About Melinda
Melinda Kernik is U-Spatial's Spatial Data Analyst and Curator, jointly appointed through the University of Minnesota Libraries' John R. Borchert Map Library. She holds an M.A. in Geography, Environment, and Society from the University of Minnesota and a B.A. in History, with Honors, from the University of Minnesota Morris.
Before stepping into her current role in 2016, she spent five years teaching GIS, urban GIS, and introductory geography courses to more than 350 undergraduate and graduate students as a Teaching Assistant and Lab Instructor, and worked as a Research Assistant on Terra Populus, an NSF-funded project improving the resolution of global population data.
Since 2016, she has helped researchers document and organize spatial data for the University's Data Repository (DRUM), the Minnesota Geospatial Commons, and the Data Curation Network, while also supporting classroom instruction in digital mapping and story maps. She is a two-time recipient of the Journal of Map and Geography Libraries Paper of the Year award (2024 and 2025) and was named a 2019 TRELIS Fellow, a National Science Foundation–backed program supporting the professional development of academic women in the geospatial sciences.
Key Projects and Initiatives
Big Ten Academic Alliance Geospatial Information Network (BTAA-GIN)
This multi-institution collaboration among Big Ten university libraries improves access to scanned historical maps and geospatial data through a shared geoportal. Since first joining in 2017, Melinda has led or co-led several of its working groups, including chairing its Metadata Committee from 2019 to 2023, and now co-chairs its Technology Committee, which addresses metadata creation, interface design, and application development challenges.
Minnesota Geospatial Commons Modernization
As a member of the Minnesota Geospatial Advisory Council's executive steering team, Melinda helped guide the redesign of the state's geospatial data clearinghouse from 2024 to 2026, providing strategic direction on how Minnesota's public GIS data infrastructure should be rebuilt for the future.
Ephemeral Geodata: An Impending Digital Dark Age
This paper examines the risk of losing geospatial data that isn't actively preserved, drawing on Melinda's years of curation and archiving work. It won the 2025 Journal of Map and Geography Libraries Paper of the Year, her second time receiving the honor after her solo-authored paper on preserving Esri StoryMaps won the same award in 2024.
Areas of Expertise
- Leading state and multi-institutional initiatives to preserve digital geodata, establish metadata standards, and prevent digital data loss.
- Supporting faculty and students in leveraging ArcGIS StoryMaps for research, instruction, assignment design, and web publishing.
- Developing Python toolkits and metadata workflows to enhance spatial data discovery across academic consortia (e.g., BTAA) and state clearinghouses.
- Designing tutorials, workshops, and curriculum materials to guide researchers in organizing, documenting, and sharing spatial datasets.
Work with Melinda
Reach out, consultations are free for the U of M community.