GIS Week 2020

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health will spotlight the annual celebration of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) November 17–19th with three days of virtual events. The Spatial Science for Public Health Center and the Center for a Livable Future, will host the event, which will feature presenters and participants from throughout the US. Panel sessions will demonstrate research which leverages GIS, mapping, and spatial analysis, but spans a wide variety of disciplines and project objectives.

Tuesday, November 17

Session 1: Food Systems Dashboards
Learn how dashboards, engaging tools to visualize and display key data, have been used to measure and track food systems at global, national and local scales.

Speakers
Jessica Fanzo and Rebecca McLaren – Johns Hopkins University
Jayson Lusk – Purdue University
Pahini Lampart – Baltimore City Office of Performance and Innovation

Session 2: GIS and Spatial Analysis in Environmental Health
Learn how to address problems at the intersection of environmental exposure and human health, including projects examining environmental links to cancer; health disparities in morbidity and mortality; and links between environmental stressors and cardiovascular disease risk.

Speakers
Mary Collins, Mike Petroni, Dustin Hill
SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry

Wednesday, November 18

Session 1: Keynote Speaker
Este Geraghty, MD, MS, MPH, GISP, Author at Esri
Dr. Geraghty is the Chief Medical Officer and Health Solutions Director at Esri where she leads business development for the Health and Human Services sector. Formerly the Deputy Director of the Center for Health Statistics and Informatics with the California Department of Public Health, Dr. Geraghty led the state vital records and public health informatics programs. While serving as an Associate Professor of Clinical Internal Medicine at the University of California at Davis she conducted research on geographic approaches to influencing health policy and advancing community development programs. 

Session 2: Lightning Talks
Faculty, Staff, and Students from Johns Hopkins University will present 3 – 5 minute “lightning talks” highlighting their use of GIS and spatial analysis in research. 

Thursday, November 19

Session 1: The Role of GIS during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Learn about the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 dashboard, daily surveillance of COVID-19 in the US and geovisualization techniques to improve understanding of the disease.

Speakers
Eric Delmelle - University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Alex Hohl - University of Utah
Ensheng Dong - Johns Hopkins University

Session 2: Mapping Industrial Food Animal Production
Learn about using satellite imagery to detect concentrated animal feeding operations, mapping COVID-19 outbreaks at meat processing and packing plants, and how impacts of shifting to plant-based diets are tied to geography.

Speakers
Dan Ho and Brandon Anderson – Stanford University
Leah Douglas – Food & Environment Reporting Network
Brent Kim – Johns Hopkins University