Samantha Dobson and Torin Hovander have served as vice president and president, respectively, of the UMSL chapter of YouthMappers since its founding last spring. (Photos by Derik Holtmann)

Torin Hovander wasn’t expecting to see quite so many students turn out for last month’s Off-Ramp Speaker Series event, hosted by the University of Missouri–St. Louis chapter of YouthMappers in the Geospatial Advanced Technology Lab in Benton Hall.

Hovander, who serves as the president of the student-run organization, had to go down the hall to grab extra chairs to accommodate the large audience.

The students were there to hear insight from Keith Barber, BAE Systems Electronic Systems sector’s director for strategies and engagements, as well as former NGA Director and retired Vice Admiral Robert Sharp, now a research fellow with UMSL’s Geospatial Collaborative, on how to begin a career in the geospatial sector. Sharp even noted the event’s standing room only attendance in his opening remarks.

The geospatial ecosystem in St. Louis has been growing steadily over the past several years. New startups have been sprouting up as construction continues on the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s new $1.75 billion campus near downtown. More and more UMSL students want to be a part of it.

UMSL’s chapter of YouthMappers has been helping cultivate interest in geospatial technology while also assisting students in developing skills in geographic information systems, or GIS, since its founding last spring. It is part of a network of more than 400 student-run chapters worldwide.

UMSL YouthMappers President Torin Hovander (at right) welcomes a standing room only crowd to the Geospatial Advanced Technology Lab for UMSL YouthMappers’ Off-Ramp Speaker Series event featuring Keith Barber, BAE Systems’ director of strategy and engagement.

The Off-Ramp Speaker Series was created to connect members and other interested students with professionals working in a variety of roles in GIS. But the main work of YouthMappers internationally is to “organize, collaborate, and implement mapping activities that respond to actual development needs around the globe – creating and using spatial data and information that is made publicly available through open platforms.”

“We are a humanitarian mapping organization, and what that means is that a lot of the work we do is in developing countries that really can’t afford to create their own maps,” Hovander said.

He noted the maps that were created to show the scale of the damage caused by the recent wildfires in Los Angeles. Developing nations might not have the wherewithal to create those types of maps when confronting their own natural disasters, whether fire, flood or some other event. But the utility of them having the information presented visually is the same, so YouthMappers might step in to try to meet that need.

In the process, they gain experience using GIS tools such as the software ArcGIS, available for students, faculty and staff to access in the Geospatial Advanced Technology Lab.

Reda Amer, the director of UMSL’s Geospatial Collaborative, has been very supportive of YouthMappers activities, ensuring they have access to the lab when they need it. Recently, they have helped map the impact of flooding in Malawi and contributed to an assessment of volcano damage in the Philippines.

“There really is no typical project,” Hovander said.

There are opportunities to contribute to projects all over the world, and students can choose ones that align with their interests.

The idea to launch a YouthMappers chapter at UMSL originated from a conversation that Amer had with the organization’s membership coordinator at the Geography 2050 STL symposium that UMSL hosted with the American Geographical Society in June 2023. He wound up engaging computer science Professor Sanjiv Bhatia and former Professor of Practice and current NGA staff member Jessie Bleile, who was teaching a course for the geospatial certificate program that fall.

Hovander and Samantha Dobson were two of the students in Bleile’s class, and when they heard about YouthMappers, they jumped at the chance to get involved. They have served as the president and vice president since its inception while Bhatia has been the group’s faculty advisor.

Their interests in GIS are very different.

Hovander, who works as a clerk for the City of St. Louis, holds a master’s degree in national security policy studies from the University of New Mexico. He was interested in learning more about the applications of GIS for national security when he chose to enroll in the geospatial certificate program in August 2023.

“My main focus while doing my master’s was in North Korea,” he said. “North Korea is a notoriously information poor-target, so getting reliable information out of North Korea is arguably impossible. However, using GIS tools such as satellite imagery, you can observe some things that really cannot be hidden.”

He offered the example of a map showing North and South Korea at night. Lights are lit up all over the southern half of the image, but the land north of the 38th parallel is largely dark – showing the technological and energy divide between the two countries.

Retired Vice Admiral Robert Sharp, a former NGA director now serving as a research fellow with UMSL’s Geospatial Collaborative, talks to a group of students during UMSL YouthMappers’ Off-Ramp Speaker Series event on Feb. 26 as Samantha Dobson (at right) listens.

Dobson, meanwhile, is pursuing a master’s degree in public policy administration at UMSL after graduating with a bachelor’s in sociology in 2022. Throughout her graduate studies, she’s worked as a research and teaching assistant in the sociology and political science departments and currently serves as a planning and development intern with the City of Webster Groves. Upon graduation, she hopes to utilize her GIS skills to inform housing policy decisions in city planning and community development.

The applications of GIS for local government are numerous.

“You use mapping for all kinds of things – tracking any kind of data or trend, optimizing routes or resource allocation,” Dobson said. “Then you can get into remote sensing and all these different associated technologies. Mapping is a very practical tool that is used in every sector.”

That’s a message Hovander and Dobson try to get across to other students.

Another Off-Ramp Speaker Series guest, Molly Brady, an UMSL graduate now serving as serves as the education and professional development manager for the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation, spoke with members of YouthMappers last week and talked about organizations and agencies outside NGA and national security looking for employees with GIS skills.

It can help enhance the resumés of students with so many different majors as Tarik Beslija learned when he met Hovander at the Recreation and Wellness Center and they started up a conversation.

“He ended up telling me about GIS,” said Beslija, who immediately recognized its applications for his chosen area of study, supply chain and analytics. “There’s a ton of overlap that I think most people aren’t aware of. Supply chains focus on transportation issues, logistics, getting things from Point A to Point B. With geospatial analysis, they’re creating the systems that we use.”

Hovander and Dobson don’t want students to be intimidated about learning the technology.

“It’s a trial-and-error kind of thing,” Dobson said. “It’s the kind of tool that you might get frustrated and scream at your screen sometimes, but it’s just like learning Excel or any other tool. It can be frustrating. But I think it’s very accessible.”

Beslija, who attended last month’s Off-Ramp Speaker Series event, is one of the now more than 35 students who have joined the UMSL chapter of Youth Mappers.

Bhatia believes the organization can get even bigger. But with Hovander finishing his certificate program last semester and Dobson and Student Government Association representative Rumandeep Singh set to graduate this spring, he knows he is going to have to find new students who share their passion for GIS and can build on the foundation they set.

“They are the ones who are running the show,” Bhatia said. “We are going to need some more fresh blood who are excited about this and will continue to do their work.”