Nicole Alexander (PhD 2002) recently sent this inspiring account about changes in her life and times:
I was born in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago and moved to England shortly after completing my undergraduate degree in Land Surveying at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine. In England, I started my geospatial career as a land surveyor working for Transmanche-Link (TML) on the Channel Tunnel project. The Channel Tunnel (Le Tunnel Sous La Manche) is a 50-km undersea rail tunnel linking Folkestone in England to Coquelles in France. I initially worked underground in the Channel Tunnel UK Tunnels at Shakespeare Cliff, Dover and subsequently on the surface at the UK Terminal site in Folkestone. In the UK Tunnels, I was mainly employed in taking angular measurements and levels to ensure that the tunnel-boring machine remained on alignment in its drive towards France. On the UK Terminal site, I was employed in performing detail (as-built) surveys on the utilities, platforms and other on-site structures. While working on the UK Terminal site I enrolled in the GIS masters program at University College London.
I was a young Surrealist artist when I left Trinidad. My goal was to earn enough money as a land surveyor to initially support myself as a free-spirited artist in Paris, France. The Channel Tunnel truly changed the course of my life. Each shift underground was a fascinating adventure. The equipment and techniques used on this historic project were state-of-the-art: I fell in love with technology and never looked back! And the discipline acquired from working 12-hour shifts on an underground construction site remains with me today.
After graduating from University College London I worked as a GIS consultant for Fujitsu-ICL Caribbean Limited on the Jamaica Land Titling Project. I also worked for Trimble Navigation in Sunnyvale, California as a GIS data capture engineer and GIS specialist on their Mapping and GIS products. At Trimble, I had the opportunity to work with the major GIS, CAD and database software packages, ensuring that Trimble’s GPS data could be seamlessly imported into these systems. While at Trimble, I entered the UCSB doctoral program in Geography with Prof. Keith Clarke as my advisor.
My research interests include GPS/GIS data capture, GIS data modeling, and database design. In addition to the required Geography graduate Modeling, Measurement and Computation courses, I took computer programming and database classes in the Computer Science department. I now work for Oracle Corporation as a software engineer on the Oracle Spatial development team in Nashua, New Hampshire. Oracle Spatial is Oracle’s solution for managing spatial data in the database. In May 2006, I joined the Center for Geographic Analysis at Harvard University as a part-time research fellow. This post keeps me focused on research and in touch with the academic world.
Surviving the winter can be a challenge in New Hampshire, but for politics it is the best place to be. As a sign in front of the State Library explains “…the New Hampshire primary has become a critical first step on the road to the White House.” As a result, politicians spend considerable time wooing our vote and we take their attention seriously. I first met President Obama at an ice-cream social in Dover, NH during August 2007. I volunteered for his campaign after the narrow loss to Senator Hillary Clinton in this state. I made trips to Vermont and Pennsylvania to canvas and register voters for the primary and canvassed locally for the general elections. On inauguration day, I stood with the millions at the National Mall in Washington, DC and the millions more around the world, witnessing the dawn of a new day: “Change has come to America!”
