December 11, 2024
What happens when two passions collide in a single graduate student? Well, in this case the result is an Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship awarded to the dynamic Hailey Richardson, a doctoral student in the UA Department of Geography. Hailey combined her childhood passion for maps – including hand drawing maps – with her family heritage of law enforcement to focus on the geography of crime. Mapping crime and its movements or transit brought Hailey to UA and the Laboratory for Location Science run by the Geography Department. Applying her knowledge and expertise to a range of social problems fuels Hailey’s enthusiasm for completing her doctorate with the support of the TRB’s Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship.
In a conversation with ATI, Hailey explained about how law enforcement efforts to counter crime can directly benefit from thoughtful and innovative mapping applications. As she told us, “…when I met the geographer who did geography of crime…that made me so excited.” She went on to note that geographic applications were not just about making maps, but also are about “patterns of people and the environment that also influence crime…so if we can use geography to better understand crime patterns and better spatially analyze them, then that helps out in terms of … policing strategies and law enforcement as well.”
And then last summer she was able to do an internship – in transportation.
In Hailey’s words, “… the cool thing about geography is … it’s applied to everything.”
Because she was already participating in a research project that involved transportation, she wanted to better understand it. Focusing in part on geographic areas where family lives, she spotted an internship opening at the North Central Texas Council of Governments, which has a very large transportation department and they were seeking a GIS intern.
How did it work out?
“And so I was able to learn different GIS technologies and methodologies to be able to apply that to transportation. But using GIS specifically, which enabled this research to actually move forward because there was like a stump in the road. And then when I had this internship, I was able to apply what I’ve learned to get past that stump.
So that was super helpful.”
We cannot wait to see what she tackles next at the crossroads of transportation and geography!