Jay Metzger says 2020 was quite a year:

As the GIS Manager for the Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDOH), Jay was activated onto the Planning team for the COVID-19 Pandemic. As the GIS Planner for the Rhode Island COVID-19 Pandemic Response, Jay was tasked with bringing GIS solutions to the pandemic response, and to maintain ethical data governance working with the COVID-19 Data Epidemiologists.

Jay created and deployed the RIDOH COVID-19 Data ArcGIS Hub Site, which started as one Hub site and has grown to over ten total sites in the RIDOH COVID-19 Data Hub environment. Jay’s RIDOH GIS COVID-19 Team were the driving force behind the data visualizations on the Hub sites. Since its inception in April of 2020, the site has seen 3 million hits, and has become an integral resource among internal RIDOH staff, external partners, and the public as a whole.

Jay was also the acting President for the NEURISA Board of Directors in the year 2020. During his role as President Jay lead a group of amazing GIS Professionals, through the COVID-19 Pandemic, and into a very successful NEURISA Day 2020 Conference.

The conference brought together GIS Professionals worldwide, as the NEURISA team hosted three days of discussions about the power of data and GIS. The NEURISA Day 2020 conference’s agenda spot lighted important topics such as Social Justice and Equity, Climate Change, and Making a Difference in our Communities, but was anchored by a Keynote discussion about Data and Ethics with Rebekah Jones. 

Jay is incredibly proud of the work that he has been involved with, and is completely honored to be mentioned for this award. When not wearing his GIS cape, Jay is busy with his wife, Kelly, and two daughters, Zoe and Violet, as they adventure across Rhode Island. Excelsior!