Andrea Newbern

Her UGA Story

In May 2007, Andrea Newbern graduated with her B.S. in AES from the UGA Tifton Campus.  Andrea was particularly interested in Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing, after first being introduced to the field in several different courses in the program, such as Soils and Hydrology, Precision Agriculture, and Digital Imaging.  Andrea was able to use her new found interests and skills as a student-worker at the USDA Agricultural Research Service that was co-located on UGA-Tifton.  There she assisted a soil scientist in collecting and processing remote sensing data throughout south Georgia.

After her student-worker position was completed, Andrea continued to work in the GIS field, particularly specializing in ESRI ArcGIS Software. This specialization and expertise led to a very diverse career path in Geospatial and a M.S. in GIScience from Northwest Missouri State University.  Since working for the USDA, Andrea has held Geospatial Analyst positions at The City of Albany, GA Planning Department, F&W Forestry Services (Albany, GA), Leidos (Melbourne/Orlando, FL), NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (Merritt Island, FL), and finally where she resides today at L3Harris Technologies, in Brevard County, Florida.  She also volunteers for a local environmental scientist by interpolating and mapping data used to monitor the state and health of the local Indian River Lagoon.

Although Andrea began her GIS journey in the Agricultural sector, the skills and knowledge she gained from the UGA Tifton Campus prepared her for a successful and diverse career path that is still developing and progressing with the ever-changing GIS industry.  She believes that the program gives you not only a specialized agricultural context, but the foundational skills that can be successfully transferred to any business.