Program

Join us on April 22, 2026 from 12-4PM for the first BU Geospatial Data & Technologies Symposium

Schedule of Events

12:00pm

Ladd Room, 2nd Floor
Opening remarks
Dennis Milechin, Scientific Programmer/Analyst, Information Services & Technology

PANEL DISCUSSION
The Big Picture: Data Governance, Ethics, and the Changing Research Landscape
Moderator: Patricia Fabian, Professor, Environmental Health
Panelists:
Kevin Lane, Associate Professor, Environmental Health
Chris Sedore, Chief Transformation Officer, Information Services & Technology
Cy Smith, Director, MassGIS
Seth Villegas, Lecturer, Data & Computing Sciences

KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Dolores Acevedo-Garcia, Professor, School of Social Work, and Director, Institute for Equity in Child Opportunity & Healthy Development

1:00pm

Lounge, 2nd Floor
Student research poster session
Refreshments served in lounge and atrium

2:00pm

Room and time assignments TBD
CONCURRENT PRESENTATIONS

Traumatic shocks, near-misses, and exploratory innovation
Khoa Cao, Research Assistant, GLOB~S Research Lab, Questrom School of Business

A multi-sensor data assimilation approach to terrestrial carbon cycle monitoring, reporting, and validation
Michael Dietze, Professor, Earth & Environment

Sentient spaces: Leveraging GEOINT and AI for global resilience
Suchi Gopal, Professor, Earth & Environment

Embodying place: Understanding the relationship between the social, psychological, and built environment through “embodied geographic methods”
Josh Lown, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Initiative on Cities

StreetSim: Geospatial data and engineering application
Eshed Ohn-Bar, Assistant Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering

Methodological priorities for using residential history in population health research
Kendra Sims, Assistant Professor, Epidemiology

Digital geohumanities at the public library
Ian Spangler, Associate Curator of Digital & Participatory Geography, Leventhal Map Center, Boston Public Library

Room and time assignments TBD
BIRDS OF A FEATHER DISCUSSION GROUPS

The Shape of Data: Teaching Geospatial Analysis Across the Disciplines
Discussion Leader: Suchi Gopal, Professor, Earth & Environment

Geospatial Data Repositories
Discussion Leader: Christoph Nolte, Associate Professor, Earth & Environment

Community Geospatial Science
Discussion Leader: Nathan Phillips, Professor, Earth & Environment

3:30pm

Ladd Room, 2nd Floor
Closing remarks & wrap-up
Dennis Milechin, Scientific Programmer/Analyst, Information Services & Technology

All-Day Features

Atrium, 2nd Floor
Exhibits
Meet our sponsor organizations and learn about the services they offer