Thursday, December 5, 2019

IHS GIS Internship


GIS Internship at the Indian Health Service: an agency of the US Department of Health and Human Services

This is an opportunity to work on the development of a GIS program for an agency that provides health services to American Indians/Alaska Natives. The IHS provides health care to American Indians/Alaska Natives in over 500 facilities in 35 states across 12 areas with a staff of 15,000 employees. 

The Intern will work with planning and statistics staff in the Office of Public Health Support and its contractors, utilizing ArcMap software and accessing IHS geodatabases. The applicant should have a good working knowledge of ESRI software including ArcMap or ArcGIS Pro and be interested in its application to health issues and service delivery, disease identification and the social determinants of health. It is anticipated that the intern will support agency efforts in mapping facilities, services, and health issues as well as complete an individual project of interest related to IHS work and GIS to the intern to be designed with the IHS staff. Potential projects  might include analysis of chronic disease data by location, tribe, or area; evaluation of substance abuse and mental health services by use and location; development of air ambulance networks, comparison of facility size and service area over time; identification of patterns of migration by America Indians and Alaska Natives throughout the US; validation of boundaries of reservations and tribal lands; location of services on reservations and tribal lands; and tracing patterns of infectious diseases.
The IHS office is located in the HHS building at 5600 Fishers Lane, Rockville, MD within walking distance of the Twinbrook Parkway Metro stop.

The internship is unpaid and will last approximately two to three months depending on the academic schedule and preferences of the applicants. Applicants will undergo a standard background check before beginning the internship. Based in part on their experience and skills, past interns have received additional offers to work in federal and other government offices.

For further information, please contact Lucie Vogel
301-443-1133

GEOG498F


U.S. Forest Service Native American Research Assistantship

Summer 2020: USFS Native American Research Assistantship

The Wildlife Society, alongside the U.S. Forest Service, a Premier Partner of TWS, has announced new Native American Research Assistantships for Summer 2020.

This is the sixth year for the professional development program, which facilitates opportunities for Native American students to be mentored by USFS research and development scientists. The program promotes student advancement and training for careers in natural resource and conservation-related fields. Assistantship participants aid and learn about the USFS’ ecological, science-based approach to decision-making and balancing multiple use management of national forests and grasslands.

Assistantships are available for Native American students interested in wildlife and forest resource research and management. Students will learn and work with an interdisciplinary team of researchers with the USFS during 2020. Applicants must be a member of an American Indian or Alaska Native tribe, First Nations or a Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, or have some other indigenous identification, and be currently enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate program from an accredited academic institution.

Pursuit of a bachelor’s or master’s degree in wildlife biology, ecology, forestry or other closely related natural resource discipline is preferred. Students with related associate’s degrees from tribal colleges and universities or other community colleges will be also be considered.

To read more about this opportunity and to apply, visit: https://wildlife.org/apply-now-for-usfs-native-american-research-assistantship/ 

Tuesday, December 3, 2019

Exciting Courses Available this Spring! GEOG498I & INST208A

Hello GeoTerps! I wanted to draw your attention to two courses available this Spring with open seats. 

GEOG498I: Algorithms for Geospatial Computing
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For GIS Majors, counts as upper level technical requirement.
For GEOG Majors, counts as an elective. 
For GIS Minors, counts as upper level technical requirement. 

Course Description
• Introduction to fundamental geometric algorithms for spatiotemporal data processing and analysis.
• Managing and clustering point clouds for processing and analysis of LiDAR data.
• Terrain modeling: representations, query algorithms, visibility and morphological analysis.
• Applications: terrain reconstruction, urban modeling, forest management and coastal data management and analysis.
• Algorithms for road network analysis and reconstruction.
• Scalable algorithms and representations for big geospatial data. 

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INST208A: How NASA Sees the Earth (Taught by a GEOG Professor!)
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For GIS Majors, counts as a supporting sequence requirement.
For GEOG Majors, counts as a supporting sequence requirement. 
For GIS Minors, counts as an elective. 

Course Description
The world of Earth science data is complex and can be overwhelming with a wide range of data sources and formats, hefty downloads (Big Data!) and the need for complicated analytical tools. In order to make use of enormous volume of available data and geoinformation products, one has to know where and how to search and obtain the data, how to analyze the data and extract useful information and knowledge. For example, what is the spatial distribution and temporal variation of Earth science variables (ESVs), such as temperature, precipitation, soil moisture, sea ice cover, aerosols, cloud cover, and vegetation cover? How to calculate climatology and anomalies of ESVs and identify long-term trends? What are spatial-temporal relationships between ESVs?

In this course, you will learn about the state-of-the-art Web-based tools that allow you to efficiently display and analyze a large number of datasets in a way many professionals working in the Earth science domain would. You will learn how to visualize multiple Earth science datasets produced by NASA in a variety of ways directly on the Internet, without the need to download, manage and store them. Students will be introduced to comprehensive functions to analyze the data and generate customized maps, animations, multi-variable correlations, regional subsetting, etc. Not only will students will acquire theoretical and practical skills necessary to analyze the data, but they will also learn how to interpret the data, extract knowledge and connect it to socio-economic information.

To look at course syllabi for these classes, please follow this link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/10_X12DrSFJcE9fQ5QLmbMIBfKyQcp1z8?usp=sharing

Monday, December 2, 2019

Scholarship for 2020 Luojia International Summer Program

The 2020 Luojia International Summer Program at Wuhan University is now acccepting applications. Wuhan University plans to provide 2 scholarship places for each partner university. The scholarship will cover the registration fee, tuition fee, and housing expense for participant students (see details in Tuition & Fees, 2020 Brochure-Luojia Int'l Summer Program WHU).
 
This summer program was initiated by Wuhan University in 2006. Under the theme of "Understanding China: Past & Present", the program has been endeavoring to provide an exchange platform for international students to get a better understanding of Wuhan University and China.
 
The schedule of the program is as follows:
 

Topics include Chinese history, law, economics, diplomacy, architecture, philosophy, trans-cultural communication, and radar/remote sensing technology. Contact Amanda or Dr. Liang for more information!

Free Math Tutoring

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UMD BCM - Baptist Collegiate Ministries are once again offering FREE math tutoring in the Memorial Chapel Interfaith Lounge. We will have pizza, snacks, and several tutors available to help you while you work.

RSVP REQUIRED (as late as the day of!) to Jess at jessbcm@umd.edu.
Please reply with the class you are taking, and time you plan on attending.