Summer 2023 (May - July) - James O'Brien
Fall 2, 2023 (Sept. - Dec.) - Jan Oliver Wallgrün
At other times - Jim Detwiler
Instructor for Summer 2023 (May-July)
James O'Brien
Email: Please use the course email system (it ensures your emails don't get caught up in any spam filters). I check email regularly and will do my best to respond to questions at least once per weekday and once on weekends unless I notify you otherwise. If Canvas is down, please try jameso@psu.edu.
Office hours: By appointment.
I'm very excited to be teaching this updated GEOG 489 - Advanced Python class! I've been teaching GEOG 485 since 2007 (right back when VBA was the scripting language of choice), a number of terms of GEOG 865, our Cloud and Server GIS class as well as Geog 585 and 863 our Online GIS / Web Mapping classes.
I got involved in GIS in 1993 but via a slightly different path perhaps to most people. A year earlier I'd been introduced to GIS at a university promotional event where it was described as "Computing and Environmental Studies." Intrigued at how the two could be combined, I went along, listened, liked what I heard, and selected GIS as my undergraduate degree.
That degree, combining GIS with a solid background in Computing Science, led to me being employed as a computer programmer, hardware technician, cartographer, and a few other things along the way. I obtained a Ph.D. at Penn State (01-04) and followed that up with a year in Australia doing financial management before returning to Penn State for a one-year Post Doc working on the final year of the Human Environment Regional Observatory project. With that project completed, I moved to Kingston University in London, UK as a Senior Lecturer in GIS and then as a Principal Lecturer teaching ArcGIS customization, spatial databases, GIS & Hazards, Mobile GIS and Geoweb Development (which used ArcGIS Server), Project Management and a few other things. After four and a half years doing that, I was enticed back to Australia to join the Risk Frontiers research centre which was then at Macquarie University and is now an employee-owned R&D company - where I work as part of a team using GIS (and a range of other tools) to model the spatial distribution of natural hazards (and their associated losses) like fire, flood, earthquake, and cyclone (hurricane) for insurance companies and government agencies. As the Chief Geospatial Scientist, I spend a lot of my days designing and building spatial tools for analysis, particularly using Python but also a range of other languages. I'm based near Canberra, Australia but don't let the 12(ish) hour time difference to the East Coast of the U.S. concern you; I'm usually getting up when the majority of you will be starting work on the class :)
Meet James O'Brien, instructor of GEOG 489 (0:53 seconds).
Instructor for Fall-2 2023 (Oct. - Dec.)
Jan Oliver Wallgrün
Welcome to GEOG 489: Advanced Python Programming for GIS
Email: Please use the course email system (it ensures your emails don't get caught up in any spam filters). I check email regularly and will do my best to respond to questions at least once per weekday and once on weekends unless I notify you otherwise. If Canvas is down you can try wallgrun@psu.edu.
Office hours: By appointment.
I have been working as a researcher and instructor at the Penn State Geography department, but some years ago moved back to Germany where I am originally from. I am a computer scientist by training, with my master and Ph.D. both being in Informatics. However, I have been working in the areas of GIS and GIScience for more than a decade now. In my residential courses at Penn State, I have been teaching introductory courses to GIS and GIScience, geospatial data management and spatial databases, and object-oriented programming for GIScience. I am still conducting research in collaboration with the Penn State focusing on problems of spatial and spatio-temporal modeling and reasoning, as well as the interpretation and processing of human descriptions of spatial knowledge such as natural language descriptions or sketch maps. I am also interested in algorithmic problems of spatial data integration, matching, and query processing as a basis to build "intelligent" spatial retrieval and assistance systems. My most recent work also involves the application of immersive technologies (virtual and augmented reality) for spatial data analysis and GIScience education.
Instructor at other times
Jim Detwiler
2217 EES Building
The Pennsylvania State University,
University Park, PA 16802
Phone: (814) 865-2932 (The country code for the United States is 1)
Email: jed124 (at) psu.edu
Twitter: @DetwilerPSU
AVAILABILITY: Students are welcome to contact me by email any time; I am usually able to respond within 24 hours. If you are a student registered for the course, please use the Canvas email system for course-related correspondence, as I prefer to keep those messages separate from my other email. I am also happy to speak to students over the phone, though it is best to set up an appointment for a phone call.
Welcome to the course!
Hi, I'm Jim Detwiler, your instructor for the next ten weeks. I've been teaching in the Geography Department's online GIS program since 2000. Back then, we had just a one-year, non-credit certificate program with few electives. Today, we offer a Master of GIS degree with numerous electives and several certificates that enable students to focus on application areas of interest to them. I serve as the faculty lead for the Geospatial Programming and Web Map Development Certificate Program. I'm very proud to be associated with these programs, both in terms of the faculty involved and the adult professionals who enroll in them.
I currently teach and maintain the content of GEOG 863: Web Application Development and GEOG 868: Spatial Database Management. I also teach and make minor contributions to GEOG 485: GIS Programming and Automation and GEOG 489: Advanced Python Programming. And I sometimes teach courses on these topics for undergraduates in residence.
My experience with GIS includes working on population-related research projects at Penn State's Population Research Institute, on E911 and cadastral projects at the Chester County (PA) Bureau of Land Records, and on climate-related projects at the University of Delaware. I think this broad experience helps me to relate to my students who use the technology in a wide array of contexts.
Rather than further rehash information that I've made available on other pages, I'll just point you to my work portfolio if you'd like to read more about me. I look forward to getting to know you over the next ten weeks and helping you to learn the course material.
Best of luck in the course!