Geography may not appear to be a particularly contentious field of study, but its wide scope and long history present all sorts of ethical challenges. For instance, choosing what to include on a map — and how to represent it — reflects historical trends, social values, minority representation and more. The fact that it can sometimes be a tricky business has often slipped by geographers themselves.

But a new wave of researchers hopes to end this lapse. UC Santa Barbara geographers Trisalyn Nelson(link is external) and Michael Goodchild(link is external) are working to better integrate ethics into their field. The two faculty members recently teamed up with UCSB alumna Dawn Wright, Esri’s chief scientist and a recently elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, to discuss how geographers can best promote ethics, empathy and equity in spatial data science, often referred to as GIScience.