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Antarctic
ANTARCTIC EXPEDITIONS
AND PROJECTIONS
This map, created as part of Middlebury College's Spring 2017 Cartographic Designer seminar, looks at Antarctic expeditions to the South Pole and describes the use and importance of cartographic projections. The goal for the project was to visualize a spatial narrative using a unique or uncommon protection, and teach the reader about how projections are used in mapmaking. I chose to look at the history of Antarctic expeditions and use a South Pole Azimuthal Equidistant projection. Initial data collection was done in ArcGIS, and the cartography and layout design was done in Adobe Illustrator. This map was displayed in the map gallery at the North American Cartographic Information Society (NACIS) annual meeting in Montreal, QC during October 2017.
Click on the graphics to open in a new window!
DAPL
DAKOTA ACCESS PIPELINE ROUTE
This map was created as part of Middlebury's introductory GIS course, Spatial Thinking with GIS, during Fall 2016. The initial data collection and layout was done during the course in ArcGIS, but most of the cartography was finished in Adobe Illustrator during Fall 2017 after I took Middlebury's Cartographic Design seminar. The goal of the project was to represent and describe the impact of the Dakota Access Pipeline on drinking water sources and tribal lands in North Dakota. This map was created while the protests at Standing Rock were ongoing, and it was when I heard that the pipeline construction had completed and oil was already flowing that I decided to complete the layout with up-to-date information.
badger
BADGER-TWO MEDICINE
During Middlebury's 2018 January term, I worked with Becca Holdhusen '18 on a cartography independent project advised by Professor Jeff Howarth. For our project, we researched and mapped the history of environmental and political injustice on the Blackfeet reservation and their sacred lands in Montana near Glacier National Park.
One aspect of our research explored the history of the Blackfeet reservation from 1800 to 1895, in particular the actions of the American and Canadian governments to drastically reduce their homeland through false treaties and intimidation. In addition, we researched the modern day environmental struggles to ban oil and gas leasing on the Badger Two-Medicine, which has been in place since the 1980s. We were also facsinated with the topography and geography of Northern Montana and created two terrain layouts of the surrounding areas, one of which is shown to the right and below. As part of our project, we examined the meaning and uses of mountain cartography and whether it can be used to enhance our understanding of issues of injustice.
Anchor 1
CELTICS
VISUALIZING THE TRAVEL SCHEDULE OF THE 2015-2016 BOSTON CELTICS
This infographic was my final project for Middlebury's Spring 2017 Cartographic Design seminar. As an avid NBA and Boston Celtics fan, I am very interested in combining my interests in data visualization and cartography with basketball. For this project, I looked at the Boston Celtics' 2015-2016 season and analyzed how travel impacted their chances of winning.
I would recommend clicking on the layout to open up the full size document for viewing, since it was designed to be viewed on a webpage by scrolling. I was heavily inspired by the brilliant work of Tom Haberstroh (ESPN) and Nate Silver (FiveThirtyEight).
BEARTOOTH
GLACIAL CHANGE IN THE BEARTOOTH MOUNTAINS, MONTANA
These two maps were created as part of the mountain cartography portion of Middlebury's Spring 2017 Cartographic Design seminar. Each student in the class looked at a different mountain range across the American West and looked at glacial change in this region over time. First, we digitized old USGS topographic maps showing glacial extents, during the 20th century, then compared these to the latest glacial data from the Randolph Glacier Inventory. I was looking at the Absaroka-Beartooth Mountains in Montana, and glacial change specifically in the Beartooths. My results show clear change from 1956 to 2017, especially downhill from peaks. During this section of the course, we also learned about mountain cartography techniques and designed reference maps of the region showing the unique topography of our region. I used a true-color palette and was inspired by the work of Eduard Imhof.
HARVEY
ENVIRONMENTAL INJUSTICE AND NATURAL DISASTERS
This research poster was my final project for Middlebury's Fall 2017 GIS Applications in Environmental Science course and was presented at a class-wide poster session. This project represents a semester of work and learning about using GIS analysis and techniques to deconstruct and understand environmental issues.
I chose to look at the situation in Harris County, Texas after Hurricane Harvey in August 2017. Since I completed the project only months after the disaster, data collection proved difficult and flood inundation areas were still preliminary. Therefore, I ended up looking at the large concentration of toxic sites in Harris County and using damage to these sites as a proxy for damage from the hurricane. Using data from the Sierra Club, I followed a modified environmental injustice workflow and analyzed whether certain demographic groups were more likely to live close to toxic sites before the hurricane, and whether damage caused by it disproportionately impacted these same populations. Please click on the image to view at full-size. It was made to print at 34"x44", so you may have to zoom-in to read the text!
BORDER RITES
INDIGENOUS BORDERLANDS AND BORDER RITES
Since September 2017, I have been working as a Research Assistant and Cartographic Designer for Dr. Guntram Herb, Middlebury College Department of Geography. Professor Herb's research project is entitled "Indigenous Borderlands and Border Rites" and aims to explore and share information and stories about native experiences with the U.S.-Canada border. In particular, his research involves looking at the social, political, and economic impact of the border on indigenous people in the United States and Canada. As a cartographic designer, I design and produce maps for the project's website and for other lectures and talks. I gather data and research indigenous issues, analyze and store data in ArcGIS Desktop, and produce static layouts with the Adobe Creative Suite or interactive maps with ArcGIS Online.
To the left above is one layout I designed and created of the fieldwork Dr. Herb has done over the past two years across the United States and Canada. The second is a map depicting the routes of the Mother Earth Water Walks, a group of indigenous activists that organize walks around the Great Lakes and other bodies of water to bring awareness to water issues. Finally, here are links to some of the interactive maps I have worked on:
FLOW
FLOW FREE JAVA APPLET
As a final project for Middlebury's Fall 2017 Data Structures course, I implemented a modified Java Applet version of the popular computer and mobile phone game Flow Free. Flow Free presents a grid of squares with colored dots occupying some of the squares, and the user must connect the colored pairs with non-intersecting paths to fill the grid. I implemented the game with classmate Zack Peters '18.
To view and play the applet in your browser, click on the image to the left. Unfortunately you will need to allow Java Applets to run in your browser in order to see and play it. The applet will only be able to run in Safari, Internet Explorer, and some versions of Firefox. To enable the applets, you will need to go into the Java settings for your computer and click "Enable Java content in the browser" and add "http://www.cs.middlebury.edu/" to the exception site list.
Our code is stored on GitHub here.
VRDI
VOTING RIGHTS DATA INSTITUTE
During Summer 2018, I held the position of Summer Fellow with the Voting Rights Data Institute, a program of the Metric Geometry and Gerrymandering Group out of MIT and Tufts University. I worked on a range of different projects related to gerrymandering and U.S. political redistricting.
One of the overarching themes and challenges of the summer was how to operationalize varying state rules across the country into the algorithms and programs we were designing. In this vein, one project I worked on was visualizing the congressional redistricting rules by state to provide an accessible guide to redistricting rules for the entire country. For this project, I built an interactive R Shiny app using Leaflet (screenshot to the right) that is now hosted on shinyapps.io here. The application takes about 30 seconds to load so please be patient! The code is stored on GitHub here.
The maps below are from a project I worked on that aimed to explore the phenomenon of prison gerrymandering in North Carolina. Prison gerrymandering is a term for the ways that the Census Bureau's counting rules disenfranchise incarcerated people and lead to vote distortion. For more information on prison gerrymandering, I would encourage you to visit the Prison Policy Initiative's website here. These maps examine the racial geography of incarceration in North Carolina and which counties benefit from the Census Bureau's prison counting rules. Vote inflation refers to a situation in which the incarcerated population is counted as part of the eligible voting population yet are not allowed to vote, leading to inflated influence for voters in these areas. Most often, this phenomenon occurs in rural, white areas where prisons tend to be located. In these cases, rural, white populations are over-represented due to the disenfranchisement of people of color.
Midd Music
MIDD MUSIC
As a final project for Middlebury's Spring 2019 Software Development course, I worked with a group of six to build Midd Music, a Middlebury-specific platform to connect student musicians with music fans on campus. In particular, the web application allows Middlebury musicians to login with the Google API, create and edit their profile, create and edit events, and publicize their information to students. You can view the app here. While it has not been deployed to the college community yet, there are a combination of fake and real profiles/events shown on the site. The application was built using React.js and Node.js over the second half of our semester.
My role in this project was multi-faceted. I led the overall design of the site and implemented many of the key functionalities, such as the calendar views on the home page, the featured artist sidebar, the search bar, the ability to create/edit/delete profiles and create/edit/delete events, as well as integration of the UI with the server.
To the left are three screenshots of the web app - home page (upcoming events view), create musician profile, and logged-in profile view.
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