Katie Hess

  

• Cultural Resources GIS Specialist
• Bureau for Historic Preservation, Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission

I map Pennsylvania's cultural/historic resources for the state and personally frame cultural preservation as a social planning issue. A huge advocate for mapping & rendering alternative scenarios to aid in decision making, I also believe that technology has the potential to make community decisions more inclusive. However, I get discouraged when I see people choosing to disconnect from other humans via technology.

I recently completed graduate work on design and intangible cultural values and how such issues contribute to quality of life. How can discussion about this concept benefit from technology and how can technology benefit from this concept? Also an advocate for local Pennsylvania agriculture, I spent a few years researching agriculture engineering innovations in the fruit belt of Adams County.

B.A. Environmental Science & Policy, Masters of Landscape Architecture