Women's Geospatial Forum Now On GeoNet

By Julia Lenhardt and Madeline Schueren, Diana Lavery , Lauren Bennett and Margot Bordne

We are excited to announce the Women’s Geospatial Forum on GeoNet. This is the place on GeoNet for women across all geospatial sectors to find information and resources, ask technical or professional questions, and engage in discussions with women and allies in the GIS industry.

GeoNet is the central, online destination where the Esri Community gathers to exchange ideas, solve problems, accelerate success and build relationships to create a better world through the use of geographic information technology. GeoNet is where the Esri Community—customers, partners, Esri staff, and others in the GIS and geospatial professional community—connect, collaborate and share experiences. An ever-growing number of GeoNet communities of practice exist on specific products, industries and events.

Some future ideas for the Women’s Geospatial Forum include webinars, AMA (Ask Me Anything) sessions with prominent women in the geospatial community, and general collaboration with Esri’s WeCan, Women in GIS and individual GIS analysts & practitioners. Stay tuned!

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Feel free to start discussion topics, post questions and share your knowledge. We can’t wait to see everyone’s contributions and future conversations to come. As with any GeoNet group, please remember to adhere to the GeoNet Terms of Use and Guiding Principles. The Women’s Geospatial Forum is managed by Esri’s Women’s Empowerment & Career Advancement Network (WeCan).

Who is WeCan?

WeCan is a grassroots initiative led by Esri employees whose mission is “to empower women at the company to achieve their goals and build strong careers.” Margot Manasevit, an Account Manager on Esri’s Global Business Development team, founded WeCan in mid-2017 as a bi-weekly discussion group to build community, share career growth resources, and create networking opportunities for women at the company. It has since evolved to a cross-departmental listserv of over 300 women and men committed to the mission, including an 11-person leadership committee dedicated to driving this initiative forward. WeCan activities for Esri employees include bi-weekly discussion circles, networking events, and monthly group mentorship from company leaders. WeCan also hosts external sessions at Esri conferences, such as the Empower Your Voice panel that took place recently at Esri’s User Conference in San Diego.

Many thanks to Supriya Khadke and the WeCan leadership team for their work setting up the Women’s Geospatial Forum community on GeoNet.

Julia Lenhardt

Julia is a product engineer on the Raster team. She has been with Esri since 2014 and has a background in remote sensing and GIS for environmental research. In addition to image analysis, she has a passion for music, running, good food and animal welfare.

Madeline Schueren

Madeline Schueren is a Senior Solution Engineer on the Geo Experience Center Team at Esri, helping organizations find answers to their challenges through the adoption of geospatial technologies. As a member of this team, Madeline presents and demonstrates geospatial solutions and capabilities to users visiting the Esri headquarters in Redlands, CA. She is a natural evangelist and enjoys demonstrating solutions that will radically improve the way organizations address the challenges they face. Madeline is also one of the leaders of WeCan - Esri's Employee Resource Group for women and their allies. Madeline’s background is in Urban Planning – before coming to Esri, she worked as a GIS Planner for the Chester County Planning Commission in suburban Philadelphia. It was at the county that Madeline found her passion for integrating 3D GIS into planning workflows and identifying ways the organization could do more with GIS. Her peer-reviewed research on 3D modeling and land development planning was published in September 2017. Madeline holds a B.A. and M.A. in Geography and Urban Planning from West Chester University of Pennsylvania.

Diana Lavery

(she/her/hers) Diana loves working with data. She has over 15 years experience as a practitioner of demography, sociology, economics, policy analysis, and GIS. Diana holds a BA in quantitative economics and an MA in applied demography. She is a senior GIS engineer on ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World's Policy Maps team. Diana enjoys strong coffee and clean datasets, usually simultaneously.

Lauren Bennett

Lauren Bennett is the lead of the Spatial Statistics software development team at Esri. Her role includes providing vision and direction for future analytical tools in the areas of spatial statistics, machine learning, and spatiotemporal analysis, as well as involvement in the research, design, validation, documentation and creation of educational resources for new tools. Lauren has been at Esri for almost 11 years, starting as a Solution Engineer supporting Defense and Intelligence customers, shifting to software development as a Product Engineer, and has been leading the Spatial Statistics team since 2015. Lauren received a BA in Geography from McGill University, an MS in Geographic and Cartographic Science from George Mason University, and her PhD in Information Systems and Technology from Claremont Graduate University.

Margot Bordne

Margot Bordne is an Account Manager on Esri's Global Business Development team and Racial Equity & Social Justice team. Margot supports organizations across industries who leverage GIS to improve their operations and decision making capabilities, with a focus on the use of GIS for advancing equity and social justice. Margot also founded Esri's Women's Enablement & Career Advancement Network (WeCan) and has a Master's Degree in Diversity & Inclusion Leadership at Tufts University.

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Women's Geospatial Forum Now On GeoNet

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