Jamie Velkoverh

Jamie started her USGS career as a graduate student in 2007, working with the Minnesota Water Science Center conducting research for her master's thesis on the role of calcium in sorption of the herbicide glyphosate to agricultural soil, and implications for subsurface transport in Iowa. After graduating, she continued with the Minnesota Water Science Center as a laboratory chemist, conducting Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) analyses of agricultural groundwater samples in Minnesota.

After her early experience with the USGS, she worked in the private sector as an environmental engineering consultant in Phoenix, Arizona. Her projects ranged from indoor air quality analyses to water quality studies to health and safety compliance. After utilizing geographic information systems (GIS) technology on-the-job for multiple projects, she pursued a second graduate degree in GIS technology.

Jamie returned to the USGS in 2015 and worked with the Web Informatics and Mapping (WIM) team as a GIS Specialist. She was instrumental in developing and documenting the use of interactive spatial and story-telling web applications, “geonarratives”, as a new and innovative science communication tool to be utilized by the USGS. In the spring of 2016, she was a co-presenter at the plenary session of the ESRI Federal GIS conference, demonstrating the successful use of geonarratives within the USGS. Jamie worked for WIM on various GIS projects through 2020.

Jamie is now an Information Specialist for the Upper Midwest Water Science Center (UMid), managing the web presence of UMid, conducting outreach efforts, managing social media and continuing to work on GIS projects.