Another year has passed and another ‘generation’ of professional Geographers has completed our Master of Spatial Analysis (MSA) degree. Congratulations to the 17 graduates of the Fall 2015 class!
MSA students are required to conduct an independent research project that is documented in a major research paper. This MRP is formally defended and subsequently revised prior to degree completion. This year’s MRPs span the range of applications from sustainable development, Toronto’s SmartTrack transit plan, food retail and foodscapes, health-care service locations, bank branch networks, crime patterns, urban heat islands, and housing. Methods chosen by the students include visual data exploration, multiple regression, multi-criteria decision analysis, risk terrain modeling, self-organizing maps, and many more.
The abstracts for the following 17 major research papers are available from the MSA program homepage at http://www.ryerson.ca/graduate/programs/spatial/abstracts/index.html. Supervisors are listed in parentheses.
- Kaylin Chin: Evaluating Sustainable Development Across the Continuous United States: Application of the United Nations’ Indicators of Sustainable Development (Dr. Shaker)
- Kiyomi French: Analysis of Distribution Centre Locations for a Major Retailer in Canada (Prof. Swales)
- Adrien Friesen: Smart Track Station Evaluation in Toronto: Ridership Forecasting and Feasibility Analysis of Station Catchment Areas (Dr. S. Wang)
- Alexa Hinves: Developing a Methodology for Measuring Access to Services: A Case Study of Access to Food Retail Services in the City of Toronto (Dr. Hernandez)
- Elmer Lara Palacios: The Social and Spatial Patterning of Stress in Canada (Dr. L. Wang)
- Jacob Levy: A Spatial Analysis of Distribution of Practicing International Medical Graduates in Canada, Ontario, and Toronto (Dr. L. Wang)
- Daniel Liadsky: Exploring Toronto’s Foodscapes: Measuring The Food Environment and Healthy Eating Behaviours (Dr. Ceh)
- Bernardo Melendez: Analyzing Change in Bank Branch Networks in the Toronto CMA (Dr. S. Wang)
- Jessica Miki: PySAL an Open Source Development Framework for Spatial Analysis for Health Data (Dr. Vaz)
- Nicia Moran: Site Selection using Geographic Information Systems and Multi-Criteria Decision Model (Prof. Swales)
- Tyler Munn: Spatial Analysis of 911 STEMI Calls for Toronto Paramedic Services (Dr. L. Wang)
- Ricardo Sanchez: Transformation of Book Retailing in Canada (Dr. S. Wang)
- Maxwell Stiss: Ground Level Retail and Mid-Rise Development Trends along the ‘Avenues’ of the City of Toronto from 2010-2014 (Dr. Hernandez)
- Shannon Strelioff: Examining Street Level Robbery Predictors in Durham, Ontario using Statistical and Risk Terrain Modeling (Dr. L. Wang)
- Kirk Suitor: The Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Toronto Housing Prices (Dr. Kedron)
- Christine Valancius: Comparing the Cooling Ability of Green Spaces in Suburban and Urban Areas using LST and NDVI (Dr. Forsythe)
- Yishi Zhao: Cluster Analysis of Injury using Self-Organizing Maps – A Case Study of Extended Golden Horseshoe (Dr. Vaz)
Among the achievements of the Fall 2015 MSA class is Daniel Liadsky’s Ryerson Gold Medal, as described at http://www.ryerson.ca/news/news/General_Public/20151019-gold-medal-recipient-to-bring-technical-skills-to-nonprofit-sector.html, as well as Yishi Zhao’s 2nd place in the National Geographic student mapping competition (official announcement still not posted anywhere) and her MSA Award of Distinction, presented at the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies Awards Night on November 4, 2015.
I would also like to note that four students are extending their MSA research phase by one or two semesters to write an MSA thesis. The first student to complete this option, Heather Hart, graduated in Spring 2015 with a thesis on “Maps as Evidence in Health Care Service Improvement and Monitoring” (supervised by Dr. Rinner), which was also recently added to the list at http://www.ryerson.ca/graduate/programs/spatial/abstracts/index.html.