During my final semester of the undergraduate GIS certification, I will be completing a GIS internship through my current employer, the US EPA. I work at the Gulf Ecosystem Measurement and Modeling Division (GEMMD) which is a research facility that falls under the Office of Research and Development (ORD) for the US EPA. During my internship, I will continue working on some ongoing projects that investigate potential pesticide risk for amphibian species in the southeastern US. We have been creating species distribution models based on climate suitability for various frog species found in the southeast. Once the models, are created, we can then predict future distribution using various climate scenarios. Once we have created current and future distribution models for the frog species of interest, we plan to assess the current and potential future overlap of frog distributions with agricultural hotspots. In addition to continuing to work on these ongoing projects, I will attend professional development trainings and webinars to learn about new tools that could be applied to future projects.
This week I also researched user groups that I might be interested in joining. I ended up joining two groups, Northwest Florida GIS User Group and Monterey Bay Marine GIS User Group. I elected to join both groups because I felt like each group offered different opportunities for me to grow as a GIS professional. The Northwest Florida GIS User Group is a local resource for me to connect with other GIS professionals since I reside in Pensacola, FL. There may also be potential for collaborations especially since I am involved in projects outside of work related to updating and designing trail maps.
As for the Monterey Bay Marine GIS User Group, I chose to join this group because much of my interests in research and science are with marine ecology. Despite not living near Monterey Bay, I am hoping to attend webinars hosted by this group and learn more about GIS applications for marine research. This user group seemed to be one of the more active marine GIS user groups that I could find.
In addition to the user groups that I join for class this week, I am also a member of a private GIS and R user group through the EPA. Between the groups that I have joined this week and the groups that I was already a member of, I believe that I have an excellent network of professionals that I can engage with and learn from.
Link to user groups:
Northwest Florida GIS User Group
Monterey Bay Marine GIS User Group
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