Preface fromProceedingsEditors
The 3rd Annual University of Washington (UW) GIS Symposium was held on May 14, 2019 in the University of Washington’s Research Commons, an interdisciplinary space devoted to highlighting student and faculty research. This year’s symposium continued its mission of providing a space for all members of the UW GIS community to come together to present on and discuss GIS-related issues.
In an effort to incorporate more student perspectives into the GIS Symposium, for the first time this year, two graduate students unaffiliated with the Libraries served on the planning committee for the event. Their contributions were greatly appreciated, and one of the students, Theodore Davenport, delivered a Tech Talk (another new addition to this year’s Symposium) on creating Story Maps.
This year’s keynote address was delivered by Dan Brown, who joined the UW as Director of the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences in 2018. His talk gave an overview of how advances in the availability of spatial data and process modeling have improved the capabilities and impact of GIS in his field over the past few decades. Following the Tech Talk, presenters from four UW departments/centers (Anthropology, the Center for Studies in Demography & Ecology, Computer Science and Engineering, and Near Eastern Languages and Civilization) delivered 5-minute lightning talks on topics ranging from mapping cholera data to creating a new campus hub to access innovative and restricted data. The poster walk highlighted GIS work being done in the College of Real Estate, Geography, Environmental and Forest Science, and Social Work on topics ranging from homelessness in Seattle to public school quality in Washington state.
This year’s symposium was open to all members of the UW community and the broader public and was attended by 41 people. We would like to thank everyone who contributed to the success of this year’s UW GIS Symposium. Special thanks goes to members of the UW GIS Symposium planning committee for their contributions and insight, the staff of the Research Commons for being gracious hosts of the event for the 3rd time, and to the UW Libraries for sponsoring refreshments.
Proceedings Editors
Kian Flynn, UW Libraries
Matt Parsons, UW Libraries