I have a BS in Environmental Studies w/ a double minor in Sustainability and Geography. My MS in Geography focused on GIS and Environmental Education.

After finishing my MS, I worked for a year in environmental consulting doing a lot of groundwater monitoring throughout the Southeastern US. While I enjoyed the environmental science-heavy aspect of that job, I didn’t have many opportunities to work with GIS, which was what I was truly passionate about.

I have now been employed as a GIS Engineering Associate at Knoxville Utilities Board for almost three years. A lot of my focus goes into building geospatial mobile apps that our field crews can use to edit field data on the fly. In addition, I have designed Web GIS based data dashboards dealing with electric reliability metrics, general system conditions (pole replacements, electric circuit inspections), etc.

I never saw myself working in an engineering field but I was open to new possibilities and I am very glad I took the leap and received the opportunity to provide support to KUB’s power grid. My position has allowed me to learn many new ways GIS can be applied in the real world that were previously completely unknown to me.