RESEARCH INTERESTS
- Spatial characteristics of the Garden’s saguaro population
- Temporal geographic information science
- Geographic information systems for education
- Volunteered geographic information
PERSONAL STATEMENT
My background is in Geographic Information Systems and Science and I received my master’s in geography from the University of Iowa in 2011. My research centered on modeling short-lived phenomena in geographic information systems and I also assisted in a research study to improve the efficiency of air quality monitoring efforts. I joined the Research, Conservation and Collections Department at Desert Botanical Garden in 2012. I am currently working with the Curator of Living Collections and several volunteers and interns to set up a geographic information system for our 140-acre property and populate it with tens of thousands of plants, several base map layers and an irrigation system model. A web map of our living collections can be viewed at livingcollections.org. In spring 2013, we completed a 17-month inventory of our saguaro collection. A description of the project and some preliminary analyses can be found by clicking on the link under Conference and Workshop Presentations below.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Nixon, V. and Stewart, K., 2010. Using Geolifespans to Model Dynamic Geographic Domains. International Journal of Geographical Information Science. 24(9), 1289-1308.
Kumar, N., Nixon, V., Sinha, K., Jiang, X, Zeigenhorn, S., and Peters, T., 2009. An Optimal Spatial Configuration of Sample Sites for Air Pollution Monitoring. Journal of Air and Waste Management. 59(11), 1308-1316.
Stewart, K. and Nixon, V., 2009. Ontology for the National Map: Supporting Dynamics in a Topographic Feature Ontology. University Consortium for Geographic Information Systems Specialist Meeting, Washington, D.C.
CONFERENCE & WORKSHOP PRESENTATIONS
“Mapping 1,000 Saguaros”. 2013. Esri User Conference in San Diego.”
“Modeling the Persistence of Geographic Objects”. 2010. Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers in Washington D.C.
“The Emerging Technology of Geographic Information Systems: Introduction and Applications”. 2006. EGranary Workshops at Meenakshi Mission Hospital/Research Center & NGO convocation in the governor’s mansion, Tamil Nadu, India.
