Kurland to Give Keynote at Africa GIS 2019 Conference
Teaching professor Kristen Kurland will be a keynote speaker in Kigali, Rwanda at the 2019 Africa GIS conference. Her talk, Smart Cities and the Future of Urban Planning, discusses the increasing need for data, technology, and computational systems to improve many aspects of urban life. Her talk synthesizes past, present, and future projects that use 2D and 3D GIS and virtual reality collaborations to bring such projects to fruition.“Healthy Cities includes physical and economic health and overall quality of life," Kurland explains. "Smart and Healthy cities and rural communities will combine creativity, innovation, and collaboration of academic research, public and private partners, and citizen engagement to enhance communities by making data-driven decisions."
Kurland is a Teaching Professor of Architecture, Information Systems, and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy and School of Architecture, President of CMU’s Andrew Carnegie Society, and serves on CMU’s Board of Trustees.
Kurland’s research focuses on interdisciplinary collaborations in health, the built environment, and spatial analysis using Geographic Information Systems (GIS). She works closely with CMU’s Heinz College, School of Architecture, and Civil and Environmental Engineering colleagues and students on health, urban design, economic development, sustainability, and IT issues. She actively collaborates with Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health, and many public health departments.
In addition to her full time faculty position at CMU, Kurland is the president of a local consulting firm that has implemented computer technology programs in numerous organizations. Her clients include architects, engineers, hospitals, universities, corporations, as well as local, state, and federal governments.
Professor Kurland is also the co-author of a series of best-selling GIS workbooks for Esri, Inc. the world’s leading GIS software developer, including GIS Tutorial 1 Basic Workbook, GIS Tutorial for Health, and GIS Tutorial for Crime Analysis.