McMaster Blog

Analyzing Bike Share and Public Transit Integration using GPS and Spatiotemporal Distance Decay

Posted 3 weeks ago

One of the most persistent challenges in public transportation is the "first-and-last mile" (FM/LM) problem: how riders travel from their trip origin, such as homes or workplaces, to the nearest transit stop, and then from the disembark stop to their final destination. In my recent PhD research, published in Travel Behaviour and Society, I examined how bike share systems can help bridge this gap in Hamilton, Ontario.

GIS in a Professional Capacity

Posted 3 weeks ago

By Skyler Grasley in the McMaster Blog

“For the first time, we have a comprehensive and actionable overview of palliative care in Ontario. This Atlas helps us see what’s working, reveals the inequities and gaps that too many patients and families experience, and provides us with the knowledge to change that. If we want to build a health system that truly delivers compassion, dignity, and quality of life at every stage of care, then palliative care must be part of the foundation. With this Atlas, we now have the tools to make that vision a reality for everyone in Ontario.”

Case Study Part 2: Rapid assessment of low intensity wildfire in Central Ontario with UAV

Posted 2 months ago

By Alex Furukawa in the McMaster Blog

In Part 1, we used satellite imagery and ground surveys to assess the impact of the relatively small, low intensity early season wildfire SUD008 in Central Ontario. Subsequently, we captured RGB imagery of the study area on May 30, 2025 using a UAV (DJI Mavic Mini 2, SZ DJI Technology, China) to an approximately 1.5 […]

Case Study Part 1: Rapid assessment of low intensity wildfire in Central Ontario with satellite imagery and field surveys

Posted 2 months ago

By Alex Furukawa in the McMaster Blog

An early season wildfire (SUD008) started approximately a kilometre east of Giroux Lake on May 13, 2025, burning for about a week before being declared out, with a total area burned of 30 ha (Figure 1). While actively fought and fairly low severity, this fire’s proximity to our other research sites and ability to quickly […]

The Canadian Atlas of Palliative Care: BC Edition

Posted 6 months ago

By Skyler Grasley in the McMaster Blog

All information presented hereafter should be considered the opinion of Skyler Grasley the individual in an unofficial capacity, and should not be taken to represent the position of the McMaster University Department of Family Medicine, Pallium Canada, or any other Partner Projects or Institutions. On March 25th 2025, the Canadian Atlas of Palliative Care: BC […]

Computing Catchment Areas for Bus Stops using GTFS Static Data

Posted 9 months ago

By Zehui Yin in the McMaster Blog

In this tutorial, I’ll demonstrate how to compute catchment areas, or network buffers, around transit stops in Hamilton, Ontario, using the ArcPy Network Analyst module and Hamilton Street Railway (HSR) General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) static data from Open Hamilton. Step 1: Import Required Packages Let’s begin by importing the necessary packages. The urllib and […]

A Bit About Me

Posted 10 months ago

By Jenna Mallinson in the McMaster Blog

Hi all! I am Jenna Mallinson, a 5th year in the Honours Earth and Environmental Sciences Co-Op program at McMaster. I am finishing up my final year and have completed my GIS Concurrent Certificate. In the past couple of years, I have completed 2 co-op terms (each 8 months), one with Environment and Climate Change […]

Meet Zehui Yin: ECCE New Student Associate at McMaster University

Posted 11 months ago

By Zehui Yin in the McMaster Blog

My name is Zehui Yin, and I am one of the new ECCE student associates at McMaster University. I am pursuing a PhD in Geography at the School of Earth, Environment & Society, under the mentorship of Dr. Darren Scott.

My Journey to GIS – Skyler Grasley

Posted 12 months ago

By Skyler Grasley in the McMaster Blog

The geospatial relationship between datapoints is a powerful medium over which you can connect seemingly disparate data, to try and tease out a casual or correlative relationship. Space is the nexus of many datasets, and it allows us to generate deep and useful insights into many things, from social issues, to plate tectonics and orogenies, to economics, to weather and more.

Natural Asset Mapping Project (NAMP) of Georgian Bay Biosphere Mnidoo Gamii: Testing Land Cover Classification

Posted 12 months ago

By Alex Furukawa in the McMaster Blog

This work is Part 2 of an ongoing project conducted in collaboration with the Georgian Bay Mnidoo Gamii Biosphere (GBB) alongside Dr. Brandon Van Huizen and Dr. Chantel Markle of University of Waterloo and my supervisor Dr. Mike Waddington. This portion and Part 1 on data gap analysis was presented on GIS Day at McMaster […]