, and also how anthropogenic activity affects all of Earth’s systems. Parallel to learning all these things, in Introduction to GIS we were learning about cartography, and how GIS is used to conduct spatial analysis on population wide patterns, as well as patterns and phenomena of the Earth.

It wasn’t long before we hit on the biological applications of GIS. My first hand on experience using GIS with a biological application was to look for different trends or factors that may have led to the spread of Ebola in Liberia. In the project, using some of the paradigms and concepts I had been learning in Advanced Ecology I came up with a few ideas as to why Ebola might have spread faster or slower in some areas of Liberia, as well as why some areas had higher cases of Ebola than others. The factors that I thought might play a role in Ebola spread were places that had high populations, proximity to monkeys/places that consume monkey or bat meat—at the time the story was that Ebola was the first case of Ebola was caused by a spillover event from either cross contamination or consumption of a monkey or bat—I also thought wealth and household size played a role in how fast the disease might spread or the likely hood of it spreading.

The dilemma that I ran into is one that not only affects cartographers, but also a plethora of disciplines. That dilemma is how can we most effectively share the gathered data to the general public, and make sure that it is easily conveyed without being too simplified. Using the cartography skills that I had gained at the time I was able to come up with some maps, but I always knew that I could produce better maps. When the opportunity arose to take a course focused on map making I jumped on the opportunity.