People

Students

Gabriel Wilkins

Gabriel is a master’s student in Urban and Regional Planning at UW-Madison, where he also works as a project assistant with the Geodesign Collaborative, Wisconsin Sea Grant, and the ICICLE project. He has bachelor’s degrees in Geography & Environmental Studies and Philosophy from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. His work focuses on connecting theoretical concepts to their practical implications, most often via GIS and GIS-adjacent applications (click here for a sample of his undergraduate work).

His work for the Geodesign Collaborative focuses predominantly on Geospatial applications – particularly Esri apps such as ArcGIS Pro, Urban, GeoPlanner, and StoryMaps – as well as some administrative and marketing work. He is currently helping redesign a GIS course in Planning and Landscape Architecture and contributing to UW Madison’s portion of the multi-university ICICLE project.

Anna Joy

Anna is a second year master’s student in the M.S Urban and Regional program as well as Certificate in Business, Environment and Social Responsibility. She earned her Bachelor’s in Planning from the School of Planning and Architecture, Vijayawada in 2020. With a passion for spatial analysis and geospatial applications, she utilizes the different ESRI platforms: ArcGIS Desktop, ArcGIS Pro and QGIS since her undergrad days.

Anna is a Project Assistant for the Geodesign Collaborative, undertaking the responsibilities of campus wide licensing, software support, website designing and updating. Collaborating with faculties, she conducts ArcGIS Story Maps workshops for courses and projects. Currently, she focuses on market and demand analysis for development and real estate using ArcGIS Business Analyst and ArcGIS community analysis, as well as using their data across different platforms.

Heidi Putnam

Heidi is a double degree master’s student in Urban and Regional Planning (DPLA) & Water Resource Management (Nelson Institute). She holds a bachelor’s degree in Natural Resource Planning and certificates in Professional GIS and GIS for Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point (UWSP). Previously, Heidi worked for the UWSP GIS Center as a Project Assistant and then for a private environmental engineering consulting firm where she utilized GIS for wetland, waterway, and agricultural projects. Currently, she is a Teaching Assistant for LA 695: Applications of GIS for Natural Resources.

The focus of her degrees and work with the GeoDesign Collaborative is on integrating ArcGIS Pro, GeoPlanner, and other ESRI applications into community-based projects for environmental protection. Heidi desires to make the planning and design process more accessible to a wider audience through the use of visual communication tools and opportunities for input.