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Graduate Program in Spatial Analysis

Practicum

The practicum (waived for part-time students in program-related employment) is usually two days per week during the winter semester. It is designed to be an unpaid field placement that provides students with an understanding of the types of problems, policies, and procedures that are (or should be) addressed utilizing GIS and/or spatial analysis in specific public or private sector environments. The practicum is arranged by the Program Director in discussion with the student. While students may present suggestions for placements to the Program Director, they cannot arrange their practicum independently. The credit for the practicum is granted based on evaluations of the placement and the student, and submission of a 10-page practicum report submitted to the Program Director.

Examples of recent practicum hosts include:
  • Business improvement areas
  • Conservation agencies
  • Environmental consulting groups
  • Facility management departments
  • Geodata and GIS vendors
  • Hospitals
  • Major Banks
  • Municipal government
  • Police services
  • Property management corporations
  • Provincial government
  • Public health organizations
  • Real estate developers
  • Retail planning departments
  • Social and community services
  • Urban policy advisers
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Program Details
Program-Related News

12 Sept 2013 – MSA faculty member Dr. Lu Wang and her former student Wei Hu (MSA ’12) published their research on “Immigrant health, place effect and regional disparities in Canada” in the widely read scientific journal Social Science & Medicine.

27 August 2013 – Today was orientation day for more than twenty new MSA students starting the program next week. Fernando Ozuna (MSA ’05), senior manager with one of the major Canadian banks, spoke to the incoming class about the transferability of spatial analysis skills and the power of maps as decision support tools.

03 July 2013 – Four students with MSA links and two MSA professors presented their research results at parallel conferences in Salzburg, Austria! Prof. S. Swales, incoming MSA student Colleen Middleton, and Prof. W. Forsythe presented "The Use of Geographic Information System (GIS) Analysis to Delimit a Protected Area for Old-growth Red Pine Forest in Wolf Lake, Temagami, Ontario, Canada" at the GI_Forum Symposium. In addition, Prof. W. Forsythe, Chris Marvin (Canada Centre for Inland Waters), current MSA student Cameron Hare, Joseph Aversa (MSA '10), Prof. Swales, Elfriede Eder (Franziskanergymnasium, Bozen, Italy) and Adrian Gawedzki (MSA '11) presented "Geovisualization of Arsenic in Lake Erie Sediments" at the 25th Applied Geographic Information Processing Symposium.

31 May 2013 – New major research projects by MSA faculty members! Drs. C. Rinner and P. Robinson are co-applicants on a Canada-wide, five-year SSHRC Partnership Grant. This funding will help support future MSA student research addressing the partnership’s central question of “How the geospatial web 2.0 is reshaping government-citizen interactions”. In addition, Dr. H. Bauder leads a three-year SSHRC Partnership Development Grant on “Integration trajectories of immigrant families”, in which Drs. S. Ghosh, T. Hernandez, and S. Wang are among the co-applicants.

22 May 2013 – Congratulations to Adrian Gawedzki (MSA '11) and Peter Rodriguez (MSA '09) for their article on “Geospatial Estimation of Mercury Contamination in Buffalo River Sediments” which was led by MSA faculty member Dr. Wayne Forsythe with colleagues Kim Irvine and Mary Perrelli from Buffalo State.

20 March 2013 – Alumni news: Congratulations to GIS Analyst Manoj Dangwal (MSA ’04) on winning a 2012 Employee Excellence Award at Allstate Insurance Company of Canada.

26 February 2013 – She did it again! Second peer-reviewed journal article by Lisa-Jen Ferrato (MSA ’12) on her research “Comparing Hyperspectral and Multispectral Imagery for Land Classification of the Lower Don River, Toronto” with supervisor Dr. Wayne Forsythe.

21 February 2013 – MSA program director Dr. Shuguang Wang led the publication of an article on “Recent Trends of Ethnic Chinese Retailing in Metropolitan Toronto”, which is partially based on Jason Zhong’s (MSA ’09) major research paper on “Delineating Ethnoburbs”.

15 February 2013 – Congratulations to MSA faculty member Dr. Doug Banting, who is part of a team that won a major research contract from the City of Toronto to develop “GIS-Based Hydrologic and Hydraulic Models for Combined-Sewer-System Management”. The Ryerson team will help the City to comply with new federal wastewater systems effluent regulations.

20 December 2012 – Congratulations to MSA faculty members Dr. Wayne Forsythe and Dr. Claus Rinner: Wayne received a 2012/13 Faculty Service Award for exceptional contributions to the Department of Geography, Faculty of Arts, Ryerson University, and the profession of Geography. He currently serves as Vice President of the Canadian Association of Geographers - Ontario Division (CAGONT). Claus received a 2012/13 Faculty SRC Award for outstanding achievements in scholarly, research, and creative activities. His research program and publication record is driven by MSA student research.

01 November 2012 – Emily Hazell (MSA ’12) gave an invited presentation on “Geographic variation and clustering of gastroschisis in Canada, 2005-2010” at the Canadian Congenital Anomalies Surveillance Network conference. This work was the outcome of Emily’s MSA Practicum in the Maternal-Infant Care Research Centre at Mount Sinai Hospital.

13 October 2012 – Four 2012 MSA graduates supervised by Professors Forsythe and Swales presented their research at the CAGONT conference this weekend. The work by L. Ferrato, J. Floroff, C. Krnic, and M. Wilson ranged from thermal energy site selection to land cover classification, fire modeling, and the analysis of river sediment contamination. And for the second year in a row, the CAGONT Master’s Research Paper award went to an MSA: Congratulations to Lisa Ferrato on her winning paper on “Comparing Hyperspectral and Multispectral Imagery for Land Cover Classification of the Lower Don River, Toronto”!

10 September 2012 – We are welcoming 24 new MSA students from a variety of education, career, and life paths into the program. We are looking forward to an exciting year of learning and collaboration. At the same time, 16 out of 17 fulltime and 2 out of 3 second-year parttime students have defended their major research papers and are working on their final revisions. Best of luck with your future endeavours!

 


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