Hi, I am Marcela. I am a research specialist at the Center for Spatial Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Broadly my research interests lie at the intersection of Geographic Information Science, Cartography, and Disaster Management. I study how information contributed by the general public (user-generated content and volunteered geographic information) can be used along with other official data sources to inform how social and environmental phenomena such as disaster events are experienced at a local scale. I use spatiotemporal analysis, geovisualization, machine learning, natural language processing, and data mining techniques to integrate, aggregate, analyze, and visualize data together with its reliability in order to produce useful information and tools for decision making.
Prior to graduate school, I worked as a consultant for the United Nations Development Program for Adaptation to Climate Change in the Colombian Massif, and as GIS specialist for different governmental organizations in Colombia.
Ph.D. in Geography
Department of Geography, University of California, Santa Barbara
M.Sc in Disaster Risk Management and Emergency Response
Department of Geology, University of Costa Rica
B.Eng. in Cadastral Engineering and Geodesy
Universidad Distrital Francisco Jose de Caldas. Colombia
I have worked as an instructor, teaching asistant and lead TA for geography courses at University of California, Santa Barbara.