As an undergraduate, I interned with the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation and Recreation Natural Heritage Division in my last semester of undergrad, working with the Conservation Lands GIS Planner to edit, update and maintain a state-wide database. This provided the project for my capstone – updating park and natural area boundaries and incorporating these edits into the database.
During the MSGA program, I was hired as a Preserve Technician with the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation Natural Heritage Division, working for the Northern Region Stewardship Manager at Crows Nest Natural Area Preserve in Stafford County. This gave me the opportunity to put my education into direct application – designing trail maps for the preserve, creating all cartographic works for the preserve, and conducting data analysis and data dissemination to the rest of DCR Natural Heritage.
My MSGA capstone was focused within Crow’s Nest and used data from annual breeding bird surveys to conduct a species distribution analysis of breeding habitat within the preserve. This capstone highlighted potential areas where a certain bird species could breed within the preserve and the environmental factors that drive breeding site selection.
UMW prepared me in multiple capacities: research and technical writing capabilities, professional cartographic design and display, GIS analysis, and research expertise. These have gotten me to where I am now – working with the Virginia Outdoors Foundation at Bull Run Mountains Natural Area Preserve, where I am in charge of all GIS data creation, geospatial analysis, and cartographic design.