Faculty & Staff

Lori Collins, Ph.D., Research Assistant Professor and Co-Director of AIST

Dr. Lori Collins is the Co-Director of the Alliance for Integrated Spatial Technologies (AIST), a Center in the School of Geosciences that is working to preserve and protect the world’s cultural and natural heritage through education and global engagement. Dr. Collins teaches courses on technologies for heritage preservation and museum visualization, and her research specialties include heritage and landscape preservation and documentation strategies for archaeology, Florida and Southeast U.S. archaeology, Mesoamerican iconographic and rock art documentation and preservation, and LiDAR and terrestrial laser scanning applications for heritage management.
Email: lcollins@usf.edu CV

Travis Doering, Ph.D., Co-Director of AIST

Dr. Doering is the Co-Director of the Alliance for Integrated Spatial Technologies (AIST), a Center in the School of Geosciences at the University of South Florida that is working to preserve and protect the world’s cultural and natural heritage through education and global engagement. His research specialties include rock art and material culture studies, geoarchaeology, Mesoamerican archaeology, and applications for terrestrial laser scanning and imaging for heritage preservation. Dr. Doering has taught classes in archaeology, museum studies and GIS. He has conducted projects utilizing terrestrial laser scanning around the world.
Email: tdoering@usf.edu CV

Joni Downs, Ph.D. Associate Professor

Dr. Downs’s research aims to develop new methods of spatial analysis and modeling that can be broadly applied within GIScience and related fields. Specific statistical and mathematical approaches of interest include: density estimation, point pattern analysis, time geography, spatial optimization models, and network analysis. Application areas of interest encompass a variety of topics, including wildlife ecology, global sustainability, public health and safety, and transportation. She is also interested in geovisualization, particularly in how it facilitates spatial analysis and modeling.
Email: downs@usf.edu CV

Jeffrey Du Vernay, Ph.D., Faculty Assistant in Research

Dr. Jeff Du Vernay is a Faculty Research Assistant and archaeologist at AIST who specializes in close and middle range 3D scanning, 3D modeling software applications and printing, and GIS. His primary research interest is the archaeology of the Southeastern United States (particularly Florida), but he also contributes to research projects at AIST and elsewhere including the U.S Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions, U.S. Virgin Islands, Hawaii, Mexico, and Guatemala. Jeff has taught a number of classes in archaeology and anthropology, and has assisted in the development and teaching of multiple terrestrial laser scanning workshops.
Email: jduverna@usf.edu CV

Shawn Landry, Ph.D. Associate Professor and Director of the USF Water Institute

Dr. Landry’s research contains a balance of academic and applied research, technical transfer services and community engagement. He often addresses issues related to water, wetlands, urban forest and land cover change. There are several themes that infuse his research including: the spatial and temporal dynamics of human-environmental interactions, environmental equity, water resource management and policy, applied geospatial technology and online public education and decision support systems.
Email: Landry@usf.edu CV

Ruiliang Pu, Ph.D. Associate Professor

Dr. Pu’s research experience and interests are in remote sensing, GIS and spatial statistics with direct applications to natural hazard monitoring, land use/cover change detection, biophysical and biochemical parameters extraction, and coastal and terrestrial ecosystems modeling. His current research interests are in mapping and characterization of seagrass habitats using spacecraft observations and urban environmental studies using thermal and optical remote sensing data with an emphasis on analysis of high spatial and spectral resolution satellite imagery.
Email: rpu@usf.edu CV

Steven Reader, Ph.D. Associate Chair and Associate Professor

Dr. Reader’s interests are in using GIScience and spatial statistics for social science applications. His current interest is in public health applications, specifically the two issues of cardiovascular death and low birth weight. Dr. Reader is also engaged in developing spatial statistical methodologies, particularly in the analysis of point pattern data.
Email: sreader@usf.edu CV

Elizabeth Walton, Ph.D. Instructor

Dr. Walton specializes in geographic information systems and science (GISS) technologies, ecological niche modeling, and remote sensing. She uses these technologies to detect habitat sites for threatened and endangered turtles, such as the endangered Desert Tortoise (Gopherus agassizii) in the Mohave Desert. Dr. Walton’s research interests include turtle population assessments and the use of GIST to study a variety of turtle-related topics.
Email: emwalton@usf.edu CV

GRADUATE TEACHING ASSISTANTS

• David Lamb, Ph.D. Graduate Assistant
  Email: davidlamb@mail.usf.edu CV
• Qiuyan Yu, Ph.D. Graduate Assistant
  Email: qiuyanyu@mail.usf.edu
• Bomin Koh, Ph.D. Graduate Assistant
  Email: bkoh@mail.usf.edu
• Mehrdad Vaziri, Ph.D. Graduate Assistant
  Email: mvaziri@mail.usf.edu