Cole, Dan
GIS Coordinator & Chief Cartographer
My expertise is in cartography, GIS, and remote sensing applications in a museum research environment.
Positions
- GIS Coordinator, Smithsonian Institution 1990 - 2024
- Research Cartographer, National Museum of Natural History 1986 - 1990
Geographic Focus
- World, North America, South America, Arctic Transnational Region
Background And Education
Education And Training
- Oregon State University , Geography 1979 - 1981
- M.A. in Geography, Michigan State University , Geography, Thesis: Recall vs. recognition and task specificity in cartographic psychophysical testing 1977 - 1979
- B.A. in Geography, SUNY - Albany , Geography 1973 - 1977
Professional Biography
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Daniel G. Cole is the GIS Coordinator and Chief Cartographer of the Smithsonian Institution (SI). He has worked in this position since 1990, and since 1986 has served as the research cartographer at SI. He was the geographic editor of all manuscript chapters for the Handbook of North American Indians: compiled, designed, and supervised production of nearly all maps in the series published after 1986. His educational background consists of undergraduate (SUNY Albany) and masters (Michigan State Univ.) degrees, plus two years of post–Masters study (Oregon State Univ.), in geography with specializations in cartography and remote sensing. He co-edited, with the late Imre Sutton, Mapping Native America: Cartographic Interactions between Indigenous Peoples, Government and Academia, 3 vols., 2014. He has designed and created maps for multiple exhibits at the National Museum of Natural History, the National Museum of the American Indian, National Museum of American History, the Sackler Gallery of Asian Art, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Smithsonian Archives, and SI Travelling Exhibition Service. He also serves as GIS, cartographic and GPS consultant to other scientists, exhibit staff and illustrators both within the Smithsonian and other organizations. From June 2009 to June 2010, he was president of the Canadian Cartographic Association; and he is now the past president of the Cartography and Geographic Information Society (CaGIS). On the side, he serves as a judge in the annual CaGIS Map Design competition.
Awards And Honors
- Unsung Hero Award, conferred by Smithsonian Institution, 2019
- Special Achievement in GIS, conferred by ESRI, 2003
Public Biography
- Daniel G. Cole is the GIS Coordinator and Chief Cartographer of the Smithsonian Institution (SI). He has worked in this position since 1990, and since 1986 has served as the research cartographer at SI. He was the geographic editor of all manuscript chapters for the Handbook of North American Indians: compiled, designed, and supervised production of nearly all maps in the series published after 1986. His educational background consists of undergraduate (SUNY Albany) and masters (Michigan State Univ.) degrees, plus two years of post–Masters study (Oregon State Univ.), in geography with specializations in cartography and remote sensing. He co-edited, with the late Imre Sutton, Mapping Native America: Cartographic Interactions between Indigenous Peoples, Government and Academia, 3 vols., 2014. He has designed and created maps for multiple exhibits at the National Museum of Natural History, the National Museum of the American Indian, National Museum of American History, the Sackler Gallery of Asian Art, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Smithsonian Archives, and SI Travelling Exhibition Service. He also serves as GIS, cartographic and GPS consultant to other scientists, exhibit staff and illustrators both within the Smithsonian and other organizations. From June 2009 to June 2010, he was president of the Canadian Cartographic Association; and he is now the past president of the Cartography and Geographic Information Society (CaGIS). On the side, he serves as a judge in the annual CaGIS Map Design competition.
Credentials
- GIS Professional, 2004
Research And Grants
Co-principal Investigator On
Has Expertise In Technique
- Geographical Information Systems (GIS) Technique
Keywords
- Cartography, Geographic Information Systems, exhibit maps, mapping Native American history and land tenure
Publications
Selected Publications
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Academic Article
- âExhibiting the Interconnections between Inuit, Narwhals, and Climate Changeâ. Cartouche. 29-33. 2017
- âThe Persistence of Native Alaskan Place Names on Mapsâ. Arctic Studies Center Newsletter. 47-49. 2016
- âIntroduction to papers from the AutoCarto 2014 Conferenceâ. Cartography and Geographic Information Science. 42:379-380. 2015
- âA Cartographic History of Indian-White Government Relations over the Past 400 Yearsâ. American Indian Culture and Research Journal. 37:5-77. 2013
- âOne Cartographic View of American Indian Land Areasâ. Cartographica: The International Journal for Geographic Information and Geovisualization. 30:47-54. 1993
- âRecall vs Recognition and Task Specificity in Cartographic Psychophysical Testingâ. The American Cartographer. 8:55-66. 1981
- âOverlapping Graduated Circles: Magnitude Estimation and Method of Portrayalâ. The Canadian Cartographer. 15:114-122. 1978
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Article
- Strand, Peter D., Putnam, Aaron E., Sambuu, Oyungerel, Putnam, David E., Denton, George H., Schaefer, Joerg M., Radue, Mariah J., Dorj, Ariunsanaa, Amarsaikhan, Pagamsuren, Stevens, Jessica, and Cole, Daniel G. 2022. "A 10 Be moraine chronology of the Last Glaciation and termination at 49°N in the Mongolian Altai of Central Asia." Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology, https://doi.org/10.1029/2022PA004423. 2022
- Cole, Daniel G. and Hart, E. Richard. 2021. "The Importance of Indigenous Cartography and Toponymy to Historical Land Tenure and Contributions to Euro/American/Canadian Cartography." ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 10, (6). https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi10060397. 2021
- Cole, Daniel G. 2018. "Mapping Alaskan Ethnography." Arctic Studies Center Newsletter, 25 36–38. 2018
- Cole, Daniel G. and Fitzhugh, William W. 2017. "Exhibiting the Interconnections between Inuit, Narwhals, and Arctic Climate Change." Cartouche, (93/94) 29–33. 2017
- Cole, Daniel G. and Fitzhugh, William W. 2017. "Exhibiting the Interconnections between Inuit, Narwhals, and Climate Change." Cartouche, (93/94) 29–33. 2017
- Buckley, Aileen and Cole, Daniel G. 2015. "Celebrating International Map Year in the United States." Cartography and Geographic Information Science, 42 93–94. https://doi.org/10.1080/15230406.2015.1059257. 2015
- Cole, Daniel G. 2015. "Editorial: Introduction to papers from the AutoCarto 2014 conference." Cartography and Geographic Information Science, 42, (5) 379–380. https://doi.org/10.1080/15230406.2015.1071561. 2015
- Cole, Daniel G. and Sutton, Imre. 2013. "A Cartographic History of Indian-White Government Relations during the Past 400 Years." American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 37, (1) 5–78. 2013
- Fernández, Miguel, Cole, Daniel G., Heyer, W. Ronald, Reichle, Steffen, and De Sá, Rafael Omar. 2009. "Predicting Leptodactylus (Amphibia, Anura, Leptodactylidae) distributions: Broad-ranging versus patchily distributed species using a presence-only environmental niche modeling technique." South American Journal of Herpetology, 4, (2) 103–116. https://doi.org/10.2994/057.004.0202. 2009
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Book
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Chapter
- Fitzhugh, William W., Kortum, Richard, and Cole, Daniel. 2024. "Rock Art and Archaeology of the Mongolian Altai: A Crossroads of Cultures." In Proceedings of the 16th Annual International Mongolian Studies Conference. Sarul-Erdene, Myagmar, editor. 9–13. Washington, DC: Washington DC Mongolian Cultural Center and Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center. In Mongolian Cultural Center Conference Series. 2024
- Cole, Daniel G. 2021. "A Cartographic History and Analyses of Indian-White Relations in the Great Plains." In Digital Mapping and Indigenous America. Hess, Janet Berry, editor. New York: Routledge. (https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429295546), https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429295546-6-7. 2021
- Cartography for the Scientific Illustrator. The Guild Handbook of Scientific Illustration, 2nd ed.. Ed. Hodges, Elaine. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.. 528-550. 2003
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Conference Paper
- Cole, Daniel G. and Fitzhugh, William W. 2020. "Visualization and Spatial Analysis of Archaeological Landscape Ritual in the Mongolian Altai." from 14th Annual Mongolian Studies Conference "Art and Culture Among the Mongols". 13, 13–21. (Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History) 2020-02-07. Washington, DC: Mongolia Cultural Center. 2020
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Report
- Goodchild, Michael, Appelbaum, Richard, Crampton, Jeremy, Herbert, William, Janowicz, Krzysztof, Kwan, Mei-Po, Michael, Katina, Alvarez León, Luis, Bennett, Mia, Cole, Daniel G., Currier, Kitty, Fast, Victoria, Hirsch, Jeffery, Kattenbeck, Markus, Kedron, Peter, Kerski, Joseph, Liu, Zilong, Nelson, Trisalyn, Shulruff, Toby, Sieber, Renée, Wertman, John, Wilmott, Clancy, Zhao, Bo, Zhu, Rui, Nilupaer, Julaiti et al. 2022. A White Paper on Locational Information and the Public Interest. American Association of Geographers. https://doi.org/10.14433/2017.0113. 2022
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Review
- Cole, Daniel G. 2024. [Book review] "Thematic Cartography and Geovisualization, 4th edition, by Terra A. Slocum, Robert B. McMaster, Fritz C. Kessler, and Hugh H. Howard." Cartographic Perspectives, (103), 106–112. https://doi.org/10.14714/CP103.1919. 2024
- Cole, Daniel. 2022. [Book review] "Review of Thematic Mapping: 101 Inspiring Ways to Visualize Empirical Data, by Kenneth Field." Cartographic Perspectives, 99, 48–52. https://doi.org/10.14714/CP99.1326. 2022
- Cole, Daniel G. 2021. [Book review] "Review of Mapping Abundance for a Planetary Future: Kanaka Maoli and Critical Settler Cartographies in Hawai'i." Cartographic Perspectives, 98, 70–72. https://doi.org/10.14714/CP98.1723. 2021
- Cole, Daniel G. 2021. [Book review] "Review of When Maps Become the World, by Rasmus Grønfeldt Winther." Cartographic Perspectives, 97, 80–82. https://doi.org/10.14714/CP97.1709. 2021
- Cole, Daniel G. 2020. [Book review] "Review of GIS for Science: Applying Mapping and Spatial Analytics, by Dawn J. Wright and Christian Harder, eds." Cartographic Perspectives, 94, 72–75. https://doi.org/10.14714/CP94.1593. 2020
- Cole, Daniel G. 2018. [Book review] "Ecological Atlas of the Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort Seas, by Daniel P. Huffman et al." Cartographic Perspectives, 90, 106–110. https://doi.org/10.14714/CP90.1458. 2018
- Cole, Daniel G. 2018. [Book review] "Review of Ethics in Everyday Places: Mapping Moral Stress, Distress, and Injury, by Tom Koch." Cartographic Perspectives, (91), 140–144. https://doi.org/10.14714/CP91.1494. 2018
- Cole, Daniel G. 2014. [Book review] "Atlas of Indian Nations." Cartography and Geographic Information Science, 41, (4), 391–392. https://doi.org/10.1080/15230406.2014.886819. 2014
- Cole, Daniel G. 2012. [Book review] "USA: The Essential Geography of the United States of America." Cartographic Perspectives, 72, 95–96. https://doi.org/10.14714/CP72.195. 2012
- Cole, Daniel G. 2011. [Book review] "Making Maps: A Visual Guide to Map Design for GIS, 2nd ed." Cartographica, 46, (4), 272–274. 2011
- Cole, Daniel G. 2011. [Book review] "Principles of Map Design." Cartographica, 46, (1), 57–60. 2011
- Cole, Daniel G. 2010. [Book review] "Archaeology and Landscape in the Mongolian Altai: An Atlas." Cartography and Geographic Information Science, 37, (4), 319–320. 2010
- Cole, Daniel G. 2010. [Book review] "GIS Cartography: A Guide to Effective Map Design." Cartographica, 45, (2), 159–160. 2010
- Cole, Daniel G. 2009. [Book review] "Placing History: How Maps, Spatial Data, and GIS are Changing Historical Scholarship." Cartographic Perspectives, 63, 66–69. 2009
- Cole, Daniel G. 2007. [Book review] "Remote Sensing for GIS Managers." Cartographic Perspectives, 56, 54–56. 2007
Editor Of
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Book
- Cole, Daniel G. and Sutton, Imre. 2014. Mapping Native America: Cartographic Interactions between Indigenous Peoples, Government, and Academia, Cole, Daniel G. and Sutton, Imre, editors. North Charleston, SC: CreateSpace Independent Publishers. In Mapping Native America. 2014
Presentations
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Presentation
- Cole, Daniel G. 2017. A Cartographic History and Analyses of Indian-White Relations in the Great Plains [presentation]. Flat Places, Deep Identities: 2017 Great Plains Symposium, 2017. Lincoln, NE.
- Cole, Daniel G. 2012. A Cartographic History of Indian-White Relations over the Past 400 Years [presentation]. 37th Annual Federal Bar Association Indian Law Conference - Mapping Indian Law and Policy, 2012. Santa Fe, NM.
- Cole, Daniel G. 2018. Educating the Public through the Use of Maps & GIS: Providing Geographic Context for Museum Exhibits [presentation]. International Geographical Union; Canadian Association of Geographers; National Council for Geographic Education joint conference, 2018.
- Cole, Daniel G. 2017. Exhibiting the Interconnections between Inuit, Narwhals, and Arctic Climate Change [presentation]. Exhibiting the Interconnections between Inuit, Narwhals, and Arctic Climate Change, 2017. Redlands, CA.
- Cole, Daniel G. 2016. GIS and Cartography Supporting Public Education and Scientific Research at the Smithsonian Institution [presentation]. 33rd ESRI International Users Conference, 2016. San Diego, CA.
- Cole, Daniel G. 2015. Mapping the Inka Road System for Museum Exhibit Display [presentation]. International Cartographic Conference, 2015. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
- Cole, Daniel G. 2014. Visualization and Spatial Analyses of Selected Rock Art and Archaeological Sites within a Ritualized Landscape of Far-Western Mongolia [presentation]. 110th Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, 2014. Tampa, FL.
Activities
Teaching Activities
- Introduction to GIS Instructor 1993 - 2020
Has Knowledge Of
- Geographical Information Systems (GIS) Technique
Affiliation
Head Of
- Cartography and Geographic Information Society President and Past-President 2018 - 2020
- Canadian Cartographic Association President and past president 2009 - 2011
Member Of
- North American Cartographic Information Society member 2000 - 2020
- Society for Conservation GIS member 2000 - 2020
- Cartography and Geographic Information Society member, Board member and President 1977 - 2020
- Canadian Cartographic Association member 1980 - 2019
Contact
Location
- National Museum of Natural History Academic Department
Mailing Address
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IT Office, MRC 136
P.O. Box 37012
Washington, DC 20013-7012
Shipping Address
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IT Office, MRC 136
1000 Constitution Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20560