GreenInfo Network

Vanessa Knoppke-Wetzel (she/her) joined GreenInfo Network in 2021 as Associate Director. Before GIN, she worked in the federal government, non-profits, tech industry, and higher education. She recently served as a Director at Large for the North American Cartographic Information Society (NACIS), where she chaired the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. She also is the founder of  #creativeCarto, and one half of URhere podcast.

Vanessa is a detail-oriented cartographer, designer, analyst, educator, and community-builder that loves thinking about how to create and design products and utilize spatial data to tell visual stories in the best way possible. She also cares a lot about cultivating, building, and growing community (anywhere), which has led to her dedicating a lot of her free time in the last decade to giving talks, hosting workshops, and volunteering in the spatial world. She firmly believes everyone can become a better analyst, designer, and storyteller - even if they never have been in the spatial industry.

Besides geospatial things, Vanessa cares deeply about DEIJ, equity, equality, social justice, and community advocacy. She advocates for improvements in the geospatial industry as well as society at large. Vanessa was the DC Meet Director for Pull for Pride in 2022 and helped raise $15k for three local LGBT+ organizations, and also was invited to be a keynote speaker to the 2022 AutoCarto Ethics in Mapping Conference, where she gave a talk about how to build more inclusive spaces. 

She also does non-mappy things: you can find her lifting weights, running, or enjoying the outdoors when not doing the above.