An unprecedented number of Dangermond travel awards have been announced for Fall 2013. Thanks to the generosity of Jack and Laura Dangermond, multiple travel expense awards are available to help qualified undergraduate and graduate Geography students present GIS-related work at conferences and workshops each quarter.
Eight of the 22 awards will facilitate participation by graduate students Mike Alonzo, Forest Canon, Elizabeth Garcia, Shane Grigsby, Olaf Menzer, Sam Prentice, Kate Voss, and Marcia Zilli in the December 9-13 American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco, and Sam Prentice and Ann Tan have also received grants to attend the AGU Chapman Conference on Soil-mediated Drivers of Coupled Biogeochemical and Hydrological Processes Across Scales, 21-24 October, 2013, in Tucson, Arizona. Kitty Currier won a grant to help with expenses at Geodesign Summit Europe, 19-20 September, 2013, in Herwijnen, Netherlands, and Song Gao received funds towards attending both the 4th International Conference on Computing for Geospatial Research & Application, July 22-July 24, 2013, in San Jose, CA and the 21st ACM SIGSPATIAL International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems, November 5 to November 8, 2013, in Orlando, Florida.
Other recipients include Brett Hartman who will be attending the Society for Ecological Restoration, 5th World Conference on Ecological Restoration, Oct. 6-11, 2013, at the University of Wisconsin – Madison; Grant McKenzie for the International Semantic Web Conference, 21-25 October, 2013, in Sydney, Australia; and Antonio Medrano for both the 60th Annual North American Meetings of the Regional Science Association International, November 12-16, 2013, in Atlanta, GA and the INFORMS Annual Meeting, October 6-9, 2013, in Minneapolis, MN. Matt Niblett will also be attending the INFORMS Annual Meeting, as well as the RSAI Meeting; Yingjie Hu will also be attending the 21st ACM SIGSPATIAL International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems in Orlando; and Tim Niblett will also be attending the INFORMS Annual Meeting in Minneapolis.
UCSB Geography’s relationship with the Dangermonds and ESRI goes back to around 1979-1980 when the Department got its first ArcInfo license (source). As Professor Emeritus Mike Goodchild once pointed out, “It is easy to underestimate the influence of ESRI and its leader on the subsequent development of GIS. The company, formed by Jack and Laura Dangermond to advance environmental design, has grown over four decades into the dominant force in the GIS industry with a worldwide employment of roughly 5,000. While design remains its compelling vision, the company supplies software for a vast array of applications, supporting local government, utilities, the military and intelligence communities, resource management, agriculture, and transportation” (source). UCSB Geography students are acutely aware of “the influence of ESRI and its leader” and have benefited greatly from the Dangermond Travel Awards, as well as from other major funding by Jack and Laura Dangermond over the years.
Editor’s note: Details of Dangermond Travel Awards during the past few years can be found here.
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