Mapmaker/Matchmaker

Suchi Gopal and the power of maps

Mapmaker / Matchmaker

Suchi Gopal and the power of maps

By Barbara Moran

Suchi Gopal bursts into her classroom, buzzing with energy. The 11 graduate students parked behind glowing computer monitors rouse themselves from reverie. It’s late in the semester and they are preoccupied with their final projects. But Gopal has more to teach. “Aha!” she claps with delight. “Today we will do some math!”

She grabs a piece of chalk and draws a grid on the blackboard, then fills in numbers: temperature data from points across the United States. Gopal, a Boston University College of Arts & Sciences (CAS) professor of earth and environment , is a renowned expert (and devoted teacher) in the field of geographic information systems (GIS). It’s what laypeople might call “making maps with computers.” And, as Gopal teaches, maps are power. A long list of statistics on bicycle accidents at BU, for instance, is just an inscrutable jumble of numbers. But insert the data into GIS, overlay a map of campus, and the computer builds a map that makes the data instantly understandable. In that case, it becomes clear that most bike accidents don’t occur at intersections, as one might expect, but when the bike lane veers too close to parked cars and bicyclists get doored. Maps provide a deeper understanding of a problem, so people can choose the right solutions.

“I want to solve real-world problems. I don’t want to write something that’s buried in a journal. I want to work with actual people to make a difference,” says Gopal. “All this data is only good if it addresses a societal problem.”

“Suchi is very good at pulling in ideas from other disciplines and applying the tools of GIS. That’s one of her hallmarks and she’s very much a leader,” says Curtis Woodcock, department chair and professor of earth and environment. “Suchi is one of the more freewheeling, quick-thinking, fast-associating people I know. The ideas just bounce out of her.”

Maps Can Lie

Photo of Suchi Gopal — “A map is a means of communication,” says Gopal, “and it is not the God-given truth. It’s the way you design it. The mapmaker makes the map.”

Sucharita Gopal—known universally as “Suchi”—grew up in Chennai, India. With two doctors for parents, dinner conversations “were all about illness and sickness and health and wellness,” says Gopal. “That’s where the curiosity came from.” In college, Gopal became entranced with the idea of how people move through their landscape, and the power of maps to help people understand how to make decisions, including choices about public health. “Everything happens in space,” she says. “Health happens in space.” She left India in 1983 for the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), to pursue her PhD in geography. UCSB was—and still is—a leader in GIS. Computerized mapping had sprung up in the early 1960s, as large mainframe computers became more widely available. The US Census Bureau wanted better maps, as did military spies, British botanists, and urban planners. But it was an English geographer named Roger Tomlinson who became widely known as the “father of GIS” for persuading the Canadian government to create the Canada Geographic Information System (CGIS) in 1966 to conduct a massive inventory of the country’s land. Their goal: to see how much land was farmed and which farms were productive. They operated the system until the late 1980s. When Gopal arrived at UCSB, commercial GIS systems were entering academia, but many scientists didn’t know what to do with them. “Through the ’80s, there were just a few people around the world who recognized the significance of GIS,” says Michael Goodchild, a professor emeritus from UCSB who advised Gopal on her thesis. “We had the president of the Association of American Geographers on record as saying that GIS was a nonintellectual expertise.” Suchi Gopal held no such notions. Even then, she saw potential uses for maps in many fields. She also understood their power. A map is only useful, she says, if someone is using her brain to make it, and analyzing the data honestly. “Maps can lie,” says Gopal. “Hitler lied to the German people by exaggerating the threat from Britain and France. A map is a means of communication, and it is not the God-given truth. It’s the way you design it. The mapmaker makes the map.”

Smarter Satellites

After finishing her PhD, Gopal joined BU’s geography department in 1989 and soon embarked on an unusual collaboration with neural modeler Gail Carpenter， James McCann, a professor of history at BU’s African Studies Center, find hot spots of malaria in Ethiopia. And she’s working with Davidson Hamer, a professor of global health and medicine at SPH, to understand how pregnant women access health care in Zambia. Gopal is also the principal investigator on a five-year, $2.9 million National Science Foundation grant that integrates STEM research into the science curricula of local schools, by pairing BU graduate students with teachers. The grant has impacted over 2,000 middle school students so far. “I want to solve real-world problems. I don’t want to write something that’s buried in a journal. I want to work with actual people to make a difference,” says Gopal. “All this data is only good if it addresses a societal problem.”

Research Connections

Suchi Gopal
Andrea DiGiorgio

Chasing Orangutans

Andrea DiGiorgio

PhD candidate, Biological Anthropology

DiGiorgio studies orangutan feeding behavior in Indonesia’s Gunung Palung National Park by taking detailed notes on what, when, and where they eat. She also notes “decision points” when an orangutan stops and changes direction. Gopal will help her map this data and discern patterns in orangutan behavior. By understanding how orangutans interact with their environment, DiGiorgio hopes to better protect this endangered species.

Further Reading:
/anthrop/graduate/students/a-digiorgio/ http://researchold.cms-devl.bu.edu/articles/chasing-orangutans/
Gail Carpenter

Smarter Satellites

Gail Carpenter

Professor of Mathematics, CAS

In one of her first projects at BU, Gopal worked with Carpenter to develop a computer learning system—a series of algorithms that allowed a satellite’s computer to look at Landsat images and discern mixtures of land cover. Their system analyzed a satellite photo in minutes, where humans could take six months, with results of the same accuracy.

Further Reading:
http://techlab.bu.edu/members/gail/
Susan Proctor

Mapping Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses

Susan Proctor

Research Associate Professor, SPH

After the Persian Gulf War, Proctor worked with veterans who reported medical problems like headache, fatigue, and joint pain that collectively became known as “Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses.” For a 2005 study, Gopal and Proctor mapped troop locations, looking for associations between the soldiers’ symptoms and their possible exposure to environmental contaminants.

Further Reading:
/sph/research/research-landing-page/exposure-biology-research-group-ebrg/
James McCann

Malaria in Ethiopia

James McCann

Professor of History and Associate Director for Development, African Studies Center

Gopal and McCann used data collected from malaria patients in Ethiopia to map “hot spots” for the disease, and try to predict where the next cluster might emerge.

Further Reading:
/pardee/community/jim-mccann/
Davidson Hamer

Health care in Zambia

Davidson Hamer

Professor of Global Health and Medicine, SPH

Zambia is one of the most dangerous places on earth for a woman to give birth. Hamer works on several projects in Zambia, trying to understand and prevent deaths in newborn babies and their mothers. Gopal helped him map all the health care facilities in Zambia’s Kalomo District, to better understand the delays that pregnant women face when trying to get care.

Further Reading:
/cghd/about-us/people/davidson-hamer/ /cghd/our-work/projects/sustainable-access-for-waiting-mothers/ /cghd/our-work/projects/zambia-chlorhexidrine-application-trial-zamcat/
Les Kaufman

Coastline and Costs in Belize

Les Kaufman

Professor of Biology, CAS

Belize protects certain parts of its coast, but it’s unclear if the protections are working. Gopal and Kaufman spent three years researching and building an interactive tool called MIDAS, to help stakeholders in Belize understand the consequences of development, overfishing, and oil spills on their coast, and help them make better decisions. Gopal and Kaufman are now working together to understand and protect the ecosystem of Tonle Sap in Cambodia.

Further Reading:
New Conservation Science Tested in Cambodia /biology/people/faculty/kaufman/ MIDAS User Guide

DRAG

The range of Gopal’s research is astonishing, stretching from anthropology to public health, from Boston to Belize. Here are a few of her notable collaborators and projects.

The Movie of What Happened

The power of Gopal’s research is evident in an interactive map called MIDAS, developed with Les Kaufman for an ambitious project in Belize. In 2005, Kaufman, a CAS professor of biology with Boston University’s Marine Program, received an $12.5 million grant from Conservation Internationalt

Midas Caption — When BU biology professor Les Kaufman wanted to help people in Belize to examine ocean zoning projects and conservation, he turned to Gopal. Together, they developed MIDAS, an interactive map that could answer questions like what efforts worked and what could they do better.

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Comments & Discussion

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There is 1 comment on Mapmaker/Matchmaker

Dr.N.Ramkumar

September 21, 2015 at 8:53 am

It is a remarkable achievement- to be a teacher, demonstrtor and interactive with general public, to make them believe in power of maps and GIS. I think there is a lot to be explored and find solutions through the power of GIS . What will ultimately make the difference is the power to explore the GIS data analysis capablity for better decision making like yours Continue to inspire collegues and students. This is true even for Climate change- Global palnning and local action. Thanking you.