Graduate Students

Mike Walls

M.P.A. University of Mississippi
B.A. Anthropology, Mississippi State University
A.S. Computer Science, State Tech. Institute at Memphis

contact:

Tel.:(859) 257-2931
Fax: (859) 323-1969
email: mwalls@PLANGRAPHICS.COM

Profile

I am a masters student in geography, studying part-time. My job requires a lot of travel, so I’m sometimes a little sporadic in appearances on campus. (This helps explain how I’ve been around for nearly a year without ever meeting many of my colleagues!)

I've been lucky in having the opportunity to re-invent myself every few years. I've worked in anthropology, public administration, policy analysis, urban and regional planning, and information technology (at various levels from programmer and system administrator through software engineer and data architect). I figure I’ve got time for two or three more professions before I’m done.

I've concentrated on tools and techniques that let me document and analyze the spatial and temporal interrelationships that facilitate understanding of human behavior — whether individually or communally. This focus could perhaps be described as "applied geography". I've become quite good at parts of this, especially GIS.

What I find myself lacking, however, is a consistent and satisfactory underpinning of geospatial theory. I consider this theoretical base essential to, first, deciding what aspects of the problem situation are likely to be relevant and, later, to determining how to communicate results to decision makers, the affected public, and other stakeholders.

Background

I have had over 20 years experience in local government, with agencies ranging from an Indian tribe to city planning to a regional river authority. I have degrees in anthropology, public administration, and computer science. I also have professional certification from the American Institute of Certified Planners and the Project Management Institute.

 I am now Software Engineering Manager at PlanGraphics, Inc. — an international information technology and systems integration consulting firm specializing in geospatial data. I have been involved in a variety of IT and GIS studies including enterprise architecture planning, implementation planning, data architecture and database design studies, and applications development. My clients are generally public sector agencies.

Professional Goals

My intent in pursuing graduate education is to achieve a better balance between applied techniques and a broader theoretical understanding. I’ve been surprised at how much the discipline has changed since I took undergraduate classes during the early 1970s. As a result, I’m still working on positioning my interests within the discipline. Current goals include: (a) Bringing my dated academic background in geography up to date; (b) Broadening my social theory background to include a better understanding of that set of approaches broadly described as "post-modern" and why (or if) I should pay attention; and (c) Learning new and better ways of using GIS and IT to solve problems.

Personal Stuff

I do have a real life beyond the office and classroom — although my family has recently been pointing out that there’s too damn little of it! Stuff I enjoy includes: reading (thank the gods!) especially history and SF, intelligent or at least interesting conversation, cats, drinking good beer, cooking, blacksmithing, and large caliber handguns.
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