I’m Dr. David Parr, and I’m a full-time instructor of Geospatial Sciences at Metropolitan State University of Denver in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. I currently live in New Hampshire, but I’ve previously lived in Colorado, Texas, and Arkansas with some long side trips to Massachusetts, Oxford, UK, and Germany.

I see my discipline, Geographic Information Science (GIS) as the intersection of Geography and Computer Science from which I have earned my degrees. Therefore, I want students to be able to think geographically - that is, to critically consider the dynamic spatial and temporal issues of a problem and to consider how scale and distance impact our human and physical environments. I also want them to think computationally - that is, to break problems into smaller components in a logical sequence and consider how a representation in a computer is related to the object in the real world. These skills understanding spatial relations and logical problem solving are critical skills in our discipline and in the wider world.

My teaching and research interests in Geographic Information Science (GIS) include Volunteered Geographic Information, Space-Time Spatial Analysis and Modeling, GIS and Geography Education, and GIS and Society including Digital Places and Web GIS. I have taught Fundamentals of GIS, Advanced GIS, GIS Design and Implementation, and Advanced Spatial Analysis with GIS, Spatial Modeling, GIS Programming, Cartography, Map Use, and Statistics. I have also given workshops in Python Programming with GIS and Open Source GIS.

In my spare time, I like to cook, garden, go hiking with my dog, go see shows, play the banjo and drink coffee.