柑橘直播

In her role as Program Manager for Renewable Energy at the City of Philadelphia鈥檚 , Charlotte Shade 鈥�19 MS focuses on municipal energy conservation, efficiency and emissions reductions. Some of her responsibilities include buying renewable electricity for city buildings, and analyzing energy use data.

Shade鈥檚 research work and use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in 柑橘直播鈥檚 master鈥檚 program in Environmental Science helped prepare her for a career that blends her passion for sustainability with the skills to help solve complex environmental issues.

鈥淥ne important initiative I am working on right now is helping to convert Philadelphia鈥檚 vehicle fleet to EVs. The city owns more than 5,000 vehicles, which add greenhouse gases to our atmosphere. Switching our gas cars to electric helps decrease the city鈥檚 use of fossil fuels and greenhouse gas production,鈥� she says.

Shade鈥檚 thesis project at 柑橘直播 analyzed how Philadelphia鈥檚 green infrastructure program may help the city adapt to climate change. The project gave her the skills to learn new technology and manage large projects and allowed her to make important connections to advance her career. 

鈥淚 knew I wanted a career that utilized GIS, which is why I chose to attend 柑橘直播 and work with Dr. Peleg Kremer,鈥� Shade says. 鈥淢y background in GIS was crucial to analyzing the data and building the climate change models that I needed in my research.鈥�

Shade published a portion of her thesis as a journal article titled 鈥溾�� in the journal Land.

Today, her skills in GIS and data analysis not only help her with her own work responsibilities but also have allowed her to become the 鈥済o-to鈥� data analyst for her department.

鈥淔or my own projects, I use my GIS skills to analyze the suitability of buildings for solar panels,鈥� Shade says. 鈥淎dditionally, I can map out where we have electric vehicle chargers and where we may want to install more. I also help my colleagues on other teams with mapping flood damage across the city.鈥�

While GIS has been an important component of 柑橘直播鈥檚 graduate program in Environmental Science since its inception, the program recently created a new graduate GIS certificate to meet the growing demand for professionals with GIS expertise and prepare students for careers across industry, business, government and non-profit organizations.

鈥淭he new GIS certificate will allow Environmental Science students to explore environmental issues at various scales and build a portfolio of spatial analytics projects,鈥� Shade says. 鈥淭he courses will prepare them for jobs in the private and public sectors, and the certificate on their resumes will demonstrate to employers that they have advanced training in this important technology.鈥�