 I'm Marcella Suarez, one of the professors in the MGIS and special data science programs. I teach courses in cartography, special analysis, and special data science. There are many reasons why I really enjoy teaching these courses, and one of them is definitely that I enjoy working with the talented students we have in these programs. And a second reason is that the topics taught in these courses are very related to my research interest. In my research, I use special analysis, geo-visualization, machine learning, and data mining techniques to understand how information contributed by the general public, say, tweets, can be used along with official geographic data. But I like the most about working with these different types of geographic data is that they challenge us to think and learn about new methods in the GIS science. Okay, something interesting about me is that I was born and raised in Colombia. So before coming to the US to complete my PhD, I worked with different organizations there as a GIS analyst and consultant. So when I'm not working, you can probably find me biking, hiking, or spending time with my family and my dog, Fiona. Okay, that was a bit about me. Hope to see you in one of my classes this year.