Alicia Tyson serves as a geographic information system (GIS) analyst with the United States Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service Partnerships for Data Innovations program, a grant-funded initiative committed to aiding agricultural research scientists and partners in standardizing, modernizing, and improving scientific data acquisition, storage, and visualization through innovative tools and applications. Her research and projects reflect her passion for climate adaptation science, disaster risk reduction, and environmental justice, along with the application of transdisciplinary approaches and methods, integrating a background in the fields of anthropology, behavioral communications, GIS, watershed science, soil science, and geomorphology. Building on prior work in Peru, her current work is focused on the application of a geospatial systems analysis to assess socio-ecological risk resilience and vulnerability to landslides across Western Puerto Rico.
Her experience as one of the only locally based researchers in Puerto Rico participating in a multi-institutional National Science Foundation Critical Resilient Interdependent Infrastructure Systems and ProcessesType 2 funded project post-Hurricane Maria (and Irma) inspired her to explore key challenges facing the application of team science in post-disaster settings. She is also dedicated to augmenting the value of integrating Indigenous knowledge and science through her work, including volunteer service on a National Tribal Climate Working Group. She earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from the University of Colorado Boulder and a master’s degree in geographic information science from the University of Denver. She is a former IGERT I-WATER fellow at Colorado State University, where she is a PhD candidate in watershed science for the Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability. She volunteers with the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association GISCorps, Disaster Response Team.