CPRC

James Quinn is the Geographic Information Systems [GIS] Analyst based at the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy [ISERP], an interdisciplinary social science research institute at Columbia University. James is a professional geographer who has broad research interests that focus on the applications of GIS and remote sensing in spatially integrated social sciences, specifically human-environment interactions on land-use change, physical activity, and health risk. James currently is working with Columbia faculty and staff to develop and carry out research projects using geo-spatial analysis and works primarily on a NIEHS R01 funded research project relating the built environment to physical activity and obesity; the project is a collaboration with faculty in the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University.

Prior to coming to Columbia he worked for three and a half years as a contracted GIS Specialist to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Duluth, Minnesota. His work for the EPA included conservation-focused geospatial database design, GIS and remote sensing data analysis, GPS survey support, technical training, and watershed ecology research support on a myriad of projects including: Development of a GIS-based Expert System to Define Amphibian Habitat; Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program For Great River Ecosystems; Great Lakes Environmental Indicators Project; and Implementation of a Cohesive GIS using ArcSDE 9 and Oracle 9i. While in graduate school, James worked as a Remote Sensing and GIS research assistant for the Science center for Teaching, Outreach, and Research on Meteorology [STORM] Project, using multi-temporal Landsat imagery to detect, measure, and evaluate land-use land-cover changes in Iowa lake watersheds and also in a Mayan area of southern Belize.

James Quinn's Departmental Biography Page