New The National Map Corps Team Member
New TNMCorps Team Member
Vanessa Baez is a Geographer with the USGS National Geospatial Technical Operations Center in Rolla, MO.
Vanessa Baez is a Geographer with the USGS National Geospatial Technical Operations Center in Rolla, MO. As a member of the Cartographic Products & Services Unit she assists on various production processing in support of US Topo and central to The National Map.
From 2018 – 2022, Vanessa was a Pathways Student with the National Geospatial Program at the National Center in Reston, VA working with the 3D Elevation and National Hydrography Program teams. She established herself as a self-starter, unafraid to go the extra mile looking for solutions to her work. Her efforts included various responsibilities that supported management and planning of spatial data related activities, launching and managing the National Hydrography YouTube Channel, supporting distribution of National Hydrography Newsletter and Hydro Community meetings. Furthermore, involvement with the 3DEP Annual Broad Agency Announcement activities and contributed data tasks in support of elevation data, coauthor on the 3DEP Federal Best Practices Fact sheet, Spanish translation and meeting support for PAIGH’s Integrated Map of North America workshop in Ottawa, Canada (Integrated Map of North America (IMNA) Workshop | U.S. Geological Survey (usgs.gov); event support for ESRI Fed DC; GIS Day at George Mason University, and the 3DEP Executive Forum meeting.
Recently as a team member with The National Map Corps, she performs quality assurance and control for volunteered geographic information in support of the Structures database. Structures include schools, hospitals, post offices, police stations, cemeteries, and other important public buildings. This work primarily involves verifying the correct location of structure points against aerial imagery and confirming that the name and address information are correct using authoritative sources and compliant with formatting standards. Her favorite parts of the job are the research and cold calling.
Born in New York City and raised in Long Island, NY, Vanessa earned a B.A. in Business Information Systems from Hofstra University, a A.A.S in Geographic Information Technology from Central New Mexico Community College, and an M.S. in Geographic and Cartographic Science from George Mason University where she also did work towards a Digital Humanities Certificate at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media.