Symposium 2022 > Schedule

UCGIS Symposium 2022: GIScience Forward: Meeting the Challenge

June 7 - June 9, 2022 

Schedule is tentative and subject to revision.

All sessions will be held in the Schine Student Center, in Goldstein Auditorium (not to be confused with the Goldstein Student Center on South Campus).

Monday June 6Tuesday June 7  |  Wednesday June 8  |  Thursday June 9

Monday June 6, 2022

Time (Eastern) Session or Activities
9:00 am - 5:00 pm Workshops
3:00 pm SUNY-ESF Baker Lab tour
4:00 pm SUNY-ESF F. Franklin Moon Library tour

Tuesday June 7, 2022

Time (Eastern) Session or Activities
9:00 am Registration Desk Opens / Light Breakfast Available
10:15 am Welcome
10:30 am - 11:30 am Keynote: Barbara Ryan
11:30 am - 12:30 pm

Academia and Industry Partnerships Panel Discussion

12:30 - 1:45 pm Lunch Provided
1:45 -  2:45 pm

Education Session: Communicating Science

2:45 pm Break
3:00 - 4:30 pm  Research Session: Human Dynamics & Pandemic Reflections
4:30-4:45 pm  Day 1 Wrap Up
4:45 - 5:30 pm   Free Time
5:30 - 7:30 pm Opening Reception & Poster Gallery (Schine Center)

Wednesday June 8, 2022

Time (Eastern) Session or Activity
8:00 am Registration Desk Open / Light Breakfast Available
9:00 - 9:15 am Morning Greetings & Announcements
9:15 - 10:15 am

Research Session: AI in Spatial Decision Support

10:15 am Break
10:30 am - 12 pm Education Session: Addressing Technical Challenges in GIS Education
12:00 - 1:45 pm Lunch (Provided) and Council Meeting
1:45 - 2:45 pm  Student Lightning Talks, Session 1
2:45 pm Break
3:00 - 4:00 pm Student Lightning Talks, Session 2
4:00 - 4:45 pm UCGIS Award Presentations
4:45 pm Day 2 Wrap Up
5:00 - 5:45 Relaxed Yoga (sign up at registration desk - mats provided)

Thursday June 9, 2022

Time (Eastern) Session or Activity
8:00 am Registration Desk Opens / Light Breakfast Available
9:00 am Morning Greetings & Announcements
9:15 - 9:30 am UCGIS Community & Committee (C&C) Development Overview
9:30 - 10:30 am C&C Breakout Sessions
10:30 am Break
10:45 am - 12:00 pm Body of Knowledge Research & Education Activities
12:00 pm Lunch Provided
1:00 - 3:00 pm UCGIS Going Forward & Working Discussion
3:10 - 3:45 Holden Observatory Tour (sign up at registration table)
3:10 Walking Tour of historic Thornden Park/EM Mills Memorial Rose Garden
4:00 SU Campus Tour (sign up at registration table)
Late Afternoon / Evening No Host Gathering, Local Watering Holes

Sessions

SUNY-ESF Tours

SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry is a unique, small unit of the state university system granting PhDs, Masters and Bachelors Degrees in many environmental and natural resources fields. It is located on the same campus as Syracuse University, just south of the well-known Dome athletic facility. Faculty and students learn and conduct novel research in several aspects of geographic information science, beginning in the 1970s.

The tour includes two stops:

  • a visit to Baker Lab, where five graduate students will provide an overview of their novel projects and enable UCGIS participants to interact individually with students to learn specific project approaches and details.
  • a tour of the F. Franklin Moon Library, which has a focused collection, archives, and special collections to support the mission of SUNY ESF, and houses various primary sources including arial, place-in-point, and image-based sources that could be considered the pre-history of GIS and a special collection of GIS documents from the 50 states dating back to the beginning of GIS use.

Additional details here.


 

Industry Panel

Session Title: Academic - Industry Partnerships

Organizers:  Jane Read, Aaron Addison

Session Moderator:  Jeremy Mennis

Session Description: There has been a renewed interest in stronger partnerships between academia and private\industry in recent years.  Opportunities may be found in specific research, teaching, and higher education overall.  This panel discussion will explore the opportunities as well as the challenges each side of such partnerships must navigate to achieve shared success.

Panelists:

  • Barbara Ryan,  World Geospatial Industry Council (WGIC)
  • Angela Lee, Esri
  • Ken Stewart, NUAIR (Northeast UAS Airspace Integration Research Alliance, Inc.)


 

Research

Session Title: AI in Spatial Decision Support

Organizers:  UCGIS Research Committee: Xinyue Ye, Zhe Zhang, Lei Zou (Texas A&M University)

Session Moderators:  Xinyue Ye, Zhe Zhang, Lei Zou (Texas A&M University)

Session Description: In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) methods have been widely used for spatial decision support. The movement towards intelligent urban and environmental systems creates new challenges to the economic, social, cultural, and legal systems. AI technologies present an unprecedented potential to the design, planning, simulation, and visualization of neighborhoods and cities. In addition, technological advances have brought up new challenges and opportunities in urban and regional decision making theories, methods, practices, education, and ethics. This is an opportune time to explore how AI should function and thrive in the context of spatial decision support.

Panelists:

  • Somayeh Dodge,  University of California Santa Barbara
  • Jeremy Mennis,  Temple University
  • Xiaonan Tai, New Jersey Institute of Technology
  • Liping Yang, University of New Mexico

 


 

Session Title: Human dynamics and pandemic reflections (panel discussion)

Organizers: UCGIS Research Committee: Shih-Lung Shaw & Xiaobai Yao

Session Moderators: Shih-Lung Shaw & Xiaobai Yao

Session Description: Each panelist will be invited to give a short (5-10 minutes) discussion on research opportunities and challenges related to human dynamics and the pandemic. Open discussions will follow with the goal to identify the key research topics/challenges under this theme. It is our wish that, after these discussions, some UCGIS members will volunteer to lead future efforts UCGIS to pursue publications and/or grant activities on the identified topics and directions. The success of this session will facilitate future UCGIS group research collaboration efforts.

Panelists:

  • Shaowen Wang,  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
  • Kathleen Stewart,  University of Maryland
  • Shih-Lung Shaw, University of Tennessee
  • Eun-Hye Enki Yoo, University at Buffalo


Education

Session Title: Communicating Science: Environment, Climate, and Sustainability Education (panel discussion)

Organizers:  UCGIS Education Committee

Session Moderators: Forrest Bowlick & Jennifer Bernstein

Session Description: This session will explore methods, approaches, and content in Environment, Climate, and Sustainability Education. Within the broader context of science communication, this panel will discuss these topics during an interactive panel session discussion. Given the various interrelations and overlap between GIS and Geography education and Environmental, Climate, and Sustainability Education, this session will welcome engagement with the transcending expertise of participants to understand more of how teaching and learning operate within these spaces of learning. Panelists and participants will be encouraged to share ideas and operations of whatever components inspire them in this topic.

Panelists:

  • Joseph Kerski,  University of Denver, Esri
  • Don HassThe Paleontological Research Institution
  • Ingrid ZabelThe Paleontological Research Institution

 

Session Title: Addressing Technical Challenges in GIS Education (working  panel)

Organizers: Forrest J. Bowlick, Eric Shook

Session Moderator: Forrest J. Bowlick

Session Description: Technical challenges, broadly, are part of the everyday life of teaching and learning in GIS. This working panel session will invite participants to discuss technical challenges faced in their GIS instruction, consider solutions to said challenges, and generally offer a supportive environment to share problematic experiences and find support in the various challenges of GIS instruction over the past few years. Participants will work in small groups and on Google documents, with key findings shared by a panel representative of participants at the end of the session.

This is an interactive session (not panelists)



Community & Committee (C&C)

Session Title: Building the UCGIS Community and Role of Committees

Organizers: Jane Read, Aaron Addison

Session Moderator: Jane Read, Aaron Addison, Amy Rock, Shih-Lung Shaw

Session Description: UCGIS Committees have an important role to play in keeping our UCGIS community diverse and strong.  These back to back sessions will detail the function and need of committees and then transition into working groups that will inform the future of UCGIS committee responsibilities and focus areas.  Standing committees include:

  • Research - Yongmei Lu (Chair)
  • Education - Forrest Bowlick (Chair)
  • Communications - Jennifer Bernstein  & Kate Vavra-Musser (Co-Chairs)
  • External Relations - Linna Li & Robert Vos (Interim Co-Chairs)
  • Membership - Jennifer Swift (Chair)


 

Body of Knowledge

Session Title: GIS&T Body of Knowledge Research & Education Activities

Organizers: Diana Sinton

Session Moderator: Diana Sinton

During this session, hear from members of the editorial and managerial team of the GIS&T Body of Knowledge (https://gistbok.ucgis.org) about its forthcoming plans to migrate to a new digital platform (The Living Textbook), the subsequent access to interactive and analytical tools, and the ways in which we are establishing linkages between BoK topics and CyberGIS learning approaches, such as the use of Jupyter notebooks.