Patricia Solis
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Walton Center for Planetary Health Suite 504E 777 E University Avenue Tempe, AZ 85281-5302
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Mail code: 5302Campus: Tempe
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Patricia Solís, PhD, is Executive Director of the Knowledge Exchange for Resilience at Arizona State University, a campus-wide effort to link multi-sector community needs with research innovations in building community resilience. The effort is funded by a generous grant from the Virginia G. Piper Trust, and engages a multi-disciplinary team of 50 community and academic fellows, 5 cross cutting design scholars, a team of 5 research professors, and a crew of 20 or so full time staff and graduate student assistants. She is Associate Research Professor of Geography in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning.
She is Co-Founder and Director of YouthMappers, a rapidly-growing consortium of student-led chapters on more than 345 university campuses in 72 countries who create and use open spatial data for humanitarian and development needs in collaboration with the United States Agency for International Development, the main co-founding sponsor. The network enjoys donors and partners from the non-profit and private sector.
Prior to joining ASU, she was Co-Director of the Center for Geospatial Technology at Texas Tech University and Research Associate Professor of Geography in the Department of Geosciences and affiliated with the TTU Climate Science Center. She served Deputy Director and Director of Research at the American Association of Geographers. Dr. Solís received a BS in Physics, BA in German, and MA in Geography from Kansas State University. She earned her Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Iowa where she was a Presidential Fellow.
Solís has developed and executed more than 50 competitive research programs, 80% of them as lead or PI, with funding totaling ~ $18M, promoting innovations in research, education and community collaboration with support from federal agencies such as the US National Science Foundation, the US State Department, NASA, NOAA, US Geological Survey, USAID, and others. Her research focuses on designing experiences for exchanges of knowledge, fellowships, and applications of open geospatial technologies to address socially relevant challenges, from water sustainability to urban climate change induced hazards to broadening participation in higher education. Her creative leadership has resulted in the development of collaborative and participatory research methodologies, youth-engaged peer exchanges, new designs for research-centered learning, and the sustained institutionalization of public-private partnerships centered on using digital geographic technologies.
Her international experience includes fostering north-south and south-south academic networks among emerging scholars in sixty countries across Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. These efforts have been recognized by the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development as a model program. She also serves as the elected and State-Department appointed President of the Geography Commission of the PanAmerican Institute for Geography and History of the Organization of American States, and has been honored with the designation of National Researcher II from Panama and twice the Enlaces Award for academic collaboration with Latin America. She is a Specialist on the Fulbright Commissions’ Roster of Experts and served with the Politecnico Instituto di Milano in 2018. She was recognized as Geospatial Volunteer of the Year for the State of Arizona by the Arizona Geographic Information Council in 2019. She received AAG Honors in 2021.
1998 – 2002 PhD in Geography, University of Iowa
1994 - 1996 Master of Arts in Geography, Kansas State University
1989 - 1994 Bachelor of Science in Physics, Bachelor of Arts in German, Kansas State University
1992 - 1993 Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH), Zürich, Switzerland
BOOKS
Solís, Patricia, and Marcela Zeballos. (Eds.). 2023. Open Mapping towards Sustainable Development Goals: Voices of YouthMappers on Community Engaged Scholarship. Springer Nature Sustainable Development Goals Series, ISBN: 978-3-031-05184-5. Open Access: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-05182-1.
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. [Contributor, Panelist]. 2022. Toward a 21st Century National Data Infrastructure: Mobilizing Information for the Common Good. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/26688.
McCusker, Brent, Waquar Ahmed, Maano Ramutsindela, and Patricia Solís (Editors). 2022. The Routledge Handbook of Development and Environment. Routledge. ISBN Hb: 978-1-138-32566-1 and eBook: 978-0-429-45031-0. https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Handbook-of-Development-and-Env….
SELECTED RECENT PUBLICATIONS
Phillips, Lora A., Patricia Solís, Chuyuan Wang, Katsiaryna Varfalameyeva, and Janice L. Burnett. 2021. Engaged Convergence Research: An Exploratory Approach to Heat Resilience in Mobile Homes. Professional Geographer 73(4):619-631. DOI:10.1080/00330124.2021.1924805
Wang, Chuyuan, Patricia Solís, Lily Villa, Nayan Khare, Elizabeth Wentz, and Aaron Gettel. 2021. Spatial Modeling and Urban Analysis of Heat-related Morbidity in Maricopa County, Arizona. Journal of Urban Health 98(3):334-361. DOI:10.1007/s11524-021-00520-7.
Zhao, Qunshan, Ziqi Li, Dhrumil Shah, Heather Fischer, Patricia Solís and Elizabeth A. Wentz. 2021. Understanding the interaction between human activities and physical health under extreme heat environment in Phoenix, Arizona. Health & Place DOI:10.1016/j.healthplace.2021.102691.
Rees, Amanda, Timothy Hawthorne, Dorris Scott, Eric Spears, and Patricia Solís. 2021. Toward a Community Geography Pedagogy: A Focus on Reciprocal Relationships and Reflection. Journal of Geography 120(1):36-47. DOI: 10.1080/00221341.2020.1841820.
Shannon, Jerry, Katherine Hankins, Taylor Shelton, Amber Bosse, Dorris Scott, Daniel Block, Heather Fischer, LaToya Eaves, Jin-Kyu Jung, Jonnell Robinson, Patricia Solís, Hamil Pearsall, Amanda Rees, Aileen Nicolas. 2020. Community Geography: Toward a Disciplinary Framework. Progress in Human Geography 45(5):1147–1168. DOI: 10.1177/0309132520961468.
Brovelli, Maria Antonia, Marisa Ponte, Sven Shade, and Patricia Solís. 2019. Citizen Science in Support of Digital Earth. In Manual of Digital Earth, Huadong Guo, Michael Goodchild, and Alessandro Annoni (Editors). International Society for Digital Earth. Springer, Singapore, pp. 593-622. DOI: 10.1007/978-981-32-9915-3
Warren, Stacy, Trevor M. Harris, Michael F. Goodchild, and Patricia Solís. 2019. Commentaries on “Evaluating the Geographic in GIS.” (Who is putting whose Geography into whose GIS, and how? Solís). Geographical Review. DOI: 10.1111/gere.12359
Solís Patricia, Jenni Vanos and Robert Forbis. 2017. The Decision-making / Accountability Spatial Incongruence Problem for Research linking Science and Policy. The Geographical Review107(4): 680-704. DOI: 10.1111/gere.12240.
Hawthorne, Timothy, Patricia Solís, Brittney Terry, Marie Price, and Christopher L. Atchison. 2015. Critical Reflection Mapping as a Hybrid Methodology for Examining Socio-Spatial Perceptions of New Research Sites. Annals of the Association of American Geographers105(1):22-47.
Solís, Patricia and Inés M. Miyares. 2014. Rethinking Practices for Enhancing Diversity in the Discipline. Featured FOCUS section on Diversity, Inclusion, and Participation in Geography: The Professional Geographer 66(2):169-172.DOI:10.1080/00330124.2012.735920.ISSN: 0033-0124.
Solís, Patricia, et al. 2011. Climate Change and Hazards in the Americas: International Interdisciplinary Research Directions and Opportunities. Washington, DC: Association of American Geographers. Translated and co-authored in Spanish as Cambio Climático y Riesgos en las Américas: Directrices y oportunidades de investigación interdisciplinaria internacional. ISBN 0615408338.
CURRENT FUNDED RESEARCH
2023-26 CoPI, Southwest Urban Corridor Integrated Field Laboratory (SW-IFL). Awarded from Department of Energy, Office of Science, CoLead for Resilient Solutions with K. Ladd; PI Dave Sailor, $25,000,001.
2022-25 Senior Personnel, Collaborative Research: CyberTraining: Implementation: Medium: Cyber2A: CyberTraining on AI-driven Analytics for Next Generation Arctic Scientists. National Science Foundation, PI Wenwen Li, $680,566.
2022-24 CoPI, PIPP Phase I: Computational foundations for bio-social modeling of unseen pandemics. National Science Foundation, Lead Pillar 4 for Policy and Augmented Decision Making; PI Pavan Turaga, $1,323,466.
2022-23 CoPI, Accelerating Solar Mini-grid Deployment in Fiji. United States Trade and Development Agency (USTDA), PI Nathan Johnson, $750,000.
2022-23 CoPI, A Socioeconomic Assessment of Future Geostationary Satellite Sensors to Improve Air-quality Impacts on Human Health and Wellbeing: A Case Study of Maricopa County, Arizona. Awarded from National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), PI Tim Lant, $149,998.
2018-23 Executive Director, Knowledge Exchange for Resilience, a university-community initiative to identify, create, and share the knowledge, experience, and connections to make Maricopa County a national paradigm for building resilient communities through social cohesion, economic prosperity, and environmental security. Principal Investigators Dr. Elizabeth Wentz, Dr. Michael Crow, Arizona State University. Awarded by Virginia G. Piper Trust, $13,500,000.
2018-23 Principal Investigator, YouthMappers® University Consortium: Building Open Spatial Data for Economic Development and Community Resilience, a study to build economic development and community resilience by supporting university students through the rapidly-growing YouthMappers consortium, at the time of award on 120 campuses in 38 countries, now on 345 campuses in 72 countries; to create and use high-quality geospatial data in places of interest to USAID. Administered by consortium of Arizona State University, Texas Tech University, West Virginia University, The George Washington University and the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team. Awarded by US Agency for International Development, award limit to $5,500,000. Anonymous private donation match, $1,200,000 and State of Texas match approved $300,000 of $600,000.
2021-23 Principal Investigator, YouthMappers Support to USDA-FAS Crop Mapping Program; US Department of Agriculture Foreign Ag Service, $74,997.
2020-22 Principal Investigator, Advancing Women’s Prosperity in the Workplace through Technical and Soft Skills in Environmental Science and Geospatial Technologies, to support SERVIR Hubs in West Africa, East Africa and Amazonia with materials and workshops. Subawarded by NASA under Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative (W-GDP), with Amy Frazier, $639,484.
2018-22 Principal Investigator, How the Crowdsourced Spatial Data Revolution is Being Used to Complement Official Data, to advance understanding about the role of open, volunteered spatial data to produce knowledge needed by public institutions for building resilient communities and infrastructure by integrating volunteered spatial data into official cartographies in the US, Mexico and Central America. Awarded by National Science Foundation, Science, Technology and Society Program, $359,244.
Courses
2022 Spring
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| LIA 194 | Special Topics |
2023 Invited Lecturer, Healthy Urban Environments, SOS494/598 Arizona State University, with Chuck Redman, on “Heat, Housing and Health,” Spring Semester
2023 Invited Lecturer, Gendering Peace and Security, HUL/ENG/WST 494/598 SOS 498/594 Arizona State University, with Miki Kittleson, on “Why She Maps,” Spring Semester
2022 Research Associate Professor, Discovery Seminar, LIA194, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Arizona State University, Spring Semester
2019 Research Associate Professor, Individualized Instruction, GIS499, School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, Arizona State University, Fall Semester
2019 Research Associate Professor, Internship, GIS684, School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, Arizona State University, Fall Semester
2017 Research Associate Professor, Undergraduate Research, GEOL4312, undergraduate research supervision on open mapping for disaster prevention from volcanic hazards in Colombia, Department of Geosciences, Texas Tech University, Fall Semester
2017 Research Associate Professor, Graduate Research Hours, LPMD7000, Summer Term graduate research supervision on tool discovery and the impact of open mapping for malaria prevention in Africa, Department of Land Use Planning Management and Design, Texas Tech University
2017 Invited Lecturer, Anthropology of Tourism, ANTH3300 Texas Tech University, with Lauren Miller Griffith, on “Mapping for Hurricane and Flooding Recovery,” Fall Semester
2017 Invited Lecturer, Introduction to Human Geography, GEOG2300 Texas Tech University, with Linda Lea Jones, on “Mapping for Hurricane and Flooding Recovery,” Fall Semester
2017 Research Associate Professor, Special Topics in Geography: Open Mapping for Resilience, GEOG4320/5130-S, undergraduate and graduate hybrid online course with Service-Learning designation, Spring Semester, 15 students and wiki-coauthors for projects in Uganda, Colombia, Nigeria, Philippines, with USAID GeoCenter, Missing Maps, Red Cross, USAID Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, presented via StoryMap, Department of Geosciences, Texas Tech University
2016 Research Associate Professor, Special Topics in Geography: Open Mapping for Resilience, GEOG4320/5130-S, undergraduate and graduate hybrid online course with Service-Learning designation, Fall Semester, 18 students and wiki-coauthors for projects with USAID GeoCenter in Kenya, Colombia, Ghana, Indonesia, presented via StoryMap, Department of Geosciences, Texas Tech University
2016 Research Associate Professor, Special Topics in Geography: Open Mapping for Resilience, GEOG4320, upper level undergraduate/graduate independent study hybrid online course, Spring Semester, 29 students and wiki-coauthors for projects with USAID GeoCenter in Angola, Mozambique, Ecuador, Bangladesh, Department of Geosciences, Texas Tech University
2016 Invited Lecturer, The Humanities in the 21st Century, Texas Tech University, with Dorothy Chansky, on “How to Lie With Maps,” interdisciplinary team-taught undergraduate core general education requirement course as introduction to the humanities, sponsored by the TTU Humanities Center
2012 Assistant Professorial Lecturer, Urban Sustainability and Development, The George Washington University, with Marie Price, undergraduate / graduate level study abroad summer course and international fieldwork research collaboration experience, in collaboration with the University of Panama, Department of Geography, Maria Adames de Newbill, Panama City, Panama
2009 Assistant Professorial Lecturer, Sustainable Development Strategies, Ecotourism, and Security, The George Washington University, with Marie Price, undergraduate / graduate level study abroad summer course in Panama City, Panama
2006 Assistant Professorial Lecturer, Panama and the Global Economy, The George Washington University, with Joe Dymond, undergraduate / graduate level study abroad summer course in Panama City, Panama
2003 - 2004 Assistant Professorial Lecturer, Graduate Seminar on Resources and the Environment: Resource Conflict and Conflict Resources, Department of Geography, The George Washington University, Washington, DC Campus
2021 American Association of Geographers Ronald F. Abler Distinguished Service Honors
2019 Data Passion Team Award to Knowledge Exchange for Resilience, Data Impact Awards of the ASU University Technology Office
2019 State of Arizona Geospatial Volunteer of the Year, Arizona Geographic Information Council
2018 Enlaces Award, Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers
2015 Kansas State University Arts & Sciences Merit Award
2015 National Council for Geographic Education Outstanding Support for Geography Education Award
2013 Kansas State University Alumni Fellow
2018 – present Executive Director, Knowledge Exchange for Resilience, Arizona State University
2020 – present Associate Research Professor, School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning
2020 – present Faculty Affiliate, Urban Climate Research Center
2021 – present Senior Global Futures Scholar, Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory
2015 – present Co-Founder and Director, YouthMappers®
2014 – 2018 Research Associate Professor of Geography, Department of Geosciences (now adjunct); Co-Director, Center for Geospatial Technology, College of Arts and Sciences; Adjunct Associate Professor, Climate Science Center, Texas Tech University
2014 – 2016 Senior Research Associate, Research Development Team, Office of the Vice President for Research, Texas Tech University
2003 - 2014 Director of Outreach and Strategic Initiatives, Association of American Geographers, also Director of Research and Outreach, 2005-2010, Deputy Director, 2003-2005
President, (Elected), PanAmerican Geography Commission of the PanAmerican Institute of Geography and History of the Organization of American States (OAS), scientific diplomatic appointment by the US Department of State
Fulbright Specialist, Roster of Experts, World Learning
Editorial Board, Professional Geographer, Geographical Review
Voting Member (elected), Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team
National Councillor, (Elected), American Association of Geographers