Tim Wallace Cartographer

Tim Wallace is a modern-day cartographer. In other words, he spends his days creating maps. To prepare for that career, Wallace earned a PhD in geography from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. While earning his degree, Wallace worked at The New York Times, where he created thousands of maps on a wide variety of topics. These included the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, which made landfall in Houston in 2017; the territory controlled by terrorist group ISIS; and the results of elections. He recently started a new job as geographer and visual journalist at Descartes Labs, a company that collects data from different sources to help people and businesses better understand the planet.

- Catherine Brown

COULD YOU DESCRIBE WHAT YOU DO AT DESCARTES LABS?

We apply artificial intelligence techniques to identify and monitor things on the ground to get a better sense of what the future holds. For example, we might map tree canopy in a city against things like power lines or bugs or diseases that kill trees in order to help that city manage their trees and parks better.

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WHAT SPARKED YOUR INTEREST IN MAPPING?

Nearly every professional cartographer will tell you “I’ve always loved maps!” or “I was the kid with the accordion-folded map collection in the back of the station wagon.” And, frankly, it’s probably true for all of them, including me.

I always loved maps, and I was also quite good at spatial stuff growing up. My year-long grade in Geometry in high school, for example was 99 percent. (I did not do as well in English.)