Thank you for taking the time to consider the candidates for the NACIS Board of Directors. Please review the candidate bios and then submit a ballot on the right side of the page.

Candidate statements

Vice President Elect

Rebecca Ramsey

I’m a digital cartographer and environmental scientist who has worked across tech, consulting, higher education, and now state government. Across these roles, I’ve focused on using maps and data visualizations to communicate environmental solutions in ways that are accessible regardless of scientific background.

I first attended NACIS in 2022 and immediately noticed something different: people weren’t competing. Instead, they were sharing, and celebrating each other’s work, genuinely excited to hear every voice in the room. It felt less like a conference and more like a community I hadn’t known I had been missing.

Since then, I’ve tried to give back to NACIS, which can only persist by volunteer contributions. I’ve presented at the conference, written book reviews for Cartographic Perspectives, and provided comic relief (questionable geography knowledge) to GeoTrivia teams. I served as Director at Large (2023-2024), working on the Shop Committee, Communications and Outreach Committee, and helped design and lead the inaugural NACIS Mentor Program, later documenting it in CP to share lessons and guidance with other organizations.

Over the years, I’ve seen passionate presentations filled with inspiring cartography, new technologies, and powerful storytelling from many voices, and I’ve watched NACIS welcome people for the perspectives they bring. If elected, I hope to continue supporting the enduring NACIS community: a community where knowledge is shared, mentorship is common, creativity celebrated, time and effort given generously, and thoughtful, inclusive collaboration guides the work. A community offering members a professional network of support, and a place to call home. To me, NACIS represents a small but powerful microcosm of the world we should continue building at large.

Treasurer

Neil Allen

Neil graduated from the University of Kansas and moved to Oregon to become a cartographer with Allan Cartography and eventually Benchmark Maps. He has facilitated the publishing of hundreds of maps in the recreation/wall markets. He joined NACIS back in 2001 where he quickly engaged with the society and board. He was president in 2012, orchestrating the conference in Portland, Oregon. He looks forward to continued service to NACIS. Neil has served two of three 2-year terms.

Board of Directors (two-year term)

Cy Abbott

Cy Abbott (he, him) is excited to stand for this year’s election as an At-Large Director candidate.  Having become ever-more involved in the NACIS community in the past five years during his time as a Ph.D. candidate in Geography at the University of Oregon, Cy has at the same time cultivated extensive experience volunteering his service on other elected and appointed boards, including the Board of Trustees of the University of Oregon as its first ever graduate student member.  Applying this expertise in the financial oversight and governance of a complex institution to promote and serve NACIS, an organization similarly rich in complexity, is a priority for him.  Cy believes that the culture of the NACIS community is so uniquely vibrant because it effectively draws together cartographic scholars and practitioners in both the private and public sector. He would seek to consciously safeguard that culture by assisting and leading projects focused on the long-term health of the organization and continuing to deliver the highest-quality experience possible to attendees of the NACIS annual meetings.

Annika Anderson

With my time serving on the NACIS board, I hope to expand new learning opportunities for students and practitioners. I would like to create a space, monthly or quarterly, for virtual meetups to discuss articles or research relating to cartography/GIS, available to any NACIS member. Alongside this sort of “coffee chat”, I think it would be beneficial to do quarterly workshops given virtually, which may function more like Practical Cartography Day, where members can give short demos on new skills. With these new activities in place, I think we can increase connections, learning, and more understanding between students and practitioners while giving members opportunities to interact outside of the annual meeting.

With my background in cartography at UW-Madison and Mapping Specialists, I will strive to further promote education and responsible-map making, and support development of students, researchers, and practitioners. My time at UW-Madison has fostered my love of cartographic education and working collaboratively with other students and researchers. As a recent graduate, I have given a map chat at UW where I discussed accessible mapmaking, an example of how I am able to intertwine support for the development of students and promote responsible map-making, so maps can serve all! If elected to the board, I hope to continue working with students, researchers, and fellow colleagues, to promote and explore responsible-map making in the context of accessibility.

Harrison Cole

My name is Harrison Cole, I hold a PhD in Geography from Penn State and I’m currently a cartographer at the National Geographic Society. As a Director at Large, my primary goal will be to increase low-overhead resources for cartographers. We already have an exemplary range – our Instagram page, Slack community, conference videos, the Atlas of Design, etc. – but we have many opportunities to further curate and connect offerings; linking to external blogs, listing awards and their recipients, highlighting portfolios and so on.

My current work creating maps for the Museum of Exploration involves curating experiences for an extremely broad audience, and my time at Penn State required very precise research and communication skills. As a Director at Large, I’ll be able to bring these skillsets together to improve how resources are organized, discovered, and shared, promoting access to the NACIS community for an even broader diversity of cartographers.

Eric Johnson

If elected, I would like to draw on my background in libraries and previous service on professional organization boards to help NACIS create a “state of the field” report, examining cartographic education, production, communication, and consumption. Who becomes cartographers? Who hires us? What are the effects of ubiquitous map apps on our audiences? What can we expect from AI? Because NACIS intersects so many industries, audiences, and design approaches, we are especially well-positioned to step back and consider the big picture(s) of our field. We might further capture these insights (and oft-shared guidance) into a shared repository of resources for members.

Currently, I work at the Library of Virginia while freelancing as Compass & Quill Cartographic Design and Historical Research. I was privileged to help found the Association of Creative Technologies in Academic Libraries, for which NACIS served as an organizational model, chairing its 2023 conference and leading membership expansion initiatives. I have taught cartography workshops, published academically, and led a university library department offering GIS and cartographic support. Academic libraries support and provide infrastructure to producers, curators, AND users of information, and cultivating that interconnected dynamic is something I absolutely love.  My first academic paper explored libraries as places of hospitality, but I gotta say no institution has embodied warmth and hospitality for me more than NACIS.

Chris Lyons

As a GIS Supervisor in the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet’s Division of Information Services, GIS Branch, I support analysts across the Abandoned Mine Lands, Mine Permits, Mine Safety, Forestry, and Kentucky Nature Preserves programs. My work focuses on enterprise geodatabase management, spatial analysis standards, and the technical infrastructure that enables these divisions to carry out their regulatory and conservation work. Before moving into supervision, I spent years as a GIS Analyst, building automation and analysis tools for state government use — from ArcGIS Pro add-ins for mine map registration to accessibility compliance tools that align geospatial deliverables with WCAG 2.1 AA standards. My background also includes statewide orthoimagery quality control and LiDAR processing at NV5 Geospatial, as well as UAS/photogrammetric work as an Engineering Technician at Qk4.

I hold an M.S. in Environmental Studies and a B.S. in Agriculture, Food and Environment from Kentucky State University. In 2024, xyHt named me one of “25 Young Geospatial Pros to Watch.” I’ve presented at the Kentucky GIS Conference and written for the Geospatial Professionals Network’s The GIS Professional on the gap between what GIS teams maintain day-to-day and what appears in official documentation. I’m a Kentucky Colonel and remain involved in state GIS practitioner circles, with a particular interest in how state agencies modernize their spatial data infrastructure without losing the institutional knowledge built up over decades.

As a NACIS member from the practitioner side, I’d bring that perspective to the Board. My focus would be integrating responsible use of GeoAI into NACIS programming in direct support of the Society’s goals: advancing cartographic education, promoting responsible map-making, and coordinating across the broader GIS community. I work to make emerging tools legible to working practitioners. Public-sector GIS professionals navigate unique constraints — regulatory demands, accessibility standards, public accountability — and that domain expertise would inform how NACIS engages a constituency it has room to serve more fully. The future of cartography is bright, and I’d be honored to help shape it.

Tracy Tien

I want to reimagine our measure of professional worth, not defined by titles or duties, but by the labor of love that motivates and sustains us. Being part of NACIS is a rejuvenation: being in awe of the nuanced work created by the collective that has no inspirational bounds, humbled by the compassionate advocacy beyond ourselves, and the quiet courage to trust and be at peace with feeling at the contours. I wish to foster a rejuvenating s/place for the NACIS community, so my prospective time on the Board will be guided by a simple mantra: in the end, the (cartographic) love you take is equal to the (cartographic) love you make. In my personal GIS love story, I am empowered by how mapping gave me a language to articulate lived experience as Taiwanese. My interdisciplinary training gives me curious wings anchored by grounding methods, and this background has shaped my almost decade of practice as a GIS educator at small liberal arts colleges, and my most recent pivot to public service in state government supporting wildfire initiatives. I’ve been part of NACIS for eight years (how auspicious), and was an editor for the Atlas of Design Volume Six.

Student Board Member

Natalie Correa

I became involved with NACIS as a younger undergraduate student and am very passionate about facilitating the experience of undergraduate and graduate students, along with young and emerging cartographic researchers and practitioners. From my experience as a general member, I know the value of the NACIS community, opportunities, and learning alongside the struggles of navigating those spaces. These struggles are inevitable for people entering these spaces for the first time but can be heightened for younger folks. I hope to support and bring forward initiatives that can support young and emerging members. I plan to concentrate these efforts within the conference experience and preexisting initiatives, like the mentor program.

I bring skills in leadership, coordination, and teamwork. My experience is shaped by having been on two executive boards for undergraduate clubs at Hofstra University, volunteer work with the Roosevelt Community Garden, and being a graduate representative for the undergraduate committee at UW-Madison. Additionally, I regularly engage in peer mentoring opportunities through internship and graduate school panels with my undergraduate departments and informal mentoring of first time conference attendees. I truly love NACIS and hope to bring my energy to the work of the organization.

Special Election: Board of Directors (one-year term)

Lily Houtman

I am a current NACIS Director-at-Large and a PhD candidate at Penn State University studying best practices in mobile thematic map design and cartographic data journalism. I have loved my two years on the NACIS Board and when the opportunity arose to run for an additional one year term, I was excited at the possibility of continuing my contributions to the organization. NACIS has given me so many wonderful opportunities and connections, starting as an undergraduate student, and I am grateful to give back to this organization by serving on the Board. My previous Board experience has included work for the Shop, DEI, Fundraising, and Membership Analytics Committees. I served as a co-host for PCD in 2024 and 2025, and I co-organized the 2025 DEI Speaker Series. Additionally, as a queer and trans person, I am always working to make NACIS inclusive for all. In this one year role, I would look forward to continuing my service in these same committees, as well as mentoring new members of the Board to transition my knowledge and experience to them over the next year.

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