University Consortium for
Geographic Information Science
www.ucgis.org

In this issue

UCGIS News

A conversation with Nina Lam

We must continue to strive to increase the visibility and the value of GIScience to society at large, says incoming UCGIS President, Dr. Nina Lam. 

Professor Nina Lam is no stranger to the GIS community – full professor and R. J. Russell Distinguished Professor of Geography at Louisiana State University, Nina has been active within UCGIS since its inception (Louisiana State University was one of the founding members of UCGIS). 

Dr. Nina Lam has also been nationally and internationally recognized for her scholarship and research in using advanced GIS and remote sensing techniques to solve societal problems.  She has served as the Program Director of the Geography and Regional Science Program at the National Science Foundation.  In 2004, at the 100th Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Dr. Nina Lam received the 2004 AAG Remote Sensing Specialty Group Outstanding Contributions Award for her contributions to the field of remote sensing and to the geographic community through her research, teaching, and outreach.

Laxmi Ramasubramanian, faculty member at Hunter College’s Department of Urban Affairs and Planning, and a member of the UCGIS Communications Committee, recently interviewed Dr. Lam to learn more about her vision and goals for UCGIS.

Laxmi: 

What are the main issues that UCGIS, as an organization, must address in the next few years?

Nina:

First, let me start by saying that UCGIS is doing very well as an organization.  In a relatively short time, UCGIS has established itself as a strong advocate for the academic GIS community, especially in creating visibility for GIScience as a critical  research area deserving of federal funding.  I am grateful to my peers and colleagues who have worked in a variety of ways to strengthen the organization over the years.  

However, I am also reminded of an old Chinese proverb that says that it’s easy to start a new project, but a lot harder to keep it going.  In short, we encounter new challenges, now that UCGIS is a mature and established organization.  One of the central issues is that UCGIS must work on is helping  raise the value of GIScience research to federal, state, and local policymakers who influence funding allocations for research and development activities.

Laxmi:

Isn’t raising visibility to policymakers one of the goals of our UCGIS winter meetings?

Nina:

You’re right.  We have continued to hold these Winter meetings in Washington DC so that we can showcase the best work of our community to policymakers and decision makers their so that they will have data and evidence when it comes time to consider funding allocations for NSF or other science and educational programs. For the 2005 winter meeting, we are emphasizing the interlinkages between GIScience and Public Health and we have an impressive line up of presentations (a list of presentations can be found on our website, http://www.ucgis.org/winter2005/schedule.htm).

However, the winter meetings are only one avenue to make visible the good work that we do.  We have an interesting situation occurring - although a lot of people use GIS and may even see GIS as an enabling science, they are hard pressed to explain why GIScience should be at the core of science or social science research.  We need to be able to identify projects that showcase how GIScience can be an effective core of science/social science research.

I think it’s partly our job as UCGIS members to explain what GIScience is to a non-technical audience.  We can take our cues from the physical and biological sciences where scholars tend to agree on the central questions that are of significance to the field.  We need to work towards building consensus on the overarching research questions that need to be addressed in the coming decade.  As we set research priorities, it’s important that we don’t end up developing a laundry list of issues that need to be addressed, but really come to grips with the most important issues where we can use our skills, knowledge, and expertise to make a meaningful contribution to addressing social problems.

Laxmi:

It seems to me that when we compare ourselves to the physical and biological sciences, we are severely underfunded….what is UCGIS doing to address this issue?

Nina:

With several colleagues both within and outside UCGIS, we are working to convince national funding agencies such as NSF that there is a need to create a focused program in GIScience.  Such a program would create a structural change in the funding allocation model and increase the research funding available to our community.  However, this is a major challenge.  In the short run, the success of our individual member institutions in securing research funding from a variety of sources suggests that our work is being recognized at different levels, from the community level to the international arena.  However, having a clear set of research objectives that we pursue as a community of scholars makes us attractive to funding agencies.  UCGIS, I believe is the appropriate organization to take on the challenge of crafting a research agenda for the coming decade.  I, for one, would like to see us develop stronger intersections with public health, which will open up funding opportunities from NIH, for instance.

Laxmi:

What would you say are the benefits of becoming a UCGIS member institution?

Nina:

My university, Louisiana State University, was one of the founding members of the consortium.  At LSU, the membership has helped us formalize and strengthen an on-going collaborative relationship across departments.  Over the years, our membership has helped us to establish a strong GIScience presence within the university.  Clearly, UCGIS helps foster networks and linkages between individual members at different colleges and universities and strengthens the possibilities for doing truly collaborative research.  But, more importantly, UCGIS provides a structure for faculty and students from different departments within a single institution to come together as a cohesive unit.  This function is particularly important for those institutions that don’t have a large geography or GIS program or for smaller colleges and universities where individual faculty members may not have the opportunities to work across traditional disciplinary boundaries to pursue their interests in GIS.

For students, the UCGIS summer meetings provide a valuable opportunity to meet with senior scholars in a relatively relaxed setting, and to connect with their peers.  They are also able to showcase their work.  Regardless of their disciplinary identity, they are able to create and sustain their identity as a GIScientist or GIScholar.

From my LSU experience, I would say that the intangible benefits of being a UCGIS member institution are many.  We’ve created an integrated GIScience curriculum that serves both undergraduate and graduate students.  The growing cadre of students graduating with knowledge and skills in GIS become our ambassadors within and outside the state.  Our listserve, the LSUGIS list links current and former students and becomes a resource for students looking for jobs and other opportunities.   Likewise, the list is our connection to state and local GIS activities.  UCGIS membership helps us strategically manage our facilities and brings us together to develop university-wide software licensing agreements.  GIS@LSU is a success story, exemplified by the fact that my research group has recently been awarded funds to create and maintain a new Spatial Laboratory, which is part of the Louisiana’s investment in IT infrastructure.

Laxmi:

Any concluding comments…

Nina:

What UCGIS has done over the past few years has been great; I am looking forward to continuing the good work and working towards the goal of creating a sustainable funding base of GIScience research.  I invite members to send in updates about activities at their institutions to us so that we can showcase it on our UCGIS website, http://www.ucgis.org.

back to page 1