HBCU Environmental Justice Technical Collaborative (HEJT) - Mapping Black Geographies & Environmental Justice

Join us for a powerful and thought-provoking panel discussion, featuring an esteemed panel of geospatial changemakers: Dr. Linda Loubert, Autrice Thornton, Cari Harris, and Dr. Tony Graham.

In this episode, our panelists explore the evolving role of GIS and artificial intelligence, diving into how these technologies shape environmental justice, community resilience, and Black geographies. From the impact of data misrepresentation on marginalized communities to the urgent need for accessible GIS tools, this conversation highlights the intersections of technology, advocacy, and empowerment.

Our guests also share personal journeys in the field, reflecting on the power of mapping for climate justice, economic development, and storytelling—all while envisioning a future where GIS is an intuitive, everyday tool for community-driven action.

🔹 How can GIS empower communities facing environmental injustice?
🔹 What role does AI play in shaping the future of geospatial equity?
🔹 Why is Black representation in geospatial technology more critical than ever?

Transcript

0:15

Be Black, Be Bold, Be Innovative, Show the World Equitable Geo. We're coming together as a collective to celebrate people of African descent, the diaspora, and talking about geospatial equity and justice. You're listening to The North Star Gaze, a podcast with intimate stories from geoluminaries. I'm Erica Phillips. I'm with Northstar GIS and thank all four of our panelists this afternoon for coming out to the 2024 Homecoming event. We really appreciate you having been here. I'm with Dr. Linda Loubert. I'm with, uh, Autrice Thornton. I'm with Karee Harris and I'm with Dr. Tony Graham. So thank you all very much for being our panelists this afternoon. And I've got some questions I'd like to ask you, first question I'd like to ask is, How do you see GIS changing in the future? Can I start with you, Dr. Graham? Wow. I was on the forefront of GIS in 2000. And now it's 2024. Okay. For GIS in the future, you have to talk about artificial intelligence. Yep. Integrating with geospatial data sets in a careful way to assist our communities and our enablers to use the data appropriately. Because data can be misunderstood, and misused. If we're not careful, and especially in marginalized communities, because social media has put things to the point where what's true and what's not true, we don't really know unless we take a deeper dive into it and we need something to help to do that. That's a very interesting perspective. I've worked around the public health community for most of the last 15 years and one of the things I saw was working with Native American communities was a concern about data being misused against them right? I do understand what you're saying about data can be misused and it can be misrepresented. Thank you, and how do you view GIS changing in the future, Kari? I see more people getting jobs with certifications in the future. So someone having a GISP or understanding how to use GIS, being able to just work and use data analytics and mapping as like that one skill to get into the door and hopefully that becomes the case given the rise in cost of a college education, even though we all are part of the HBCU Environmental Justice Tech Collaborative. But I also really just want to see GIS in the community more. And I want more people to know how to use it and I want it to be more intuitive and I want it to be on people's phones and I want people to be asking themselves questions throughout the day and trying to figure the question out using GIS. Or story mapping. Yep. Thank you. And for those who are not familiar, GISP is GIS Professional. So it is possible to get a certification or accreditation without having a college degree. You don't have to have a college degree to make use of GIS technology. GIS changing in the future, I think Karee hit it right on the nose. I think that it's going to be innovative and it's going to evolve. I see it as a tool that may be eventually used like social media. Where it's like a mandate. People need to use it to look at mapping, to look at data. for a variety of things so that they can make decisions on a daily basis. Dr. Grant mentioned the progression of artificial intelligence. And I think we're probably at the cusp of it being, a necessity in the near future, people won't be able to live without GIS and it probably will evolve into a bigger profession than what we see right now. Thank you one of the things that I heard on that stage, reminded me of some volunteer work that I've done before, I was working with a group of, female sex workers, and the most important thing they taught me was nothing for us without us. You can't go and advocate on our behalf without us. And I heard you, Dr. Graham, speaking about integrating the communities that you are serving. About the role GIS can play in getting tools into the hands of people who are most impacted. Dr. Loubert, do you want to talk a little bit about the future of GIS? I wanted to say Living Atlas is out there. I see in the future that more diversity of input from people of color, The community's perspective from lay people's perspective is going to be a part of that Living Atlas. it's going to grow in an exponential way in the sense that it's going to bring in a diverse group of folks who have GIS knowledge and training so that it can be put out there and you can see it. I think you're absolutely right. You know what, one of the things that concerns me is in this digital age, we don't always have a physical record that, reminds people of what happened, right? When we had physical newspapers, once they printed that paper, it was out there. In the digital age, How do we keep a record? Technology is changing. AI is changing. How we perceive information is changing, all sorts of things are happening because we can no longer tell the difference between what is real and what is manufactured. I'm going to go in a different direction. Dr. Loubert, what challenges have you faced as a professional leveraging GIS that are specific to you as a black person? I've been with GIS since, ArcView, 3Point, whatever. And so I'm going to say that it's challenging. To know that this technology is, grows so fast. And, when I'm in in Pro, and, trying to use this tool to help understand, or bringing that into my analysis and my research. The challenge is that I now have to take time To not only think about my research question, but how to use this tool that's so enormous to be able to express and show. What is in my head for the research question. That to me is challenging because my mind doesn't stop. That's the problem. It's a beautiful mind. We don't want it to stop. Um, I'm coming back to you, Dr. Graham, specifically, because you've said that you've been using GIS since the beginning of this this millennium, right? Okay, so tell me, Dr. Graham, what are the challenges that you've experienced as a black man Working with the built environment, as a civil engineer, as an architect in this particular arena? Social media. That's been a challenge. Social media has transformed education. The delivery of the content. How students come in the classroom ready to learn. Because they're using social media as the vehicle. That's problematic from the beginning. Because now there's more trust in a device that can literally overheat. And turn itself off. And then there's no intellectual property left. to have a conversation about subject matter because it's all been held in a digital world and intellectually conversation can't happen anymore. The challenge for me was making that transition in the classroom with a student who walks in with a cell phone and an iPad and the attention is not on me as a lecturer and an educator. So I had to transform me to adapt to the social media wave of educating our people, our brown and black people, our young men, our young women, who for whatever reason may or may not want to hear that conversation because they're locked into this device. So, we are, we are here on the grounds of Howard University. We're coming out of the homecoming, the North Star of GIS homecoming event. But I cannot stop thinking about the fact that a week and a day ago, there were students all on the streets here in front of Georgia Avenue preparing to celebrate. And, That celebration did not get to happen. So I'm going to start first with you, Kari, and ask you to talk a little bit about how does it feel to you to be sitting here today, this week, we're a week and a day after finding out what happened in the U. S. election. Can you talk a little bit about that? It's a heavy question. Loaded question. I think we're a week and a day away from the election, but we are also a day after the first ever Greater Baltimore Climate Summit. And so to have given a talk today from the lens of environmental justice, to be an environmental justice advocate, to have learned and studied and come up under the members of the HBCU Environmental Justice Tech Collaborative, I think although, we're a little somber I feel confident knowing that I'm mentored by people who were doing this work before there was money to do this work, before it was popular to do this work, before environmental justice became a buzzword, before equity became a buzzword, before DEI came and went, right? To be around people who have been doing this social justice and environmental justice work for multiple decades. I feel like I'm ready to continue doing what it is that they've been doing for a long time now. And it's not the outcome that I expected. Um, or the outcome that I wanted. I think it just means we need to come together even more and be ready to do more work for people that look like us. And for our community. Thank you so much for that. I'm really grateful for you Karie, for reminding me that we still got work to do , and we've got people to help us in doing that work. So thank you for that reminder and helping me to get back on my gratitude instead of being in that other space that I can live in. Do you want to talk about what it means to you to be here on the campus of Howard University today? I'll continue to be as transparent as I can. Would you believe that this is the first time that I visit Howard University? So I'm pretty excited to be here and I had an opportunity to tour the campus. As I shared earlier, on the panel, I'm in not necessarily emphasy stages with the environmental justice because I've probably been doing the work and probably just wasn't calling it environmental justice, which you helped me understand and realize. But being able to speak and being able to, have people listen to environmental justice, it just makes me. It empowers me, it excites me. We had the first inaugural Baltimore Climate Summit and the work continues, as African Americans, as black people, our ancestors, we've persevered and come over so many things. Like someone said, we just have to continue to do the work. We have to continue to empower each other. We have to continue to do the work that we've been doing. And I think that we'll continue to be okay. And I will share that. I think we'll be able to continue to empower our communities and empower each other. And I think that we'll be able to make a change and be transformative in the community. So I'm pretty fired up. I love it. She's fired up. She is fired up. She is ready to go. This election is not, it's not stopping you in your tracks at all. I love this. I love this. We are working, most of us are working in the built environment, um, interested in things like climate change, but that climate has an impact on what's happening under the water as well, right? So I guess that's my job to tell people that you are more than, take credit for all of the things that you are. Dr. Loubert, do you want to talk about what it means to be standing here on the campus of Howard University today, a day after your summit, but also a week and a day after this election. Well, you know, it's significant. But it is significant to know that we had a gracious and, light filled person who just lost an election to come out and speak to us on this campus. And even though, it's Dark in many ways. It's like she talked about, we could be in the darkness, those stars bring out light and we have to do it right now. So that's the significance of being on Howard's campus for me today is that I am reminded I am a light. I'm in this darkness, and I have to move forward with that light and share it, and with everybody I come in contact with. When I share the light, I'm also sharing the love. Oh my goodness, so much. Thank you from my heart for your love and for your light. Khary. if you could have a superpower, which superpower would you choose that you think would most be helped by GIS? Which superpower would you choose and which one do you think would you find GIS to be helpful in you deploying? That's a good question. I mean, I've always wanted to fly. I think in relation to GIS, being able to fly would give you that bird's eye view. As a strategist and a visionary, I can imagine in my head kind of Everything that I want to see come into fruition, but being able to fly and just see a city or a neighborhood or a country, from the atmosphere, like, We see maps on GIS, but like being able to see everything, like even in that airplane view, I think it's super cool. And perhaps it would give me, uh, different vision or ideas about what to do, economic development and real estate development are happening in Baltimore. And I think being able to fly and just see the activity and see what's going on. You know, one of the things that amazed me when I was working at Esri and I was started working with ArcGIS Pro and drones, right, to see the type of information you could collect from drones, it blew me away. My mind, right? Or to see people imagining whole cities, right? Or, or taking a look at a city and seeing how having that quote unquote bird's eye view allowed you to collect a different type of information. It is pretty amazing what one can do. But, Dr. Graham, if you could have a super power, which super power would you choose and how would GIS be used by it? I'm going to have to go with flying. Flying over your area that you live in or flying across country. Or the ocean It's a ninth wonder of the world experience. You see the great pyramids and you're like, wow. But flying over a region, it's more than a wow. It's, uh, Man, that's, those are mountains over there. Oh, it's snowing over here. Oh, it's a desert now. And it's the same areas you're flying through. At night is my favorite time. Because at night you get to see the actual urban patterns in cities. Because the lights tell you the growth patterns. And That allows a lot of conversation, just from that one perspective. And, uh, so it would be flying for me, uh, simply because it broadens that horizon. I like it. I like it. And Dr. Luber, I'm going to ask you a different question. At the start of 2024, if you could have put together a bingo card of things that were going to happen this year, what You know, I'm sure a lot of things were on that list, personal things and things that relate to others. But what happened this year that was not on your bingo card for 2024? Well, Trump got elected. It was not on my, that was, I just couldn't believe that people, Um, I don't think that people would really want to have a criminal in the White House. And I, you know, I was so, like, even before Biden dropped out, I just couldn't imagine that people were that, think like that. So that's a definite one. And, um, I think when it comes to more personal, Seeing, seeing, how this young lady right here could pull off such a spectacular climate summit in the city, that was not on my radar in the, in the beginning of 2024 and to see that was just a phenomenal for me. Kudos, kudos. What a great thing to have turn up on your bingo card that you did not see at the beginning of the year. Okay. Artrese, what was not on your bingo card for 2024? 2024 did not have of me advocating and supporting climate change, environmental justice, knowing about GIS. Being a part of the HEGET collaborative. And so, what fuels me and what drives me is being community based, being in the grassroots, being able to support and serve. And so I'm always very thankful for any opportunity where I get to support and serve. And me being able to learn something new. Being able to take that knowledge and transfer it to, impactful sustainability within communities. I'm forever grateful for this space and it being on my bingo card. I love that. Thank you. Um, Kari. What do you want to see North Star do for you to help you advance in your career and in your chosen work? Hmm. I think, one of the great, things about studying under Dr. Linda Loubert, economist at Morgan State University, is that she showed us how to apply economics to the real world. And so, when I think about North Star, and it's amazing and fruitful mission, I, I think alongside the events and the programming. having workshops and sessions for not only students, but community members. Like I mentioned earlier, people can get a GISP and not have a college degree, right? So engaging people in applications of GIS through the lens of being black. Um, I think that'd be really cool. because again, like I mentioned, I built a story map earlier this year. Showing the first tranche of awardees for the EPA Community Change Grant. I'd never done it before. and I think even just challenging people in the community or students to build story maps. Um, I think having a group of students about random things will be so helpful, um, in terms of data analytics, because the future is AI, the future is analytics. And so getting as many people as possible involved in GIS and analytics and AI, I think will be really, really fruitful in terms of what the mission of this organization is. Great. Thank you. Dr. Grimm, what can we do more of for you and for your students? I don't teach anymore, I'm retired on that front. But, I would love for North Star to have me come and engage uh, conversation for applying geospatial technology as it applies to the built environment. that'd be cool stuff. Thank you. Let's find a way to make that happen. And finally, Dr. Lou Bair, what can NorthStar do to support you? Well, on our way, as we were walking over here, I did say to, uh, Kari and Autrice that, North Star needs to come to Morgan. North Star needs to be at different HBCUs. Why not? Um, be a traveling North Star, highlight this idea of the North Star with GIS a little bit more so that, a deeper connection. Could occur, not just have that name, but say the emphasis of the name out there. I love that. And I'm going to take that back we have a new board that's convening and I'm definitely going to take your comments to them. I want to say thank you to each of you. It has been really enormously important to this homecoming event to have your input here. We so appreciate you. We don't take you for granted at all. We know that your time is precious. And we are so grateful that you shared your time with us. So, I want to thank Dr. Linda Loubert. I want to thank Autrice Thornton, Kyrie Harris, and Dr. Graham. Thank you so much for being a part of the 2024 Homecoming event. We couldn't do what we do without you. If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more about Northstar of GIS, check us out on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube at GIS Northstar. We want to thank our sponsors of the 2024 Homecoming event, our institutional partner ReGrid, and our sponsors New Light Technology, Afrotech, and Black at Work. We'd like to thank our keynotes, Tara Roberts, Linda Harris, Dr. Paulette Hines Brown, and Vernice Miller Travis. We'd like to thank Howard University and the staff at the Interdisciplinary Building and Photography by Imagery by Chioma. We also want to thank our guests for trusting us with their stories. Tara, Linda, Paulette, Christian, Abraham, Jason, Vernice, Stella, Beye, Karen. Nikki, George, Frank, Labdi, Toussaint, Victoria, and the HBCU Environmental Justice Technical Team. And finally, thank you to the North Star team and our wonderful volunteers. We are your hosts of the Season 2 of the North Staggers Podcast, which is based on the 2024 Homecoming Conference event. Thanks for listening to the North Star Gaze, intimate stories from geoluminaries. If you're inspired to advance racial justice in geofields, please share this podcast with other listeners in your community. The intro and outro are produced by Organized Sound Productions with original music created by Kid Bodega. The North Star Gaze is produced in large part by donations and sponsorship. To learn more about North Star GIS, Check us out at north star of gis.org and on Facebook or Instagram at GIS North Star. If you'd like to support this podcast and North Star of gis, consider donating at North star of gis.org/donate or to sponsor this podcast, email podcast at north star of gis.org. You've been listening to the North Star Gaze.