International Scholarship Program

Scholarship Program 2018 participants and SCGIS donated laptops

Our International Scholarship Program is designed to allow conservation GIS practitioners to attend the Esri User Conference and SCGIS Annual Conference held in California every summer and to allow them to take specialized three-week GIS courses organized for the scholarship recipients before the conferences.  These courses are provided jointly by SCGIS, Juniper GIS, Esri, UC Davis Information Center for the Environment, and UC Berkeley Blue Oak Ranch Reserve.

This is not a typical scholarship program. It covers only some of the costs affiliated with the travel to and attendance at these events; only on rare occasions are we able to provide awards that cover full costs. 

The International Scholarship Program currently targets its support primarily at the regions where SCGIS international chapters and informal conservation GIS communities affiliated with SCGIS are growing or emerging, in an effort to promote further growth of these chapters and communities.  However, we encourage our international chapters to extend their outreach beyond their formal country borders, and to embrace colleagues from neighbor regions or even from far away.  Browse the international chapters to learn more about the chapter nearest to your area.

2019 Scholarship Program

INTERNATIONAL SCHOLARS:  Each year the international scholars represent the best of the best of conservationists using geography and GIS to pursue effective science, educate and change local communities, and discover new ways of protecting species.  

TRAIN THE TRAINER TEACHERS (TTT): These are prior scholars who were selected for advanced training to become certified SCGIS Instructors, and are returning to assist the scholarship program with additional instructionand training to expand GIS capacity in their local region.

• John Schaeffer, Juniper GIS, United States (TTT Founder)
• Dr. Mervyn Lotter, PTPA Research Station, South Africa (TTT Master Trainer)
• Dr. Carlos “Carlitos” DeAngelo, Subtropical Biology Institute, Argentina (TTT Master Trainer)
• M Abdullah "Diyan" Abu Diyan, Bangladesh/Australia
• Aaria Ripeka Dobson-Waitere, Taranaki Whaanui ki Te Upoko o Te Ika/Port Nicholson Block Settlement Trust, New Zealand
• Deborah Jewitt, Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife (EKZNW), South Africa
• Anna Komarova, Greenpeace, Russia
• Andina Anastasia Krey, USAID (United States Agency for International Development), Indonesia
• Nicolás “Nico” Alejandro Lois, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina
• Claudel Tshibangu Lukusa, Frankfurt Zoological Society, DR Congo
• Ali “Doost” Nawaz, Wildlife Conservation Society, Pakistan
• Diana Paredes, Wildlife Conservation Society, Ecuador
• Caterina “Cata” Dimitriadis Pampin, Por La Pesca Artesanal (POPA), Uruguay
• Johanna Prüssmann, World Wildlife Fund, Colombia
• Federico Riet Sapriza, Cetáceos Uruguay & University of the Andes, Uruguay/Colombia
• Ela Šegina, Geological Survey of Slovenia, Slovenia
• Angela Tarimy, Finnish Association for Nature Conservation (FANC), Madagascar
• Alejandro Rubén Vila, Wildlife Conservation Society, Chile
• Buh Gaston Wung, World Wildlife Fund, Cameroon
• Ilona Zhuravleva, Greenpeace, Russia

The 2019 Scholar Program was pre-empted in order to hold the first ever Global Summit Meeting of all TTT participants, some of whom have been teaching SCGIS classes and organizing national SCGIS conferences for a decade.  The summit will help determine the future course of this flagship program and permit the trainers to update their ArcGIS skills.

Click here to learn more about this year's participants!

Past Participants

2018 International Scholars

2017 International Scholars