Intern Connect: Living Atlas, with Jennifer Bell and Lisa Berry

I participated in the first Intern Connect program today for my internship cohort. Over the summer, the internship coordinators are putting on a series of presentations from different Esri employees from different departments for us interns. This is similar to my personal “Esri in One Hour” interviews here in Denver, but these are presentations to the whole internship cohort. This first presentation was from Jennifer Bell and Lisa Berry from the Living Atlas team, and I really enjoyed getting a chance to hear about their career paths and work on the Living Atlas team! Both Lisa and Jennifer were open, friendly, personable, and talked about such a wealth of expertise and interest that had brought them to work on the Living Atlas team.

You could tell that Jennifer and Lisa were both passionate about cartography and data analysis, and it was great to see that both of them have ended up on this team. For this presentation, Lisa and Jennifer went through their backgrounds and different pathways on the way to Esri. After this, they followed up with a short demo about using ArcGIS Online and Living Atlas layers.

Living Atlas Background

Living Atlas develops Esri maps and works with updating and creating new symbology for ArcGIS Online. The Living Atlas team is made up of a lot of product developers. Living Atlas seeks to jumpstart analysis with cloud data already formed into helpful layers. Living Atlas curates a collection of authoritative data to make accurate and in-depth analysis easier and more accessible. When presenting about Living Atlas, Jennifer and Lisa also emphasized using creative basemaps developed by Living Atlas to set data apart.

Personal Background: Jennifer Bell

Jennifer graduated from UGA, and taught GIS at UGA for a while. She had a very impressive pathway. She has worked in North Carolina on conservation efforts, and at NASA analyzing particulate matter and performing quantum spatial analysis. After talking to someone at Esri and sharing that she wanted to work both users and developers, and have a presentation component to her work, she ended up interning at Esri to try it out. I loved Jennifer’s note that you should always tell anyone what you want, /in a “dream job” format. If you are open about exactly what you want and seek, sometimes you end up exactly there! She also emphasized that Esri was a very special and incredibly unique internship, which makes me feel lucky. She jumpstarted my thinking about how to best learn what I like to do through this internship, and form how to ask for what I want to do, out of what I am most drawn to.

Now, Jennifer works on bivariate mapping on the smart mapping team. She also participates in User Testing for the holistic team, and gives presentations.

I continue to be amazed with the personal and professional backgrounds and wealth of experience Esri company members have in their back pockets before joining Esri teams, and hearing about their response to their current work on Esri teams.

Intern Advice/Takeaways!

After a short demo going through building a basic map with ArcGIS Online and Living Atlas layers, Lisa and Jen transitioned to talking through some advice they had synthesized from being Esri Interns in their past, as well.

Lisa said a great line: “If you’re here, you know how to learn.” I love that this internship program has this learning emphasis, and the freedom to learn not only the ArcGIS platform, but also figure out what you’re drawn, and work on that.

Lisa also emphasized talking to people and networking during your time as an intern. Above all, she emphasized that Esri hires nice people. She reiterated what a couple people have said, that Esri is a collaborative environment, and you have to utilize that. In Jennifer’s words, you have to participate in this ”feedback loop”: feel what is fulfilling you, talk to people about what you feel, and see where that goes. Jennifer personally participates in “self-management” through keeping a notebook with her tasks, and daily highlights and what she learns. She also emphasized the value of HUMILITY in any work environment, which I think is tied to any growth mindset.

Particularly, Jennifer emphasized that Esri is a good place for you if you get bored easily. The possibilities of GIS are endless, and GIS is a good field for you if you like transitions and working in different industries.