Photo by: David M. Heald - Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Photographer

About me

My name is Rachel Corcoran-Adams. I am a driven, creative, and organized Geographic Information Systems (GIS) researcher with an additional education background in international development and community engagement.

I graduated with a Masters of Science in Geographic Information Sciences at Clark University in 2021. 

As the Product Readiness Lead for Desktop Technologies at Esri, I am responsible for preparing cohorts of new analysts and specialists for Support Services through instructional design and first hand knowledge of the fluctuations of our software releases. As a research assistant at Clark Labs, I created machine-learning models of natural landcover to agricultural expansion and urbanization and predict that landcover to 2050. Prior to this, I worked on individual modeling for individual countries in South America. Previously as a research assistant, I was using multi-layer perceptron neural networks to classify mangrove forests and aquaculture ponds in Landsat imagery of Southeast Asia to identify trends in mangrove deforestation. This project was funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and aims to shape sustainable agricultural policies. 

Prior to my graduate career, I earned a Bachelor of Arts in International Development and Social Change with Magna Cum Laude Honors and a Bachelor of Arts in Geography with Summa Cum Laude High Honors from Clark University. 

As a Clark undergraduate, I pursued a multitude of research opportunities. My sophomore year, I received the prestigious Human-Environment Regional Observatory Fellowship, where I presented my findings to the United States Department of Agriculture, local politicians, and urban greening initiatives. My senior year, I received the Norma and Howard Geller Endowed Research Award, which will be put towards the research and software development of an individual-based process model that will map out forest fire recovery in the Rockies. Additionally, I worked alongside Dr. Robert Gilmore Pontius Jr. to predict land change in the Plum Island Ecosystem using Long-Term Ecological Research Network data, to which I presented my findings at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute’s All Scientists Conference.

I am Connecticut-born, bilingual and passionate about the use of geospatial analysis as a form of storytelling.