News

The Cartography and Geographic Information Society (CaGIS) is pleased to announce its inaugural awardees for the CaGIS Rising grant program. CaGIS Rising projects include research or outreach efforts that have the potential to transform global challenges into new opportunities that advance and promote Cartography and GIScience. Creativity, novelty, and the potential for broader impacts to society constitute key criteria for evaluating these proposals for funding.

The first round of CaGIS Rising projects to be selected for funding include:

• Remastering Natural Earth with Neural Networks Bridget Walker, Dilpreet Singh, Tom Patterson, and Bernhard Jenny  Monash University, U.S. National Park Service
• Modeling and Visualizing the Extents of Historical Regions Ivan Majic, Rizwan Bulbul, Johannes Scholz, Karl Grossner, and Eric Delmelle Graz University of Technology, University of Pittsburgh, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
• Change in US Contrail Outbreaks Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic Eun-Kyeong Kim, University of Zurich

CaGIS congratulates these project leaders, and we look forward to announcing the next call for proposals for the second round of CaGIS Rising grants in the near future.

Tom Augspurger will be presenting “Scalable Sustainability with the Microsoft Planetary Computer” at the next GeoBytes webinar on Friday, February 25 at 12:00 pm ET. The webinar is FREE for all CaGIS members. See attached abstract for more information about the presentation.

Please see the CaGIS GeoBytes page for more information on registering.

Abstract

Working with environmental, geospatial data can be challenging. The huge amount of data from a many different sources makes it difficult to find the bits that you care about. Analyzing the data is difficult, especially if it’s larger than your machines memory. The Planetary Computer helps address these challenges by hosting and cataloging environmental data in consistent formats, providing APIs for searching the data, and compute to scale your workflows.

Tom Augspurger is a software engineer at Microsoft working on the Planetary Computer. He helps maintain several libraries in the PyData ecosystem, including pandas and Dask.

CaGIS is pleased to announce the call for submissions of extended abstracts and pre-conference workshop proposals for AutoCarto 2022 which will be a hybrid event for both in-person attendees and remote meeting participants. The theme of AutoCarto 2020 is Ethics in Mapping: Integrity, Inclusion, and Empathy which brings attention to ethical responsibilities we face in all aspects of our discipline with conversations on the power of maps and the critical need for integrity, inclusion, and empathy in cartography and GIScience. Submissions on topics from all areas of cartographic and geographic information science are welcome

AutoCarto will be held in Redlands, CA, on the Esri campus November 2-4, with Workshops on November 1.

Save the Date for AutoCarto 2022!

November 2–4
Workshops on November 1
Redlands, California, on the Esri Campus

CaGIS proudly presents AutoCarto 2022, the 24th International Research Symposium on cartography and GIScience, with its focus on the intersection of the two.

AutoCarto 2022 brings attention to the ethical responsibilities we face in all aspects of our practice, provides a forum for discussion on the power of maps and spatial analyses, and highlights opportunities for discussions of integrity, inclusion, and empathy in cartography and GIScience.

Dan Cole and Aileen Buckley are Co-Chairs of the Organizing Committee, and Marguerite Madden and Angela Yao are Co-Chairs of the Program Committee.

We are looking for additional help, including students! Please see the conference website to see how you can get involved.

CaGIS BOARD CALL FOR NOMINATIONS 

The CaGIS Board is calling for nominations to the Board to serve starting spring of 2022. 

There are 3 positions open: the Vice President, and two Director positions. Membership on the CaGIS board requires current membership in CaGIS while serving on the Board. The CaGIS bylaws state that the Vice President position for this next year be filled with a person in government or in the private sector. However, if such a person cannot be recruited the position can be filled by an academic member. The two director positions are open to anyone in academia, government or private sector.

The responsibilities and expectations of these positions are as follows:

The Vice-President shall be elected by the Voting Members for a term of one (1) year. The Vice President shall preside at the meetings of the Society and of the Board in the absence of the President and President Elect, and discharge the duties of the President in the event of disability or in case of a vacancy in both that office and the office of President Elect. 

The Vice President shall automatically succeed to the position of President Elect for a term of one (1) year at the end of their term as Vice President, and then automatically succeed to the position of President for one (1) year at the end of their term as President Elect, and then automatically succeed to the position of Past President for one (1) year after their term as President.

Directors shall be elected for four (4) – year terms by Voting Members. The term of the Directors shall be staggered so that no more than three (3) Directors are elected in any one-year. No more than three (3) Directors may be employed by the Federal Government at the time of their election. A director may serve no more than two consecutive terms on the Board. The Directors shall aid in the management of the affairs of the Society, shall furnish counsel, and shall participate in all official actions of the Board.

Board Responsibilities:

The primary responsibility is conducting the activities of the Society. The Board has the authority to determine policies and procedures of the Society; providing such actions are in conformity with the provisions of the CaGIS By-Laws. The President, in consultation with the Treasurer, the President Elect, and the Vice President, shall prepare an annual budget including dues paid annually by the members to cover costs of Society programs and activities. The President shall submit the budget to the Board for approval.

Please contact Scott Freundschuh (scott.freundschuh@gmail.com), Exec Dir with nominations by replying to this email. Self nominations are welcome. Nominees must submit a brief bio, and a statement of their interest and what they could contribute to CaGIS and the Board.

The deadline for receiving this information is January 1.

The US National Committee (USNC) is proud to announce the ten Early Career Scholars who were awarded ICA scholarships to attend the 30th International Cartographic Conference and International Cartographic Exhibition in Florence, Italy, on December 14-18, 2021. Congratulations scholars!

Johanna Avelar (U Southern California)
Harrison Cole (Pennsylvania State U)
Nick Lally (U Kentucky)
Andong Ma (Texas A&M U)
Chelsea Nestel (U Wisconsin – Madison)
Lois Park (U Southern California)
Tim Prestby (Pennsylvania State U)
Gene Trantham (Pennsylvania State U)
Yanan Wu (U Texas – Dallas)
Lei Zou (Texas A&M U)

The Barbara Petchenik Children’s Map Competition entry deadline has been extended to June 15!

Organized by the Cartography and Geographic Information Society, the Children’s Map Competition is a map competition for all children ages 15 years or younger. The goal of the contest is to promote the creative representation of the world in graphic form by children. It is offered every two years to celebrate the creativity, imagination, artistry, and wisdom of child mapmakers.

Children are encouraged to submit a handmade map for this national competition. Teachers are encouraged to promote this competition to their students. First, second, and third place winners are selected in four age categories: under 6 years old, 6 to 8 years old, 9 to 12 years old, and 13 to 15 years old. An entry can be drawn by a single child or multiple children (up to three within the same age category).

CaGIS is proud to present the winners of the 2020 Map Design Competition. We thank the many contributors and judges! Please be sure to visit the 2020 Gallery to see some of the winners from this year’s competition.