EXPERTISE
John Callahan joined the staff of the Delaware Geological Survey as a Research Associate III in February 2008.
Mr. Callahan brings to the DGS a combination of techncial skills and scientific knowledge, especially in the areas of
emerging web technologies, geospatial data analysis and the physical sciences.
Before joining the DGS, John was the lead GIS Coordinator and
primary technical support person for the University of Delaware. Housed within the Research Data Management Services
group within the Office of Information Technologies, John built numerous web mapping applications, worked on a variety of geospatial
and statistical analysis projects, and developed and taught many GIS and web development workshops.
Previous to his employment at UD, Mr. Callahan worked as a GIS Consultant for Environmental Systems Research Institure (ESRI),
Inc (the worldwide leader in GIS software), in King of Prussia, PA as well as a Remote Sensing Specialist for Earth Satellite
Corporation, in Rockville, MD.
Currently, Mr. Callahan's primary responsibilities for the DGS fall into three categories:
- To conduct research to better understand the geology and hydrology of the State of Delaware with emphahsis on
GIS, spatial statistics, image interpretation, and general data analysis.
- To manage DGS data and applications, including all public and internal websites, information catalogs, GIS data holdings,
digital photo inventory, and more.
- To continuously develop and maintain the Delaware DataMIL, a web-based project to facilitate the
maintenance and distribution of the Delaware Spatial Data Framework.
John was one of of the original team members that developed and released the Delaware DataMIL in 2002.
Mr. Callahan (and his wife Tina Callahan) was fortunate enough to present DataMIL to 12,000+ attendees at the ESRI
International User Conference. Throughout its history,
DataMIL has received many postitive reviews and has been incorporated into the workflow of many state agencies, private
consultants, and K-12 and higher education acedemic groups. For this work, John received the ESRI Special Achivement in
GIS award in 2002 and the USGS John Wesley Powell Award in 2003.
In addition to the DataMIL, John has worked to promote geospatial
concepts through the State of Delaware. John has served on several statewide GIS conference committees,
including being chair in 2003 and 2004, and many other DGDC activities, ultimately leading to his selection as the recepient
of the 2007 Delaware State Geographic Service Award.
EDUCATION
Department of Geography, University of Delaware, MS research ongoing
Thesis title: Estimation of Precipitable Water Over the Amazon River Basin Using GOES Imagery.
B. Sc. in Physics, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, Feb 1994.
B. Sc. in Mathematics, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, Feb 1994.
Selected Grants and Papers
Co-Principal Investigator, "DGS Digital Image Metadata Project", National Geological and Geophysical Data Preservation Program, United States Geological Survey, July 2009 – June 2010.
“Probability and Mitigation of Vessel Encounters with North Atlantic Right Whales”, James
Corbett, Jeremy Firestone (CMES, University of Delaware), AngeliaVanderlaan and Chris Taggart
(Dept of Oceanography, Dalhousie University), Endangered Species Research (Accepted, Ms. No. 200801014),
November 2008.
“Geospatial Modeling of Ship Traffic and Air Emissions, with Chengfeng Wang (California EPA)
and James Corbett (CMES, University of Delaware), June 2007.
Co-Principal Investigator, “NSDI Cooperative Agreements Program, Category 3: Clearinghouse
Integration with Web Mapping Services”, October 2002 – September 2003.
Co-Principal Investigator, “The USGS National Map/Delaware Framework DataMIL Project”,
USGS Title VII Funding Initiatives, August 2001 – December 2002.
Callahan, John A., Christina L. Callahan, Richard S. Sacher, Michael B. Mahaffie, William, S.
Schenck, Shannon S. Bain, and Robert E. Rinehart, 2002, “The Delaware DataMIL: A Web-Based
Mapping Collaboration” ArcNews, ESRI, Vol. 24, No. 2, Summer 2002. p. 18-19.
Co-Collaborator, “A University Teaching Laboratory for Geographic Information Science”,
University of Delaware, College of Arts and Sciences, September 2001.
Selected Invited Lectures and Presentations
Drupal: A Content Management System (CMS) for the University of Delaware, Delaware Web
Developer Group and UD CMS Committee, Newark, DE
A New Campus Mapping Initiative at UD, UD Building and Maps Team, Newark, DE
Northeast Map Organization (NEMO) Annual conference, Guest panelist for "GIS Portals and Web Mapping Services", New York, NY
“Introduction to GIS”, Two-day workshop to College of Marine and Earth Science, Lewes, DE
“Internet Mapping using ArcIMS”, Two-day seminar, USGS MCMC, Rolla, MO
“The Delaware DataMIL”, ESRI User Conference plenary (12,000+ attendees), San Diego, CA
“Delaware’s Geography Network”, UCGIS Winter Meeting, Presentations to Congress, D.C
“The Delaware DataMIL”, USGS Cooperative Topographic Mapping Group, Washington, DC
“The Delaware DataMIL”, USGS TNM Developer Workshop, EROS Data Center, Sioux Falls, SD
“The State of GIS in Delaware”, UD Department of Geography Seminar Series, Newark, DE
“Status of GIS in Delaware”, Center for Remote Sensing Seminar Series, Newark, DE
Guest lecturer in numerous courses at UD, including Advanced GIS, Introduction to GIS, GIS in
Public Policy, GIS in Natural Resource Management, and Introduction to Data Analysis