apply now 
WyGISC Director and Senior Research Scientist
Office: Room 335, Agriculture C
Phone: (307) 766-2736
Email: jeff.hamerlinck@uwyo.edu
Dr. Jeff Hamerlinck has served as Director of the Wyoming Geographic Information Science Center since 2004. In this role he is responsible for guiding the Center’s strategic vision and overall operations. As WyGISC Director he serves on the State of Wyoming Governor’s GIS Advisory Board and is active in the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS). His teaching and research interests range from land-use and environmental planning to spatial data infrastructure management and place-based planning support systems.
Jeff received his PhD in Geography from the University of Colorado-Boulder, where he studied the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in rural community land-use planning. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) and holds the designation of GIS Professional (GISP) by the GIS Certification Institute. A 2011 graduate of Leadership Wyoming, Jeff is an avid fly-fisher and day-hiker, and has recently re-discovered recreational tennis.
GIST Program Director and Senior Research Scientist
Office: Room 331, Agriculture C
Phone: (307) 766-2721
Email: sivan@uwyo.edu
Dr. Ramesh Sivanpillai is the GIST program director and a remote sensing scientist with the Wyoming Geographic Information Science Center at the University of Wyoming where he teaches remote sensing courses and directs the WyomingView program. He received his B. Sc Physics from PSG College of A&S, M. Sc Environmental Studies from Cochin University of S&T, M. Phil Environmental Sciences from Bharathiar University (all from India), M. S Environmental Sciences & Policy from University Wisconsin – Green Bay, and PhD Forestry from Texas A&M University.
For more than 25 years he has worked on digital processing of remotely sensed data for applications forestry, rangeland, agriculture, water bodies, disaster assessment, and land cover/land use studies. He has worked with several national and international agencies, and academic institutions in India, United States of America, Mexico, Mali, Nicaragua, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Russia, Kenya, and Australia. He has served on the Board of Directors of AmericaView and is serving on the board of the ASPRS-RMR chapter. He serves as an associate editor in the Journal of Applied Remote Sensing (since 2008) and Frontiers of Earth Science (since 2014).
More information about Ramesh's work >
Business Manager
Office: Room 336, Agriculture C
Phone: (307) 766-2740
Email: bleonar6@uwyo.edu
Beth Leonard is the Business Manager for WyGISC joining the team in 2017. In this role she oversees all accounting functions, personnel, and financial reporting for the unit. Beth received her bachelor’s degree in Business from the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs and has been in Laramie since 2013. She enjoys traveling, camping, hiking and volleyball, but can mostly be found spending time with her husband and chasing her two young daughters.
Office Associate
Office: Room 337, Agriculture C
Phone: (307) 766-2532
Email: cschofi3@uwyo.edu
Cody Schofield is the Office Associate for WyGISC. In this role, he works on the center’s social media pages, website development, student registration, and other business administration-related tasks. He joined in May 2020 and is a graduate of the University of Wyoming with a bachelor’s degree in Communication. Cody enjoys working in marketing, advertising, and public relations. When Cody is not working at WyGISC, you can find him playing golf, hiking, snowboarding, or hanging out around Laramie.
Senior Research Scientist
Office: Room 323, Agriculture C
Phone: (307) 223-2129
Email: salbeke@uwyo.edu
Dr. Shannon Albeke has been part of WyGISC since 2010 and is a Senior Research Scientist and Faculty member. His primary research focuses around applied GIS, programming and statistics. As such, he provides research support for faculty and graduate students within the Program in Ecology as well as many other departments and programs within UW. His teaching centers on database management and applied GIS methods using primarily open source software.
Shannon earned a B.A. in Environmental Sciences with minors in Geography and Geology in 1997 from the University of Colorado – Boulder. He then began an 8-year career as an Aquatic Habitat Biologist for the Colorado Division of Wildlife, and by necessity, learned how to be a GeoSpatial Data Scientist. In 2006, he resigned from CDOW to become a PhD student at the University of Georgia where he worked on Coastal River Otters in Prince William Sound, AK , earning his PhD in 2010.
More information about Shannon's work >
Senior Geospatial Project Coordinator
Office: Room 306, Agriculture C
Phone: (307) 766-6649
Email: berelson@uwyo.edu
Wendy Berelson is a Geospatial Project Coordinator Senior at WYGISC where she has worked for more than 20 years. Her current efforts focus on managing the development, deployment and maintenance of UW Operation’s Enterprise GIS. This includes overseeing custom application deployment and working collaboratively with Real Property, Utilities Management, Space Management and other groups on campus. Wendy received her Certified GIS Professional (GISP) designation by the GIS Certification Institute in 2007 and is a member of the Wyoming Geospatial Organization (WyGEO) and Women in GIS.
Wendy earned her undergraduate degree in Geology at Bucknell University in 1991. She worked as an environmental consultant before pursuing her Masters in Geography at UW with a focus on water resources which she completed in 1997. Wendy enjoys all types of cycling and is an avid Nordic skier. When she’s not on her bike or skis she loves to cook and read.
Geospatial Analyst
Office: Room 306, Agriculture C
Phone: (307) 766-6649
Email: mberends@uwyo.edu
Margo Berendsen is a GIS analyst, educator, and research scientist at the University of Wyoming. She teaches courses on Geospatial Foundations, Spatial Data Visualization, and works on various research projects and GIS analysis projects. She co-authored the Wyoming Student Atlas, a publication that has been distributed to all Wyoming elementary and middle schools, and developed the Atlas into a series of standards-based interactive story maps as another K-12 education resource. She is currently working on an NSF study on how learning with GIS improves spatial thinking.
Margo received her MA in Geography from the State University of New York at Buffalo and holds a GISP from the GIS Certification Institute. She is a member of the American Association of Geographers, the Wyoming Geographic Alliance, and Women in GIS. She is an avid reader and loves hiking and riding horses in the mountains with family and friends.
More information about Margo's work >
Geospatial Developer
Office: Room 405, Agriculture C
Phone: (307) 766-2532
Email: kbutler4@uwyo.edu
Kurtis Butler is a geospatial developer for WyGISC. Kurtis’ research interests include internet-based GIS applications, free and open source GIS, historical geography, geovisualization, photogrammetry, and GIS for archaeology. In his previous work he led a GIS lab for the Villa del Vergigno Archaeological Project, and he continues to serve as cartographer for the Cetamura del Chianti Archaeological Project in Tuscany, Italy.
Kurtis received his B.A. in History from the University of Wyoming in 2014. He then earned an M.A. from the UW Dept. of Geography in 2018, where his work focused on GIS analyses for more in-depth visualizations and comparisons while mapping ancient Roman and Etruscan road routes. When not working, Kurtis enjoys mountain biking, hiking, rock climbing, baseball, and making maps for Dungeons and Dragons games.
Geospatial Developer
Office: Room 326, Agriculture C
Phone: (307) 766-2532
Email: ncase2@uwyo.edu
Nicholas Case has been a part of WyGISC since 2018 currently works as a Geospatial Developer. He is the development arm of the EPSCoR Micro project's Data Team and responsible for creating and maintaining the Laboratory Inventory Management System (LIMS) designed to track samples starting from the field through analyses. Additionally, Case is a teaching assistant to Dr. Shannon Albeke in the GIST department. He helps design course content, assessments, and moderates discussion boards that interface directly with students.
Nicholas obtained his bachelor's degree of arts and sciences in anthropology from San Diego State University and an associate's degree of science in geography from San Diego Mesa College. He is currently a master's student in the GIST program focusing on learning new methods and technologies that enable researchers and decision-makers to glean information from data that may not be readily visible on its own.
Geospatial Specialist
Office: Room 323, Agriculture C
Phone: (307) 766-2532
Email: sewers@uwyo.edu
Samantha Ewers is a Geospatial Specialist for WyGISC. She joined WyGISC in 2014 as a data manager for an NSF EPSCoR grant in spatial hydrology and now spatial microbial diversity. Samantha’s primary focus has been to perform data management for academic research projects and research groups. She also assists with development and maintenance of data management for projects and applications across WyGISC. Samantha is a member of Women in GIS and holds a Bachelor’s in Civil Engineering from North Carolina State University. She enjoys being outside hiking and more recently gardening and is an avid quilter.
Senior Research Scientist
Office: Room 308, Agriculture C
Phone: (307) 766-3709
Email: phodza@uwyo.edu
Paddington Hodza is a Senior Research Scientist at WyGISC. He is a native of Zimbabwe where he completed BSc Surveying and MSc Land and Geographic Information Systems at the University of Zimbabwe. Paddington worked for World Wide Fund for Nature and Environment and Remote Sensing Institute before moving to the U.S. in 2002 to pursue a PhD in Geography at West Virginia University. He joined University of Colorado, Colorado Springs in 2007 where he directed the GIScience Certificate program for which he led the development. He is a certified GIS Professional, licensed FAA Drone Pilot, recipient of Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship and Leadership Wyoming alumnus. He was elected to the UCGIS Board of Directors for a 3-year term beginning in 2019 and serves on UCGIS Education Committee and University of Wyoming Faculty Senate. His current research interests include UAS, multimodal GIS education, positivity GIS, immersive geovisualization and spatial data science.
Geospatial Specialist
Office: Room 304, Agriculture C
Phone: (307) 766-2532
Email: sgl55@uwyo.edu
Shawn Lanning is a Geospatial Specialist at WyGISC. Shawn’s work includes management and technical support for WyGISC server infrastructure, geospatial tool and task development/automation, and user assistance for the Wyoming Geospatial Hub. He also holds an FAA sUAS (drone) remote pilot license and has research interests in collecting drone data for a wide variety of projects.
Shawn received his master’s degree from the University of Wyoming Geography Department in 2005, where he focused on developing a pronghorn migration and habitat model that allowed for updated user inputs to better reflect real world conditions. He holds the designation of GIS Professional (GISP) by the GIS Certification Institute and is a founding member of the Wyoming Geospatial Organization (WyGEO) where he served on the board for the first seven years of the organization’s existence. Shawn enjoys hunting, fishing, anything sports related, brewing beer, and smoking/bbqing in his free time.
Assistant Professor
Office: Room 329, Agriculture C
Phone: (307) 766-2749
Email: amadson@uwyo.edu
Austin Madson is an assistant professor at WyGISC. He received his PhD from UCLA in the Department of Geography in 2020 and leads classes in Remote Sensing (RS) and UAVs within the WyGISC GIST framework. He is a physical geographer with research interests within the Earth and geoscience realms. In particular, Austin utilizes advanced RS techniques (insar, lidar, optical) along with computational modeling and field instrumentation to study hydrologic and geomorphologic changes. He has interests in geodesy, Raspberry Pi projects, cluster computing, data processing parallelization, data visualization, open-source programming, low-cost GNSS hardware, semi-autonomous rover and UAV construction, sensor fusion, UAS data acquisition, SfM, lidar and radar RS techniques, real-world applications in the use of RS and GIS, and the integration of RS and GIS technologies. Austin enjoys tinkering on projects, fieldwork, soccer, and just soaking up the outdoors.
Geospatial Project Coordinator
Office: Room 326, Agriculture C
Phone: (307) 766-2532
Email: jmckay6@uwyo.edu
Jalynda Mckay is a Geospatial Project Coordinator with WyGISC, where she's been working since 2016 designing and building geospatial web applications from start to finish. Jalynda has served as the Vice President of the Board of Directors for the Wyoming Geospatial Organization (WyGeo) and is an active member of WyGeo and Women in GIS. Her research interests include developing natural resource management tools, computer programming, and data management. When not programming geospatial apps you can usually find her riding her mountain bike in the hills around Laramie, boating on the many rivers in the West, or skiing in the backcountry.
Geospatial Technician
Office: Room 319, Agriculture C
Phone: (307) 766-2532
Email: msanecki@uwyo.edu
Michelle North has been a geospatial technician at WyGISC since 2014. Projects she has worked on include the DDCT (now OneSteppe) and the UW campus map. Additionally, she developed a map to help consumers connect with local farms across the US. Michelle grew up in Casper and received her BS in Geography from the University of Wyoming. When she’s not working, Michelle enjoys spending time with her husband and dogs, gardening, and hiking in the mountains.
Geospatial Technician
Office: Room 321, Agriculture C
Phone: (307) 766-2532
Email: nwilli21@uwyo.edu
Natalie Williams is a Geospatial Technician for WyGISC. Where she assists with several web development projects for both WyGISC and many of their additional websites and web projects. She joined in September of 2018 and is a University of Wyoming graduate with a bachelor’s degree in Geology. Natalie’s interests include hiking, computer science, and literature.
Geospatial Developer
Office: Room 326, Agriculture C
Phone: (307) 766-2532
Email: bwriter@uwyo.edu
Jason Writer has been a WyGISC team member since 2011. Initially hired as a GIS Technician, he developed a database and desktop application to capture range-wide Redband trout distribution data and spent three months in the Northwest leading data entry workshops with teams of biologists and GIS professionals. Jason has served in several roles with the center, including Research Scientist Associate. He is currently a Geospatial Developer, where he continues to work with natural resource managers to develop web-enabled geospatial applications. He holds a GISP from the GIS Certification Institute and, when not in AG 326cc, enjoys backpacking, cycling, and playing music.
Associate Professor
Office: Room 332, Agriculture C
Phone: (307) 766-2532
Email: cxu3@uwyo.edu
Dr. Chen Xu is an Associate Professor in the Wyoming Geographic Information Science Center (WyGISC). He joined the Department of Geography as an Assistant Professor in 2014 and joined WyGISC after the restructuring of the curriculum in 2019. He received a B.S. in engineering from Sichuan University, China, in 1999, and an M.S. in computer science from Sam Houston State University in 2005. He received his Ph.D. in Geography from Texas A&M University, College Station in 2010. From 2010 to 2014 he worked at George Mason University as a research scientist.
His research interests span both geocomputation and geographic information science. Much of his work has been on improving the understanding and design of volunteered geographic information (VGI) system, mainly through the application of geocomputation and data mining technologies. In the geographic information science area, he has worked on applying cybernetic theories to geospatial investigations.
More information about Chen's work >
Assistant Professor
Office: Room 329, Agriculture C
Phone: (307) 766-2744
Email: dyang1@uwyo.edu
Dr. Di Yang is an Assistant Professor at WyGISC. Di received her Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Florida in 2019. She is a geographer and geospatial data scientist with expertise in geospatial informatics, applied remote sensing, volunteered geographic information (VGI), and macrosystem ecology. Her research interest lies in the development of advanced remote sensing techniques through digital image processing and geovisualization applications, specifically in coupled human-environment interactions and citizen sciences. She is also committed to developing and sharing expertise in processing and analyzing large ecological and remote sensing databases by using cutting edge tools (e.g., Google Earth Engine, Microsoft Azure, and Web-GIS) to benefit conservation, resource management, landowners, and policymakers.
More information about Di's work >
Visit Di's Geospatial Digital Informatics Lab website >
1000 E. University Ave. Laramie, WY 82071
UW Operators (307) 766-1121 | Contact Us | Download Adobe Reader
