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	<img alt="" src="{filedir_5}Mark-Gathany-Research-250pxl.jpg" style="width: 200px; height: 300px; float: right;" />It was ten years ago this year that Professor Mark Gathany took his first geographic information systems (GIS) course as a graduate student.</p>
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	As he explains, &ldquo;At the time I thought, &lsquo;Hey, I like geography, and it would be great to learn how to make maps of my research sites.&rsquo; That first class opened my eyes to the power and utility of GIS. I still remember my professor suggesting that in a few years we will be able to collect field data in real time with wireless networks. This seemed outlandish [to me at the time], but oh my how much has changed in ten short years!&rdquo;</p>
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	The field of GIS has expanded tremendously in ecology and conservation over the last ten years, and so has Gathany&#39;s use of the technology: from a NASA funded study on fire proneness of Colorado forests to a GAP analysis study investigating land use around areas under various levels of environmental protection (National Parks, BLM, Forest Service) to using terrain analysis to predict locations of pre-historic villages. His current research uses satellite and field data to investigate the influence of land use and habitat fragmentation on the prevalence of raccoon roundworm in raccoon hosts in central Ohio.</p>
