Fall 2012

Newsletter Archive

Staff Profile - Ken Sanderson

I have always had a strong interest in natural history and conservation, pursuing first a career in Parks Management. Later I found I had a strong interest and natural aptitude with computers. My career since has largely been a combination of those two areas of interest, making Miistakis the ideal place for me to work. My official role at Miistakis is GIS and Web Developer, which involves the building of GIS and Web based applications to assist with our various projects and program areas. I am also responsible for all things technical including system administrator and technical support.

My work is largely in a support role, filling in where my skills with computers, databases, and programming are needed. This has given me an opportunity to work on a wide variety of amazing projects and with great people over the past 11 years that I have worked at Miistakis. One of my current tasks is to maintain an open source version of our citizen science tool: Wildlife Observation Mapping Tool. This tool is a collection of lessons learned and scripts used by most of our citizen science projects and is available at no cost, to any that wish to use it.

One of the many perks I enjoy at Miistakis is the ability to work remotely from Prince Edward Island. For the last five years my family and I have been living on a small farm in the centre of the province. When not working I am 'Google Farming'- the act of learning to farm using the internet - which involves an interesting mix of my technical skills and a strong interest in applied learning and problem solving.