Women are known for living for others, and it is the high emotional intelligence quotient that makes them rock as leaders! Being an integral part of the geospatial industry, still on the celebration of  women’s day, we could not resist acknowledging the contributions of the following 5 women geospatial champions in making the world a better place.

Dr Vanessa Vivienne

Dr Vanessa Vivienne Lawrence is a British businessperson, geographer and speaker working internationally.

She was the first woman to be appointed as the Director-General and Chief Executive of Ordnance Survey, Great Britain’s national mapping agency, and held the post for 14 years till April 2014. In January 2008 Lawrence was appointed as a Companion of The Most Honourable Order of the Bath (CB) in the New Year Honours List.

She has been elected an Honorary Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineering Surveyors and the Royal Academy of Engineering. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, a Companion of the Chartered Management Institute, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society and a Chartered Geographer.

Dorine Burmanje

Dorine Burmanje is Chair of the Executive Board of the Netherlands’ Cadastre, Land Registry and Mapping Agency, in short: Kadaster. Her main focus is to position Kadaster as a partner in property and geographic information -both nationally and abroad- for governmental, corporate and other stakeholders. In addition to ensuring Kadaster’s core task of legal certainty for all Dutch landowners, she is also active in promoting innovation by developing new IT tasks and services.  Burmanje was appointed the Co-Chair of UN-GGIM in 2017.

Burmanje serves as an Advisor to various associations in the field of spatial information, such as the Geo-Information Council. Before her current position, Burmanje was the Director of one of Holland’s Water Boards.

Anne Hale Miglarese

Anne Hale Miglarese is a seasoned executive with more than 30 years of experience in the geospatial and environmental field. She has an intimate understanding of local, state and federal relationships for the development of geospatial and environmental information and the resulting applications.

Before joining the private sector, Miglarese served as chief of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coastal Services Center, where she directed the remote sensing and GIS programs of the organization for 10 years. In 2017, she brought top philanthropists and professionals such as the Gates Foundation, Omidyar Network, and Amazon together to support Radiant. Earth…a unique endeavour to answer the global development community’s call for better access to earth observation data. A veteran remote sensing professional, she currently serves on the board of multiple organizations and academic institutions.

Dr Lola Fatoyinbo Agueh

Dr Temilola (Lola) Fatoyinbo is a Research Physical Scientist in the Biospheric Sciences Lab at NASA GSFC where she studies forest ecology and ecosystem structure using active and passive remote sensing instruments, serves on Satellite Mission Science Teams and Principal investigator on several NASA Earth Science Division funded research grants.

Lola received her Doctorate in Environmental sciences with a focus on forest ecology and dynamics of mangrove wetlands. After her PhD, she received a NASA Postdoctoral Program fellowship at the Radar Science and Engineering Section at the Caltech-Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where her primary research focus was on using Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data and spaceborne Lidar to quantify mangrove forest extent, height and biomass through the development of SAR-lidar fusion algorithms. In 2010, Dr Fatoyinbo joined Goddard’s Biospheric Sciences Laboratory. Her research is focused on characterizing the vulnerability and response of coastal ecosystems to disturbances from land use and climate change; LiDAR and SAR remote sensing of upland and coastal ecosystem structure and Carbon stocks; Using science to support the UN Sustainable Development Goals and Conservation; New instrument and new technology development, airborne and field campaigns, applications of carbon monitoring and ecosystem services accounting. She is also very involved in science communication and training the next generation of scientist, having mentored over 30 NASA interns, NASA postdoctoral Fellows and visiting scientists. In 2012 she was the recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering for her efforts on merging scientific priorities with advanced technology to develop innovative remote-sensing instrumentation for carbon-cycle and ecosystems science.

Raynah Kama

Raynah Kamau is a Kenyan native who has been living in the US since 2013. She is co-founder of Black Girls MAPP and works as a strategic adviser for partners at Esri. Black Girls MAPP focuses on community mapping and evangelizing GIS in underserved and underrepresented communities. She is one of the black women in the field of GIS and uses maps and apps to visualize social justice issues—using location intelligence to amplify the voices of marginalized and unheard communities.