Locate Press Authors

With a background in GIS, cartography and surveying, Alexandra has been applying her skills in the field of archaeology and cultural heritage for over 10 years now. From documenting archaeological excavations to data management, she aims to make QGIS easy and useful to non-technical users.

Currently, Alexandra works as a GIS specialist at the Monuments Board of the Slovak Republic. She is also a part-time technical writer for Lutra Consulting where she writes and maintains the Mergin Maps documentation.

Alexandra holds a PhD in Geodesy and Cartography and to this day keeps in touch with academia.

Gary Sherman has a wide and varied background, including that of geologist, mining engineer, software engineer, publisher, and author. He has authored both technical books and articles, as well as fiction.

In 2002, he founded the popular open source QGIS project and has published several books on the topic.

For eight years, Gary was at the helm of Locate Press, publisher of books on open source software.

Gary has published a number of novels as G.E. Sherman—see Alaskana.co for a list of books and descriptions.

When writing fiction, he draws on the depth of his background, providing vivid descriptions of life on the last frontier, wildlife encounters, and survival. Further, his experience as an outdoor enthusiast provides inspiration in the stories he tells.

Gary Sherman resides in Alaska and regularly watches moose from his living room window.

Toni has a background in both GIS and Education, in several different countries and on different continents, in GIS planning, development and implementation, as well as in teaching.

She also has a strong interest in storytelling as a method of learning and proposes this as both a way of teaching GIS to students and as a way for them to learn GIS effectively.

Toni believes that GIS software is exciting and fun to learn about and to learn with. Everyone should give it a try!

Anita Graser in an expert in spatial data science for mobility and transport applications. She graduated with an MSc in Information Technology specializing in Geomatics in 2010 and received her PhD in Applied Geoinformatics from the University of Salzburg in 2021. Since 2007, she works in applied research at the AIT, focusing on spatial analysis of transport and movement data.

Anita currently teaches at UNIGIS Salzburg, serves on the project steering committees of the open-source projects QGIS and MobilityDB, and is the lead developer of the open-source software library MovingPandas. She is an internationally sought-after speaker, has published more than 40 scientific articles, and several books.

In 2020, she was awarded the international OSGeo Sol Katz award for her contributions to open-source geographic information systems as well as the national Futurezone Women in Tech Award.

Numa is a senior GIS developer and team leader at geoSYS in Berlin, Germany. His focuses are web mapping applications and infrastructures, as well as location-based mobile apps.

He also develops plugins for desktop GIS software and teaches several programming and GIS classes.

He has worked on various projects of regional and national scale in Germany, Jamaica, Madagascar, and South Africa.

Leo Hsu is a master database architect with extensive experience building business intelligence and automation applications for flight management, labor unions, and eCommerce sites. He has over 20 years professional experience working for non-profits and Dot coms developing automated pricing and process applications and devising workflow strategies. Leo focuses on database design, application architecture, and overall project management. He is the resident SQL expert. Leo holds an MS degree in engineering of economic systems from Stanford University. He also holds dual BS degrees in mechanical engineering and economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a minor in Finance. He speaks fluently in both English and Chinese.

He is a co-author PostGIS in Action (1st and 2nd editions, and upcoming 3rd), published by Manning Publications and PostgreSQL: Up and Running 3rd Edition (and 2nd, 1st editions) published by O'Reilly Media, and pgRouting: A Practical Guide (publisher, Locate Press). He is working on 2nd edition of pgRouting with Regina.

Dr. Scott Madry is a professor emeritus of the International Space University in Strasbourg, France and is currently a research associate professor of archaeology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

He has been active in the Open Source GIS and remote sensing community since the 1980’s, and has given over 150 short courses and academic courses on six continents in many countries around the world.

He is the author of nine books on space and geospatial technologies and applications, and was elected a corresponding member of the International Academy of Astronautics in 2021.

Bonny is a geospatial analyst and self described human geographer and social anthropologist. Exploring geographic properties that capture complex interactions, dynamic shifts in ecosystem balance and how activities influence eco-geomorphic conceptual frameworks across a wide variety of environments are the topics of my public talks and panel discussions.

The ability to apply advanced data analytics, including data engineering and geo-enrichment, to poverty, race, and gender discussions targets judgments about structural determinants, racial equity, and elements of intersectionality to illuminate the confluence of metrics contributing to poverty.

Bonny is the author of the books Python for Geospatial Data Analysis: Theory, Tools, and Practice for Location Intelligence (publisher, O’Reilly Media) and Geospatial Analysis with SQL: A hands on guide to performing geospatial analysis by unlocking the syntax of spatial SQL published by Packt Press.

Kurt is a passionate advocate for open source software, especially QGIS. He recent completed his 10th QGIS book and he can frequently be found speaking at FOSS4G and QGIS conferences.

Kurt was a professional archaeologist before returning to graduate school and earning a Masters of Science degree in Geography from the University of New Mexico in 2000. He now lives in Denmark where he works for Septima as a spatial analyst, data visualization expert and teacher.

In 2015 was elected as an OSGeo Charter Member.

Some titles he has authored include: Collecting Field Data with QGIS and Mergin Maps, Discover QGIS 3.x and QGIS for Hydrological Applications with Locate Press.

Regina Obe is a web application and database expert with extensive experience in PostgreSQL and SQL Server data-driven web applications. She has over 25 years professional experience in various programming languages and database systems. She is an expert on PostGIS spatial database engine and is a member of the PostGIS project steering committee, the PostGIS core development team, pgRouting development team, and GEOS development and project steering committee.

Regina holds a BS degree in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a concentration in Bioelectronics and control systems.

She is a co-author of the books pgRouting: A Practical Guide (publisher, Locate Press), PostGIS in Action (1st, 2nd, and 3rd editions), published by Manning Publications and PostgreSQL: Up and Running, 3rd Edition, 2nd Edition (and 1st edition) published by O'Reilly Media and upcoming SQL in a Nutshell, 4th edition by O'Reilly Media

Gretchen Peterson is the founder and principal of PetersonGIS. Her work focuses on cartographic innovation; enterprise-level, global vector tile basemaps; and geographic data analysis and visualization for natural resources management issues.

Consulting since 2003, she has helped over 30 clients, some for more than a decade, from Fortune 500 companies to small non-profits to local, regional, and federal government organizations to better the world and visualize it meaningfully.

For clients like Microsoft, Wikimedia Foundation, Facebook, and Maxar she creates world-scale zoomable maps. For clients like Colorado State University, the Hood Canal Coordinating Council, and Save the Poudre she makes maps that help conserve our natural resources.

She is also the author of City Maps, Cartographer's Toolkit, GIS Cartography 3rd Edition, and co-author of QGIS Map Design 2nd edition.

Carlos has a degree in physics, specialized in geodesy. He lives and works in Barcelona, Catalonia. He's implementing GIS in all kinds of public administrations and private companies. He has worked as a GIS consultant since the year 2000. In 2012, He started working with QGIS.

Carlos is the president of the QGIS users association in Spain and he collaborates in writing the documentation and translation of QGIS.

Dr. Qiusheng Wu is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography & Sustainability at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He is also an Amazon Visiting Academic and a Google Developer Expert (GDE) for Earth Engine. His research interests include geospatial data science, remote sensing, and environmental modeling. Dr. Wu is particularly interested in utilizing big geospatial data and cloud computing (e.g., Google Earth Engine, Microsoft Planetary Computer, Amazon Web Services) to study environmental change, especially surface water and wetland inundation dynamics. His research has been funded by NASA, USDA, and the Department of Defense. Dr. Wu is an advocate of open science and reproducible research, having developed and published various open-source packages for advanced geospatial analysis and data visualization, such as geemap, leafmap, lidar, and segment-geospatial.

Check out his open-source projects at opengeos.