Congratulations to Dr. Dan Trepal, HESAL Senior Research Associate who defended his PhD dissertation entitled "The Archaeology of the Postindustrial: Spatial Data Infrastructures for Studying the Past in the Present.

Dan's dissertation work made use of the Imagining London Historical GIS and the Copper Country Historical Spatial Data Infrastructure (the backbone of the Keweenaw Time Traveler).  He outlines the benefits of a big data, GIS approach to archaeology, to heritage building, and as an analytical tool for identifying cumulative industrial hazards across a city.

Congrats Dr. Trepal.

​​Sophia Ford, Don Lafreniere, Sun Nguyen, Rose Hildebrant, Dan Trepal, and Tim Stone​

Faculty and students from the Human Environments Spatial Analytics Lab traveled to the American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting in Washington DC last week to present their research.  

Don Lafreniere (Director) presented a paper about the Keweenaw Time Traveler entitled "Public Participatory Historical GIS to Build a Spatial Data Infrastructure of Historical Landscapes and Environments"

Dan Trepal (Senior Research Associate) presented a paper using the Imagining London HGIS entitled "Using Historical Spatial Data Infrastructures as a Tool for Hazard Assessment in Urban Industrial Archaeology"

Rose Hildebrandt (Research Associate) presented a paper on the GRACE project entitled "Empowering Youth to Be a Voice in Neighborhood Change Through Geospatial Technologies"

Tim Stone (Research Associate) presented a paper using data from the Copper Country Historical Spatial Data Infrastructure and the Keweenaw Time Traveler entitled "Exploring the Social and Built Determinants of Health of Children in Early Twentieth Century Calumet, MI"


The HESAL team was joined by two MS students from the Department of Social Sciences: 

Sun Nguyen (EEP MS Student) presented a paper entitled “Citizen Engagement in Minnesota Environmental Decision Making”

Sophia Ford (EEP MS Graduate) presented a paper entitled “Mineral Property Law as Exclusion: Obfuscating Mineral Ownership”

Three former GRACE students have received ‘Making a Difference’ scholarships from the Portage Health Foundation (PHF). This scholarship is awarded to local students attending Michigan Technological University and pursuing health sciences or engineering degrees.

The GRACE (Geographic Information Systems & Technological Resources and Applications for Career Education) program aimed to put career skills (in the form of GIS) in the hands of high school students and was funded by the National Science Foundation. From 2016-2018, students participated in summer internships which taught them GIS skills and allowed them to apply those skills in a variety of ways.

​Leah Riutta was a GRACE student in 2017, and Kiasa Nagel and Andrew Escola joined her in 2018, and each has earned the ‘Making a Difference’ scholarship from PHF. We’re so proud of these students and wish them the best as they continue their education at Michigan Tech!