Faculty
Simon Brewer – Faculty Mentor
I am an Associate Professor in the Geography Department at the University of Utah. My main research focus is on the long-term response of ecosystems to climate change. This has led to an (unhealthy) interest in spatiotemporal data science, particularly the intersection between spatial statistics and machine learning. I’ve been fortunate to work with a large number of smart people on and off-campus, which has allowed me to apply these methods across a range of topics, including health, transportation, archeology and social studies.
Email: simon.brewer@geog.utah.edu
Mickey Campbell – Faculty Mentor
Mickey Campbell is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography who applies geospatial and remote sensing data science to wildland fire and forest and woodland ecology. Starting with his PhD, he has been working to improve wildland firefighter safety through the development of geospatially-driven approaches for evaluating escape routes, safety zones, and situational awareness. He also employs ground-based, airborne, and satellite remote sensing data to study forest and woodland structure, function, and health, with a particular interest in quantifying changes in vegetation conditions over time.
Alexander Hohl – Faculty Mentor
Alexander Hohl is an assistant professor at the Department of Geography at the University of Utah. He has received his BS in Geography from the University of Zurich, MA and PhD in Geographic Information Science (GIS) from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. In his research, he develops and applies spatial data science approaches to study geographies of health and wellbeing. Alexander currently teaches upper-level classes in GIS, data visualization, and geospatial big data.
Email: alexander.hohl@geog.utah.edu
Kurt Wilson – Postdoctoral Fellow, Faculty Member
I am a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in the Geography Department at the University of Utah. My research focuses on exploring and understanding human-environment interactions in situations of climatic change, with particular focus on how human behaviors and local ecologies influence dietary change, cooperation, territoriality, and defense in manners that lead to inequality in human populations. Looking at these patterns over space and time has led me to apply geospatial and digital ecological, statistical, and agent/individual based computer modeling techniques to ethnographic, behavioral, environmental, paleoecological, and archaeological data.
Email: kurt.wilson@utah.edu
University of Utah Faculty Page
Students and Alumni
Yvette Hastings – Web Editor, Alum Member
Yvette is an alum of the University of Utah Geography MS program and is a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science at Montana State University – Bozeman. Through her MS thesis work at the U of U, Yvette found a passion for data science and visualization. Her current research focuses on modeling biogeochemical processes in soil. Other research interests are in GIS, hydrology, and ecology to find solutions to protect and preserve water resources.
Alex Heeren – Student Member
Alex Heeren is an MS candidate in the Department of Geography at the University of Utah. He is presently employed as a Graduate Assistant in the DIGIT Lab as a GIS Analyst. In 2021, he obtained his BS from the Department of Geospatial Sciences and Geography at Kansas State University. He is currently conducting research employing machine learning to better understand a wildland firefighter’s assessment of how defensible a structure is from a wildland fire and be able to predict the level of defensibility. Alex has a keen interest in statistics, GIS, remote sensing, and machine learning, which has drawn him to the field of data science to help answer various research questions within the disciplines of social studies, natural resource management, and environmental studies.
Email: alex.heeren@utah.edu
Troy Saltiel – Alum Member
Troy Saltiel is a data scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. He is an alum of the University of Utah having received an MS in Geography. Troy’s MS thesis work was on how the spatial resolution of drone-acquired multispectral imagery impacts the classification accuracy of deep learning models and the application was on mapping invasive Phragmites in the Great Salt Lake ecosystem. His current work centers around wildfire, including wildfire behavior modeling, fuels mapping, and wildfire impact to the electrical grid. Other projects have included land and water suitability for siting algae farms for biofuel and remote sensing-based vegetation mapping.
Email: troy.saltiel@pnnl.gov
Patrick Sullivan – Student Member
Patrick is a Ph.D. student working on identifying greenhouse gas point source plumes from hyperspectral image data using deep learning. In 2020, he completed his MS at the University of Utah, studying wildland firefighter travel rates using GPS and terrain data. He received his BS in Geology in 2017 from the University of Vermont. When not pursuing research and education, Patrick can typically be found in the mountains.
Email: patrick.sullivan@utah.edu