Linda I. Pistolesi

Linda Pistolesi (she/her) is a Senior Geographic Information Specialist (Senior Staff Associate II) in the Geospatial Applications Division (GAD) of the Climate School’s Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN). At CIESIN, Linda contributes to the development and dissemination of data sets for the NASA Socio-economic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC), with a focus on integrating spatial data from multiple sources to produce global and regional datasets for use by researchers and analysts in disciplines across the physical and social sciences. She is the team lead on SEDAC’s forthcoming Gridded Population of the World (GPW), version 5, and is also contributing to the development of Earth Science online learning modules that teach the data science life cycle and Open Science principles and practice under the NASA TOPS-T SCHOOL project. She previously contributed to the development of the Sustainable Development Goal Indicators (SDGI) collection, Population, Landscape, And Climate Estimates (PLACE), v4, GPW versions 3 and 4, the and the Global Land Surface Temperature (LST) and Global Urban Heat Island Data (UHI) Sets. In addition, she has worked on Africa regional climate vulnerability and natural hazard exposure assessments funded by the World Bank and USAID, and as a technical consultant for the Geo-Referenced Infrastructure and Demographic Data for Development (GRID3) project. An area of personal and professional interest is conservation, and a favorite past project was the development of a physical habitat model and ecological assessment of the Hudson River Estuary for The Nature Conservancy and Partners Restoring the Hudson. Linda supervises several research staff assistants in GAD and teaches an undergraduate GIS course for majors in the Sustainable Development program. Prior to working at CIESIN, Linda worked with Geocognition researcher, Dr. Kim Kastens, on projects aimed at improving teaching and learning in the Earth Sciences with a focus on spatial thinking skills. She holds an MA in Geography from Hunter College and a BA in Earth and Environmental Sciences from Columbia University.

See Ms. Pistolesi's full profile on Columbia Climate School's man website