About
I am a doctoral student in geography at the University of California, Santa Barbara studying spatial information science and geographic networks. In 1999, I co-founded the Western Kentucky University Hoffman Environmental Research Institute, and served as its Assistant Director until 2003. From 1998-1999, I worked as a Research Hydrologist for the Center for Cave and Karst Studies. I received my Bachelor of Science from Texas A & M University, and Master of Science in Geoscience at Western Kentucky University. I worked eight years as a ranger naturalist at Mammoth Cave National Park, Jewel Cave National Monument, and Great Basin National Park.
News
Webpage Changes
February 6, 2010 -- New and undocumented admin changes from the UCSB webhost has made my page increasingly unstable. So, I am taking the problems as a cue to move materials to my own servers. All addresses that reference: http://uweb.ucsb.edu/~glennon will soon be deprecated for: http://alanglennon.com. I'll make every effort to maintain existing subdirectories, but, for now, I do not recommend creating new links to subdirectory contents. All content still completely resides at: uweb.ucsb.edu. It will take a month or so for me to catalog dependencies and set up shop at the new url.
Spatial Coding Circles, v2010
January 19, 2010 -- The spatial@ucsb graduate tech working group with enj.com is holding Monday afternoon and early evening "coding circles" (3pm to dinner). The first meeting of the year is January 25, 2010. The goal is to set aside a time where people with similar interests can code and pool capabilities. This quarter, we're working independently on optimization problems, crisis response coding, and geodesign. Many of us use Python (language), PostGIS (database), Geoserver (data server), ArcGIS, and OpenLayers (visualization). Some of us have been experimenting with Geodjango (web framework), Lindo Lingo API (operations solver), and various geo-friendly Javascript libraries (like mapfish and geoext). Anyone with an interest in geographic technology engineering is welcome. Our plan is to meet Monday afternoons and code until dinner. After that, sometimes we'll eat together; other times we go our separate ways; sometimes we obsess, order pizza, and stay late into the evening.
Spatial Tech Lunch: Open Source Overview
December 3, 2009 -- On December 3rd, spatial@ucsb will host a lunch discussion with Edward Pultar. The discussion will center around a series of lab activities Edward created for GEOG 187 (Fall 2008). If you are interested in attending, please send me a note so I can plan the food.
Code, Eat, Code
October 6, 2009 -- On Thursday afternoons this fall, spatial@ucsb and enj.com are holding geographic technology "coding circles". The group is tackling a transportation optimization problem using Python (language), Lindo Lingo (operations solver), PostGIS (database), Geoserver (data server) and OpenLayers (visualization). Generally, we code a bit, share a meal, then code some more. Our first organizing meeting is Thursday, October 8th at 5pm.
Fall preparations
September 7, 2009 -- This fall I will be concentrating my efforts on two projects : my dissertation and spatial@ucsb. The dissertation has made significant progress over the summer, and I look forward to sustaining the momentum through the fall. Also, I anticipate my duties with spatial@ucsb to recommence in a few weeks. The team is working to make the upcoming year as successful as the last, so expect announcements on the help desk, workshops, brownbags, and spatial technology gatherings in the very near future.
Spatial Tech Lunch: MarineMap
May 5, 2009 -- On May 5th, spatial@ucsb hosted a lunch discussion on the MarineMap project. Will McClintock and his team outlined the project, its technology, management, and engineering. Chad Burt also provided a lightning tutorial on GeoDjango. I hope to get an encore of Chad's presentation so I can record and post it online. If you would like to receive an invitation to the next lunch, drop me a note. Spatial@ucsb hosts them every three weeks, Tuesdays at noon. My contact information can be found at: glennon.tel.
Facebook: Spatial Technology Group
April 18, 2009 -- I created a group on Facebook to maintain a calendar of UCSB-centric spatial technology and engineering activities. If your profile is in Facebook's UCSB network, the group is discoverable from the search bar using the terms: spatial technology.
Spatial Tech Lunch: Android Drew
April 18, 2009 -- On April 14th, spatial@ucsb hosted a lunch discussion on spatial technology and engineering. Drew Dara-Abrams led the discussion by outlining his work on cognitive navigation skills and mental maps. He is using an Android T-mobile G1 for some of the data collection. We had a turnout of about 18 people, comprised of faculty, staff, graduate, and undergraduate students.
photo: Drew Dara-Abrams leads the discussion at the 14 April 2009 lunch.
MarineMap Field Trip
April 3, 2009 -- Will McClintock invited our small group of spatial technology enthusiasts / graduate students to his lab so we could learn more about MarineMap. The project is largely built on a Geoserver, PostGIS, OpenLayers stack. Some of the interesting user generated drawing and editing portions apparently were woven in GeoDjango, and GRASS performs the GIS calculations. The project was created as a decision support system to help stakeholders come to consensus on resource management decisions related to Marine Protection Areas -- the university press release has more background. Here's a photo of our crew talking to one of the MarineMap guys (Chris, I think).
photo: Drew Dara-Abrams, Matt Niblett, Edward Pultar, and Chris MacDonald
AAG Photos
March 28, 2009 -- I placed a few pictures online from the recent AAG Annual Meeting (Las Vegas, March 22-27). I would like to thank the small, but attentive crowd who attended my Friday morning talk on pre-eruptive geyser activity. The photo gallery is online at: http://picasaweb.google.com/glennon/AAG2009.
photo: Mike Goodchild and Karl Grossner at AAG2009.