The American Geographical Society (AGS) has awarded Dr. Alfredo Giron-Nava an EthicalGEO Fellowship as a result of the Society’s recent EthicalGEO Challenge. The EthicalGEO Challenge, in its first year and underwritten by Omidyar Network, solicited videos from across North America and was open to anyone with an interest in exploring the ethical issues involved with the use of geospatial tools and technology. Applicants were instructed to submit a three-minute video explaining their “big idea” or project to address ethics and the use of geospatial tools and technology.

Dr. Giron-Nava is a Postdoctoral Research Scholar at Future Earth & National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis at the University of California, Santa Barbara and an Expert Advisor at the Walter Munk Foundation for Oceans.

Dr. Giron-Nava plans to use his Fellowship to pursue the creation of the first global map on the prevalence of poverty in fishing communities. He will visit colleagues and field sites to not only gather data on poverty indicators, but also to understand the deeper social and cultural roots of poverty and the potential solutions at local scales.

“We are very pleased to have selected Dr. Giron-Nava to join this first group of EthicalGEO Fellows. Ethical issues related to the use of geo technology have captured the interest of the media, geo practitioners and everyday citizens. All of us use this technology on a daily basis…be it to find a location using our phones, analyse data in our jobs, or better understand leading headlines in the media. Our use of this technology and data raises serious ethical questions…privacy, ownership of data, use of data…this list is long and growing. Dr. Giron-Nava and the other Fellows will lead the way to help us make better decisions as we rely more and more on geospatial tools and data to live our lives.” said Dr. John Konarski, Chief Executive Officer of AGS.

Dr. Giron-Nava will receive a $7,500 award to carry out his project, participate in a number of special activities and events over the course of the next 9 months, and present the results of his work in a public forum in June of 2020. For more information about Dr. Giron-Nava’s project and the EthicalGEO Initiative in general, visit www.ethicalgeo.org.