GIS Faculty

Education: GIS Graduate Certificate (Portland State University), M.A. Geography (SF State)
Employment: San Francisco State University
Email: qclark@sfsu.edu
Introduction to GIS
Cartographic Design for GIS
GPS for GIS

Quentin is the administrator for the California State University GIS Specialty Center, helping facilitate the GIS needs for all 24 campuses in the CSU system. In addition to his role in the Specialty Center, Quentin is a lecturer in the Department of Geography and Environment at SF State, where he teaches courses in environmental science, natural resource management and GIS. Other research and GIS interests include: cartographic design and theory, GIS data management and GNSS data collection.

Education: Ph.D. Geography (University of Georgia)
Employment: San Francisco State University
GIS for Watersheds
Raster GIS
Introduction to Programming ArcGIS

Jerry Davis is director of the California State University GIS Specialty Center. He specializes in geomorphology, soils, field methods and geographic information systems. Jerry developed the GIS curriculum at SF State and his current research interests focus on karst geomorphic processes and the use of computers and GIS for field data collection and processing.

Education: M.S. Anthropology (University of Arizona)
Employment: Brian Fulfrost and Associates
GIS for Sustainable Planning and Urban Design

Brian Fulfrost has 20 years of experience applying GIS and Remote Sensing to assist in sustainable/resilient urban planning, natural resource conservation and management and environmental and social decision-making and. His past work includes the use of geospatial technologies in vegetation mapping, predictive modeling, reserve design, socioeconomic inequality and food systems studies. He has worked in academia, for government and in private industry. In addition to teaching, he runs his own consulting business utilizing GIS, remote sensing and web/mobile mapping tools in innovative ways to better inform social and environmental decision making. He is currently working on a range of projects using GIS to better understand walkability, active transportation, green infrastructure, food access (including urban agriculture), public health and for quantifying the impacts of land use and transportation planning on GHG. He also continues to work with a variety of resource conservation agencies and non-profits to incorporate GIS, remote sensing (UAS, airborne and satellite) and web/mobile techniques for mapping vegetation, habitats and developing decision support systems that account for climate changes and sea level rise.

Education: M.A. Geography (SF State)
Employment: Santa Clara County
Introduction to R
Ecological Applications of GIS
GIS for Scientific Visualization
Database Management

Seth Hiatt has been using GIS to support environmental planning and decision making for over 12 years. After working as a remote sensing and GIS analyst in the Earth Science Division at NASA Ames Research Center, he served as the Associate Director for the SF State Institute for Geographic Information Science. He currently works in the Planning Division of Santa Clara County Parks and also teaches GIS and geography at Foothill College in Los Altos. His GIS interests include ecological modeling, spatial statistics, tool building, open source software, web GIS and field data collection.

Education: Ph.D. Geography (University of California, Santa Barbara)
Employment: San Francisco State University - Professor
Building a Geodatabase
GIS for Public Health

Dr. Liu’s teaching and research interests are primarily in geographic information techniques (GIS, Remote Sensing and Spatial Statistics) and its application in socioeconomic issues such as urban land use/land cover change, population distribution and environmental modeling. Her ongoing research include the linkage between built environment and public health, environmental justice and using internet GIS to promote public participation in neighborhood revitalization.

Education: M.S. Biology (SF State)
Employment: University of California, Santa Cruz
Developing Rich Internet Web Applications (GEOG 9034)

Barry Nickel serves as the Director of the Center for Integrated Spatial Research (CISR) at UCSC and teaches GIS at several universities across the region. For over almost twenty years, Barry has been applying geospatial technologies and methods (GIS, remote sensing, spatial modeling/statistics, spatial database design, geospatial web development) to a variety of ecological and urban developments. His research interests are primarily concerned with issues regarding the ecology of movement in large vertebrates, in particular the links between observed patterns and their underlying mechanisms (search efficiency, landscape heterogeneity). To address these questions, he is engaged in the development of spatially explicit ecological models and the integration of statistical methods with geospatial tools.

Education: M.A. Geography (SF State)
Employment: City of Sacramento
GEOG 9029 Processing GIS Data with Model Builder and Python

Dara O’Beirne earned both his B.A and M.A. in Geography from San Francisco State University and is currently a GIS Analyst working at the City of Sacramento’s Department of Utilities. His master’s thesis examined the error associated with measuring tree heights in an urban environment with both traditional field methods and airborne LiDAR data. Dara is a GIS Professional with over 10 years of GIS and Python programming experience. He is also co-author on ArcPy and ArcGIS: Automating ArcGIS for Desktop and ArcGIS Online with Python.

Education: Ecology (UC San Diego), M.S. GISci (SF State)
Employment: Tom Robinson Consulting
Email: tsrobins@mail.sfsu.edu
Managing a GIS Project

As principal of Tom Robinson Consulting, Tom leads strategic planning and analysis projects that serve the public good. Tom is passionate about increasing the pace and scale of solutions to environmental and societal challenges. Before devoting time to TRC, Tom was Director of Conservation, Science, and Innovation at Bay Area Open Space Council and Conservation GIS Analyst at Sonoma County Ag + Open Space. He led Sonoma Veg Map and Conservation Lands Network 2.0, and team-developed the Bay Area Greenprint. He holds a bachelor’s degree in ecology from U.C. San Diego, a master’s degree in GISci from San Francisco State University, and is a Switzer Environmental Leadership Fellow.

Education: M.P.A. Public Administration (SF State)
Employment: Mid-peninsula Regional Open Space District
Managing a GIS Project

Garrett Dunwoody has a Bachelor’s degree in geography and a Master’s degree in public administration and management both from San Francisco State University. Garrett is a Project Director, Operations Manager, and Technologist with 15 years of experience delivering organizational efficiencies through spatial and non-spatial technology. Garrett believes there is something fundamental about maps which are beautiful abstractions of our world that combine artistic and scientific principles.

Education: M.A. Geography (SF State)
Employment: California Department of Fish and Wildlife

Tom Lupo, M.A., Geography from SF State has nearly 30 years of professional experience working with GIS software and organizations. Most of his career has been spent with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife in Sacramento, where he is now Deputy Director of the Data and Technology Division. In addition to being an instructor at SF State GIS certificate program since 1995, he is also an adjunct faculty member in Geography at American River College in Sacramento.

Education: M.A. Geography (SF State)
Employment: U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
Remote Sensing for GIS I
Remote Sensing for GIS II

Jeff Milliken has worked in the private and public sectors as a geologist and remote sensing/GIS specialist for 25 years. He is currently a Remote Sensing and GIS Specialist with the Bureau of Reclamation doing work for both the Lower Colorado and Mid Pacific Regional Offices. His current work primarily focuses on using and developing Remote Sensing and GIS applications for mapping and monitoring land cover types in support of water resource related projects.

Education: M.A. Geography (SF State)
Employment: Pacific Gas & Electric
GEOG 9009 Cartographic Design for GIS

Elizabeth Proctor has an M.A. in Geography from SF State. Her nearly 20 years of professional experience in GIS began at the California Academy of Sciences. Most of her career has been spent with Pacific Gas & Electric in San Francisco, where she started as a GIS Analyst in 2001. She is now Manager of Electric GIS Delivery, and she covers PG&E's portfolio of all technology that touches Electric GIS. She earned an ESRI Professional Certification in ArcGIS Desktop, and for 10 years she taught a night class in Introduction to GIS class at City College of San Francisco. In her spare time, she walks her dog and volunteers for causes supporting women and girls and tech, and she is a fan of Edward Tufte.

Education: M.A. Geography (SF State)
Employment: California Department of Transportation
Introduction to GIS
Data Acquisition
Spatial Analysis and Modeling

Andy Richardson started working in the GIS field at a small East Bay company in 1987. Since then he has managed the Multidisciplinary GIS Center at San Francisco State University, worked as a GIS Analyst for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, served as the GIS Specialist at the Teale Data Center's GIS Technology Center, and is now the GIS Manager of Caltrans; Central Coast district. His thesis investigated the incidence and dispersion of fires in the San Francisco Water Department Crystal Springs Watershed.

Education: Ph.D. (U. of Hawaii)
Employment: Stanford University
GEOG 9023: GIS and Remote Sensing for Coastal & Marine Science

Dr. Wedding earned her Ph.D. in geography with a specialization in marine landscape ecology from the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 2010. She has a special interest in teaching an applied geospatial approach to problem solving in marine resource management using inquiry-based teaching methods. Dr. Wedding has taught GIS for Marine Ecology and Advanced GIS at UCSB, as well as Intro to GIS and Field Problems in Marine Biology at the University of Hawaii. Currently, her research is centered around three main themes: 1) marine landscape ecology and spatially predictive modeling; 2) climate change effects on coastal ecosystems and communities; and 3) linking geospatial data science to ocean policy and governance solutions.