Maryam
Torkashvand
Geospatial Data Specialist & GIScience Researcher
I build spatial data systems, design maps, and extract insight from large geographic datasets. My work spans data engineering, network analysis, and visualization, applied to problems in public health, history, planning, and the environment.
Selected Work
Featured Projects
Research, data engineering, and visualization projects spanning spatial science, history, and the environment.
A multi-step framework combining hierarchical geographic matching and LLM validation to geocode 25 million unstructured birthplace records from crowd-sourced genealogical data (1850 to 1920).
Python and PostGIS pipelines to clean 280 million historical place records, constructing a 60M-node spatial network to study how Americans moved and formed communities over the settlement period.
NSF-funded interactive story map communicating river water-quality risk and watershed pollution patterns to stakeholders and vulnerable communities across Iowa.
Building a spatial-social network dataset from a large crowd-sourced historical family tree to study how sibling and sibling-in-law ties shaped migration patterns in 19th-century United States.
Animated D3.js map showing Iowa's changing population density from 1850 to 1920, tracing the shift from river-dominated to railroad-shaped settlement patterns.
GIS-based DRASTIC models integrated with evolutionary algorithms and multi-criteria decision-making to assess groundwater vulnerability and nitrate contamination risk across aquifer systems.
Versatility
Skills across domains
Technical depth in geospatial systems, combined with research, communication, and people skills built across academic and professional environments.
Research
Selected Publications
Let's Work Together
Open to research,
consulting and collaboration
Whether you need a spatial data scientist, GIS consultant, or research collaborator, I'd love to connect.