Building a successful GIS career goes beyond technical skills—it also requires strong professional connections, continuous learning, and engagement with the broader geospatial community. This workshop is designed for students, recent graduates, emerging GIS professionals, and seasoned professionals who want to strengthen their professional network, expand their skillset, and discover new opportunities for career growth within the GIS industry. Attendees will hear directly from these organizations:
Geospatial Professional Network (GPN)
Esri Young Professionals Network (YPN)
American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS)
Women in GIS (WiGIS)
GIS Certification Institute (GISCI)
Join this workshop as they share how their organizations support professional development, networking, leadership opportunities, mentoring, certifications, and career advancement within the geospatial field. The workshop will end with an engaging networking activity designed to help foster meaningful professional connections and provide practical strategies for building their own GIS professional ecosystem.
This panel session aims to engage both panelists and the audience in a critical dialogue about the challenges, opportunities, and paths forward regarding the relationship between humans and GIS/GeoAI. We seek to explore how to develop a human-centered vision of GIScience and GeoAI that is both socially responsible and cognitively informed.
Moderator: Shih-Lung Shaw, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Panelists: Kathleen Stewart, University of Maryland Xuebin Wei, James Madison University John Wilson, University of Southern California May Yuan, University of Texas at Dallas Zhe Zhang, Texas A&M University Bo Zhao, University of Washington
Dr. Shih-Lung Shaw is Chancellor’s Professor and Alvin and Sally Beaman Professor in the Department of Geography and Sustainability at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His research interests cover GIS for transportation, space-time GIS, time geography, transportation geography... Read More →
This panel will discuss topics such as the impact of geoAI within government organizations, opportunities and challenges of AI with different government agencies as well as insights about workforce needs and desired skills.
Panelists: Samantha Arundel, Center of Excellence for Geospatial Information Science, US Geological Survey Mark Carroll, Data Science Group, NASA Goddard Elvis Martinez, Geographer and Data Scientist, US Census Bureau Ronda Schrenk, CEO, US Geospatial Intelligence Foundation Joy Pochatila, NSDI Geospatial Data Coordinator, Federal Geographic Data Committee, US Geological Survey
