Geographers without Borders

Michelle combines passion and experience in public health, climate change, community development, food systems, and policy. her niche is in quantitative methods and urban data science, including GIS and machine learning/Artificial Intelligence applications. Her research interests are in health and the built environment, food systems, applied epidemiology for public policy, climate resiliency, community development and health disparities. Michelle aims to apply my work toward equitable people-based and place-based policies and interventions. Michelle holds a BS, MS, and MPA from the University of Delaware, and a PhD in Planning, Design, and Built Environment from Clemson University.

Gabrielle Capone is a senior a the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign studying Geography and GIS, with minors in Computer and Political Science. She channels her passion for global issues into action by leading Illinois YouthMappers and the Geographical Honors Society.
Caroline Petersen is a student at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville pursuing a major in Geospatial Information Science and a minor in Data Science. She is a highly motivated and detail-oriented individual, passionate about the intersection of geospatial information science and environmental science.

Dr. Alameh is an award-winning industry-recognized geospatial leader and visionary withproven business building and scaling experience in industry and nonprofits. She focuses in bridging technology and policy at a national and global scale. She has an extensive global network across industry, government, academia, and non profit sectors, spanning geospatial, earth observations, data science, AI, and climate. Dr. Alameh is a seasoned board member, startup advisor, and young professional mentor. She has an PhD in Geographic Information Systems from MID, a Masters of Science in Civil and Environmental Engineering, and a Master in City Planning.

Danielle is the Director at the Center for GeospatialScience and Technology at California State University- Northridge, and the founder of Women in GIS. Danielle is GIS leader and professional with more than 25 years experience in the field. Early in her career Danielle noticed that there weren’t much resources for women in the field, and found herself at a conference with a group of women who were interested in joining forces for good, or just for coffee. Danielle has a Bachelors Degree in Nature and Cultureform the University of California, Davis, and a Masters in Geography from California State University, Northridge.

In our third episode of the Award Series, I speak with Devika Jain, the recipient of the Distinguished Contributions Award from Women in GIS for 2025. Devika tells me about why she came to GIS and how her interest in systems to address real world problems drove her pursuit of knowledge in the geospatial realm. We also discuss her work applying Machine Learning to millions of tweets and what the data showed her team about sentiments in different locations.

Listen to hear her concerns about big data, when not to scale up, and how to approach big data biases.

If you're interested in learning more about grant and scholarship opportunities from Women in GIS, check us out always at womeningis.org.