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An aerial view of Mount Tom

The College of Natural Sciences’s Department of Earth, Geographic, and Climate Sciences and Massachusetts’s Bureau of Geographic Information (MassGIS), part of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Technology Services and Security (EOTSS), recently announced a collaboration to establish a Regional GIS Hub at UMass Amherst, which will support geospatial data and technology development and use throughout the region.  

Through a $300,000 seed funding grant from MassGIS and EOTSS, this Regional GIS Hub (“the Hub”) will assist local, state, and regional organizations—including regional planners, private businesses, and higher-education institutions—in using geospatial data and technology, and acquiring data, software, and consulting services. Students will conduct much of the work of the Hub, under the direction and close supervision of campus GIS faculty and research staff. This will provide real-world experience and training for the next generation of the geospatial workforce. 

“We use data every day to help us make decisions, but some of our data requires an understanding of geography to be fully understood, and for our decisions to be correct,” said Forrest J. Bowlick, co-director of the GIS Hub, a lecturer in the Earth, Geographic, and Climate Sciences and Environmental Conservation departments, and director of the Geographic Information Science and Technology (GIST) concentration within the MS Geography program. “We use geospatial data—data that can be mapped or that uses location—to help us make these decisions and better understand our planet, or country, our Commonwealth, and our communities. Using a variety of computer technologies, we can build an understanding of our world with geospatial data that would be impossible without this combination of spatial data. Geographic Information Science (GIS) is one way to refer to these technologies.” 

"We are absolutely thrilled at this opportunity to create a resource that can help many of the Commonwealth’s communities meet or expand their mapping and geospatial data goals,” said Joe Kopera, co-director of the GIS Hub and Senior Research Fellow in the Earth, Geographic, and Climate Sciences department. “To be able to offer these services in a way that also provides paid, real-world, and meaningful internship experience to students prior to entering the regional workforce is a win for everyone." 

The Hub will serve as a regional center for geospatial data by: 

  • Supporting local and regional governments to expand their GIS capabilities and initiatives 
  • Creating hands-on, paid, real-world educational opportunities for GIS students, the next generation of the geospatial workforce 
  • Developing cooperative opportunities and connections with other universities, regional governments, and non-profit and private-sector organizations to collaborate on geospatial projects 
  • Shaping opportunities to work with state agencies on geospatial projects 
  • Helping to pool resources and use economies of scale to procure geospatial software, hardware, data, and services for use by local government partners 

“Being able to connect our avid geospatial learners to expertise on campus and to other expert practitioners across the Commonwealth is a huge benefit for our students, for UMass, and for the communities we serve,” said Bowlick. “We know that there is plenty of GIS work to do, and we’re ready to become a conduit for supporting that work.”

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