Mimi Robinson is in the Center for Applied Geospatial Data Science, where she conducts her research.
Research allows students to gain hands-on experience in their field by developing knowledge and skills as they pursue their degrees.
For University of Tennessee at Chattanooga graduate research assistant Mimi Robinson, research has helped her discover a new passion and deepen her understanding of the field as she pursues her Master of Science in Environmental Science.
While working in the Center for Applied Geospatial Data Science (CAGDS), Robinson has played an important role in the Chattanooga Tree Project (CTP). Through partnerships with the City of Chattanooga, Understory by Green|Spaces and the Southeast Conservation Corps, CTP plans to plant 5,000 trees in Chattanooga.
Robinson specifically transferred to UTC in 2021 to pursue an undergraduate degree in environmental science—a degree not offered at her previous institution.
“I started researching programs in the area and found UTC has an environmental science bachelor’s with the geographic cartography concentration,” Robinson said. “I thought that seems more up my alley. I transferred and moved here. The rest is history.”
Since joining UTC, she has been involved in multiple research projects. Recently, through her work with CTP, she published an article titled “Using ArcGIS to Plant Trees in Chattanooga: How We Did It, Lessons Learned, and Future Plans.” The article was published on Esri, the company that produces the tools used in the project.
These tools help identify neighborhoods and specific houses to target for tree planting in Chattanooga.
During her time on the project, she also helped develop an app for team communication.
“Mimi created a GIS app to pull in parcel information and see which houses have been visited and which ones said ‘yes,’” explained GIS Director Charlie Mix. “That supports where the trees actually go on the ground. It’s everything from the citywide analysis down to things like on-the-ground work that she’s been helping support.”
Robinson fell in love with this scientific approach and used GIS to refine data.
“This is an awesome science,” she said. “Being able to use GIS to really tease out some of those interactions, even on a larger scale—which nowadays you don’t need to do and on a course scale—you can do it much finer. That’s so cool to me.”
Robinson’s work as an undergraduate led her to CAGDS, and she encouraged undergraduates to pursue research opportunities as early as possible.
“Even just six months on a project can change somebody’s life, their trajectory and what they want to do,” she said. “One of the biggest things is that students in school don’t get exposure to the professional world until they leave. It can be really tough because it’s like a discrete stop to one part of your life and a jump into the other, with little time to transition.
“Research projects or internships or anything like that is a really good way to create a gradient from college to professional life.”
In addition to creating the GIS app, Mix said Robinson has been pivotal in coordinating with project stakeholders while conducting research.
“Mimi’s a great example of someone who came in curious about this field, focused her studies in environmental science and GIS and then worked with us,” Mix said. “Any employer will be lucky to land her when she graduates. It’s really cool to see Mimi’s work recognized on an international scale by a company like Esri.”
Robinson credits the relationships she built with graduate students during her undergraduate degree as a key reason she is pursuing her master’s degree and subsequent research.
“I’m so privileged to be able to do this because not a lot of people even know you need to do that,” Robinson said. “Nobody told me, ‘You need to seek research opportunities.’ The first one fell in my lap. I was very lucky. I got to work with some graduate students at the time in Georgia that I probably wouldn’t be in graduate school now if I hadn’t been exposed to them.”
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