Women in GIS (WiGIS) is an international, professional, and social advocacy group for women and their allies. The aim of WIGIS is to serve as a safe place for women from all geospatial fields to work towards overcoming:

• job discrimination,
• lower pay,
• professional isolation, and
• other common barriers women might face.

WiGIS is a consortium of advocates from academia, government, and private industry designed to advance the presence of women in GIS. Activities of the organization include social gatherings, professional development and educational events, and opportunities for networking and mentoring. At a minimum, our goal is to meet quarterly and to engage in constant communication as needed and desired via forums such as the WiGIS website and an email listserv/newsletter.

What’s Your Mission?

Our mission continues to evolve. If you would like to offer your feedback, send us an email at admin@womeningis.org and let us know what you think!

Current Organizers

In 2012, at the annual Esri International User Conference, we invited women GIS professionals to attend a reception and meeting to spearhead the development of a advocacy group for women in GIS, aimed at encouraging the exchange of ideas and solutions to overcoming job discrimination, lower pay, and professional isolation. The nearly 30 individuals who attended that initial meeting and their interests became the spark for our founding of the WiGIS professional advocacy association. We wouldn’t be together without the dedicated efforts of our Executive Committee.

Saskia Cohick, President

Christina Boggs, Co-founder and Spokesperson

Christina Boggs is an Engineering Geologist with the California Department of Water Resources in the Division of Integrated Regional Water Management’s North Central Region Office, in the Geology and Groundwater Investigations Section. Christina has two Bachelor’s degrees from CSU Sacramento, one in Geology and the other in American Sign Language and Deaf Studies.

Christina loves helping people collaborate and work together better. Christina chaired the California State Government GIS User Group from 2013 to 2015, and serves on the California Department of Water Resources’ Enterprise GIS Committee. In 2012, Christina served as NorCal URISA’s Secretary and in 2013 she became President of NorCal URISA. Christina was the conference chair for CalGIS in 2015 – Faces of GIS, held in Sacramento, California. In 2013, Christina was voted URISA International’s Chapter Advisory Board Chair-Elect, she served as URISA International’s Chapter Advisory Board Chair for the 2014/2015 fiscal year including serving as a non-voting member of the URISA International Board. Christina is also an advisory board member for Geohipster.com. As WiGIS’ Spokeswoman, she runs the twitter account for @womeningis.

Danielle L. Bram, Co-founder and Past-President

Director of the Center for Geographical Studies at California State University Northridge, Danielle Bram has a diverse background in GIS and education. With a Masters degree in Geography, her current position at CGS provides opportunity to use her knowledge and expertise in water resource/water quality, wetland and riparian mapping, and historical ecology. 

Currently, as our Past-President, Danielle provides oversight and direction for WIGIS. She can be found on LinkedIn. She would love to hear your ideas on how to make WIGIS serve Women in GIS better.

Esther Mandeno-Petronila, Co-founder

A GIS Consultant operating out of her home office, Ms. Mandeno has a Masters degree from the University of Nevada in Reno, NV in Natural Resource Management. After spending ten year applying prescribed fire in some of Californias beloved state parks, she now assists communities become fire safe by modeling fire behavior and assessing their risk to fire. In addition, she provides GIS services to geologists (3D modeling in Leapfrog), wildlife biologists (CNDDB occurrence maps), wetland specialists, civil engineers, and several non-profits.

As WiGIS’ Webmaster, Ms. Mandeno is responsible for all the mistakes on this website. Feel free to complain directly to her. She can be found on LinkedIn or her website.

Bobbie Johnson, Secretary

Brianne Gilbert, Treasurer

Brianne Gilbert is the associate director for the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University. She leads all their major research projects including voter polls, public opinion research, and leaders/elite surveys. She also is a senior lecturer at LMU in the departments of urban and environmental studies and political science, teaching courses on GIS, geospatial research, and internships. She can be reached at brianne.gilbert@lmu.edu or on LinkedIn.