As a lead GIS faculty member on campus, service activities have comprised a large, and important, part of my responsibilities. My primary service duty is as Director of the Geographic Information Systems Spatial Analysis Laboratory (GISSAL) where I manage a staff of 6-10 students, one post-doctoral research associate, and help coordinate activities of a full-time geodatabase specialist and co-located federal agency scientists. During the past three years, I have enhanced the capability and increased the research capacity of GISSAL by hiring a post-doctoral research associate and, through the GIScience Infrastructure Enhancement Targeted Excellence Program, providing the majority of funding for a full-time geodatabase specialist. Most recently, the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has funded the position for a GIS Science Fellow at K-State that is housed in GISSAL. Since I became director in August 2001, all or portions of over $4 million in grants are in progress or have been successfully completed by graduate and undergraduate lab staff.
Additional departmental and university service includes my role as administrator of the Graduate Certificate in GIScience, administrator of the Undergraduate Certificate in GIS, member of the campus GIS Steering Committee, and department webmaster. GISSAL also plays important roles in supporting or representing the Department of Geography in the planning and execution of events such as K-State’s annual Open House, student recruiting fairs, National Geography Awareness Week, International GIS Day, and summer workshops sponsored by the Women in Engineering and Science Program (WESP) - see photos to the right. I also recently served as co-chair for the Strategic Ways to Acquire Technology (SWAT) committee responsible for crafting the proposal for the KSU GIS Commons Portal.
At the state level I serve as a member of the Nonpoint Source Pollution Control Advisory Council, was a past member of the State GIS Technical Advisory Board, and have been appointed to the Kansas GIS Policy Board by both Governor Graves and Sebelius.
The Kansas GIS Policy Board is responsible for the development of standards, strategies, and policies that emphasize cooperation and coordination among agencies, organizations, and government entities in order to maximize the cost effectiveness of GIS by creating public and private partnerships throughout Kansas. The board consists of 27 Governor-appointed members from state and local government agencies as well as public, private, and academic interests. The primary responsibility of the board is to provide review, coordination and recommendations of GIS programs and investments. My role in this organization is to provide essential subject matter expertise in deliberations and to represent the interests of GISSAL, the Department of Geography, and Kansas State University at the state level.
Nationally I have been active in the professional organizations of which I am a member through conferences and as newsletter editor for the Water Resources Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers (AAG) and as a delegate to the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS).
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