Geospatial Program Area

We help researchers work with geospatial data for all their research needs.

Contact Information:  Steve Gaughan, Research Facilitator – Applications Specialist – Geospatial Programmer / Analyst  (GIS, Spatial Analysis)

 stephen.p.gaughan@dartmouth.edu (contact me to schedule a meeting, send questions, etc)

603-646-9524

Locations: By appointment / 4 Currier Place, Hanover, NH 03755   map location

Services (see also examples toward the end of this page) :
  • Consulting services, spatial data workflows
  • Mapping
  • Historical map scanning, data extraction, and transformation
  • Geocoding street addresses
  • Workshops
  • Guest lecturing
  • X-hour teaching, case study presentation 
  • Web-mapping
  • Data transformation and data visualization
  • ESRI / ArcGIS 
  • Spatial processing and visualization with R 
  • Spatial processing and visualization with Python 
  • SQL database extraction and loading

ArcGIS Online & ESRI tools include ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Online, Survey123, ArcGIS Story Maps, ArcMap, ArcGIS Dashboards, ArcGIS WebApps, Web App Builder and more. 

Geographic Information Systems are systems to create, store, view, edit, analyze, visualize, and export data that is tied to locations on the earth’s surface.

We support and provide GIS software and training, and our GIS Application Specialist offers expert consultations and assistance.

We teach workshops, typically announced in the first week or two of the term.  For a list of workshops, see https://rc-new.dartmouth.edu/index.php/training/our-courses/ 


Research Contributions, Examples & Case Studies


Footprint evidence of early hominin locomotor diversity at Laetoli, Tanzania Published 01 December 2021 in the Journal Nature

Nature:  volume 600, pages 468–471

Ellison J. McNutt, Kevin G. Hatala, Catherine Miller, James Adams, Jesse Casana, Andrew S. Deane, Nathaniel J. Dominy, Kallisti Fabian, Luke D. Fannin, Stephen Gaughan, Simone V. Gill, Josephat Gurtu, Ellie Gustafson, Austin C. Hill, Camille Johnson, Said Kallindo, Benjamin Kilham, Phoebe Kilham, Elizabeth Kim, Cynthia Liutkus-Pierce, Blaine Maley, Anjali Prabhat, John Reader, Shirley Rubin, Nathan E. Thompson, Rebeca Thornburg, Erin Marie Williams-Hatala, Brian Zimmer, Charles M. Musiba & Jeremy M. DeSilva
Nature Volume 600, pages 468–471 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04187-7

Surface Contour Extraction, Transformation, and Visualization


National attribution of historical climate damages
Published: 12 July 2022 in the journal Climate Change. Volume 172, article number 40, (2022)

Companion website to “National attribution of historical climate damages” 
Published 12 July 2022 in the Journal Climate Change  volume 172, Article number: 40 (2022), from Dartmouth’s Climate Modeling and Impacts Group(CMIG). Callahan and Mankin https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-022-03387-y

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-022-03387-ythese

https://rcweb.dartmouth.edu/CMIG/national_attribution_2022/prod/

Distribution of maps, charts and data tables (.csv format) programmed using DartFS’s web server, HTML, Javascript, PHP, and acknowledgement of Dartmouth’s Research Computing and the Discovery Cluster 


New Guinea bone daggers were engineered to preserve social prestige
Nathaniel J. Dominy, Samuel T. Mills, Christopher M. Yakacki, Paul B. Roscoe, and R. Dana Carpenter

Published 25 April 2018 in the Journal Royal Society Open Science
https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.172067

Publication-quality maps 


The Dialogues Bioregional Project: Landscape Ecology in Central Italy from the Sixth Century to the Present
Damiano Benvegnù

Published 31 December 2019 in the Journal Humanist Studies & the Digital Age
https://journals.oregondigital.org/index.php/hsda/article/view/4542
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5399/uo/hsda.6.1.5

Web Mapping with Leaflet.js


Machine Learning and Image classification with ArcGIS & Python Code


Data Extraction from scanned historical Maps

Shimásání dóó shicheii bi’ólta’ – My Grandmother’s and Grandfather’s School: The Old Leupp Boarding School, A Historic Archaeological Site on the Navajo Reservation. Two Bears, Davina Ruth.  Indiana University ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, Degree Year 2019.  https://www.proquest.com/docview/2305191109/abstract/6EE7BC5D6DC840DAPQ/1?accountid=10422


The Settlement Organization of Sparta, from the Bronze Age to the Roman Period. C&M73(2024) 199-294.  Paul Christesen & Nathaniel W. Kramer. Classica Et Mediaevalia Danish Journal of Philology and History.  Geospatial Database Development

https://tidsskrift.dk/classicaetmediaevalia/article/view/146573 

Image: Paul Christesen and Nathaniel Kramer 2024


Google Earth Engine

Google Earth Engine Sentinel-2 Remote Sensing time-series data –  Scripting with Javascript and Python to analyze satellite imagery 


Support for the Global Du Bois

Support for the Global Du Bois time-series animated web map web of W.E.B Du Bois’ travels worldwide 


Geocoding street addresses to base maps

We support developing reproducible workflows for research using R and Python with spatial libraries and spatial data.


Workshops

Workshops & topics: 

  • Spatial Analysis with Python
  • Spatial Data in R 
  • GIS for the Humanities
  • GIS for Public Health
  • Data Science with Spatial Data & Spatial Analysis Techniques
  • Data Wrangling 
  • Introduction to GIS
  • Introduction to ArcGIS
  • Up and Running with GIS Projects
  • Creating geospatial data: Scanning paper maps, Georeferencing, Geocoding addresses
  • Database Design and Query 
  • Reproducible Research with Spatial Data and Spatial Analyses
  • Getting Started with Python
  • Getting Started with R

Pre-recorded: 

Current-term workshops, in-person or via Zoom: https://dartgo.org/RRADworkshops 


supported software:

Software as a service: Software-As-A-Service browser-based applications

ArcGIS 10.8 link for instructions and to download ArcGIS Desktop  (network and standalone licenses available)

ArcGIS Pro link for instructions and to download ArcGIS Desktop  (network and standalone licenses available)

ArcGIS Online browser-based Software-As-A-Service available to Dartmouth through a web browser. Visit this link for Dartmouth’s ArcGIS Online system. Click “Sign In” > Dartmouth College, and sign in with your Dartmouth Single-Sign-On credentials to create an account.  For more details on ArcGIS Online, see https://services.dartmouth.edu/TDClient/1806/Portal/KB/ArticleDet?ID=123163

Google Maps / MyMaps from Google Suite is available through a web browser.  Log in to Google Drive (https://drive.google.com/).  In the upper right, click the Google Apps ‘waffle’ icon, and click “Maps”.  In the upper left of Maps, click the three-line ‘pancake’ icon, choose “Your Places” > Maps > Create Map

The Geospatial Program Area of Research Computing facilitates and enables the advancement of research by providing leading-edge computing services.

We provide a wide range of capabilities, including creating custom maps, spatial analysis, machine learning for remote-sensing image classification, a multi-spectral UAV/drone, Python workflow scripting, data extraction and transformation from historical maps, and geo-locating street addresses.  Our team has conducted X-hours, workshops, and guest lectures on geospatial data science for Dartmouth courses. We support various software platforms, including ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Online, and QGIS, and offer expertise in geospatial data analysis using Python and R. We have data science expertise, software engineering expertise, and we build SQL-conforming databases with spatial data to meet your research needs.

Additional links and resources: 

Geospatial Analysis—A Comprehensive Guide, 6th edition; 2007–2018; de Smith, Goodchild, Longley. https://www.spatialanalysisonline.com/HTML/index.html

Leaflet and Folium – https://leafletjs.com/ and https://python-visualization.github.io/folium/latest/index.html

Geographic Information Systems, Dawsen, Christopher J.
New York : Nova Science Publishers, 2011

Getting to know ArcGIS Desktop by Tim Ormsby

The ESRI guide to GIS analysis by Andy Mitchell

Geographic Information Systems and Science by Paul Longley

GIS Concepts and ArcGIS Methods by David M. Theobald

GIS Fundamentals by Paul Bolstad

GIS Tutorial for ArcGIS Pro by Wilpen Gorr and Kirsten Kurland


Steve Gaughan, Research Facilitator – Applications Specialist – Geospatial Programmer / Analyst  (GIS, Spatial Analysis)

contact info: 603-646-9524 /   Stephen.P.Gaughan@dartmouth.edu

Or contact research.computing@dartmouth.edu to generate a service request

page revised 8.09.2024