Profile
I’ve spent most of my recent career ‘doing’ GIS in support of research projects, and teaching GIS, and creating information graphics for presentation and publication.
I enjoy applying advanced GIS to problems. I can handle numerous data formats and database building. I have many years of ArcGIS use, including the teaching of professionals in the geospatial online programs. I can solve integration of data sets with varied datums and coordinate systems. I build maps and databases that support field-work through combinations of varied data sets such as terrain, surface geology, road networks, and layers customized to the research. I can also advise you on GIS project procedures.
I am adept at custom cartography and at building technical graphics for courses, presentations, journal articles and books.
I was a part of the faculty in Penn State’s online Certificate and Masters of GIS programs from January of 2003 through August of 2018. I taught three of our courses : Geography 868: Spatial Database Management for Geospatial Professionals, Geography 484: GIS Database Development, and Geography 483: Problem-solving with GIS.
I currently teach Geography 463: Geospatial Information Management in the resident program.
From 2003 through 2014 I was also part of Doug Miller’s Center for Environmental Informatics in the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute at Penn State providing GIS and cartography support to numerous projects.
I started learning GIS in the early 90s because we wanted to put shaded relief imagery behind some of the thematic maps we were producing in the Deasy Geographics (cartography/information design) lab in the Department of Geography at Penn State.
Shortly thereafter I was teaching GIS in several contexts within the Department of Geography: a practicum course built around the Esri GIS software; the graduate student section of the introductory GIS course; and a course based in Penn State’s map library.
I also spent from 1998 through 2002 teaching GIS and cartography in the Department of Geography at the University of Florida.
I have held full-time fixed-term positions in EMS at Penn State for 24 years, and am currently appointed in the Department of Geography. I was an inaugural member of the EMS Earth System Science Center (now EESI).
-jim sloan