Spatial Modeling and Analysis Lab

"Ambitious but rubbish"

I'm broadly interested in understanding how things change over space and time, including physical, biological and social systems. We use a variety of approaches to address these, including spatial statistics, machine learning and causal inference. See below for some examples of current projects.

Current projects

Here's a list of current funded projects that we are working on:

Simulating river runoff with dynamic vegetation models

[Description; Funding from University of Utah VPR Seed Grant]

Integrating stationary and mobile air quality measurements

[Description; Funding from University of Utah VPR Seed Grant; Collaboration with Dr. Daniel Mendoza (ATMOS, Utah)]

A Novel Approach to Visualizing Pollution Exposure Patterns in Pregnant Women

[Description; Funding from University of Utah OneUtah Seed Grant; Collaboration with Dr. Michelle Debbink (OB/GYN, Utah)]

Surrogate modeling of high mountain glaciers

[Description; Funding from NSF Frontiers; Collaboration with Dr. Summer Rupper (Geog, Utah) and Dr. Joerg Schafer (Columbia)]

Downscaling precipitation in mountainous regions with deep learning

[Description; Funding from NSF Frontiers; Collaboration with Dr. Summer Rupper (Geog, Utah) and Dr. Joerg Schafer (Columbia)]

Estimating transit multipliers for VMT reduction

[Description; Funding from California Air Resources Board; Collaboration with Dr. Reid Ewing (CMP, Utah)]

Predicting the impacts of mixed-use development on vehicle miles travelled

[Description; Funding from Johns Hopkins Center for Climate-Smart Transportation; Collaboration with Dr. Reid Ewing (CMP, Utah)]

Recent publications

2023

  • Medina, R.M., Brewer, S.C. & Kirkpatrick, S.M. An environmental analysis of public UAP sightings and sky view potential. (2023). Nature Scientific Reports 13, 22213. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-49527-x
  • Magargal, K., Wilson, K., Chee, S., Campbell, M.J., Bailey, V., Dennison, P.E., Anderegg, W.R.L., Cachelin, A., Brewer, S. and Codding, B.F. (2023). The impacts of climate change, energy policy and traditional ecological practices on future firewood availability for Diné (Navajo) People. Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. B. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2022.0394
  • McKnite, A.M., Green, D.J., Nelson, R., Brewer, S.C. and Watt, K.M. (2023) Medication patterns and dosing guidance in pediatric patients supported with intermittent hemodialysis or continuous kidney replacement therapy. Pediatric Nephrology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00467-023-06199-z
  • Linke, A., Leutert, S., Busby, J., Duque, M., Shawcroft, M and Brewer S.(2023) Dry growing seasons predicted Central American migration to the US from 2012 to 2018. Nature Scientific Reports, 13, 18400. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-43668-9
  • Knox, D., Carr, J., Brewer, S., Brown, S., Dean, N. and Peltan I. (2023). Phenotypes of Hospitalized Patients with Pneumonia. European Respiratory Journal, 62 (suppl 67).
  • Codding, B.F., Roberts, H., Eckerle, W., Brewer, S.C., Medina, I.D., Vernon, K.D. and Spangler, J.S. (2023). Can we reliably detect adaptive responses of hunter-gatherers to past climate change? Examining the impact of Mid-Holocene drought on Archaic settlement in the Basin-Plateau Region of North America. Quaternary International, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2023.06.014
  • Han, J, Wan, N, Brewer, SC, McCrum, M. (2023). Spatial access to Emergency General Surgery (EGS) services and EGS bypass behaviours in California, Annals of GIS, 1-11
  • Park, K., Singleton, P.A., Brewer, S., Zuban, J. (2023). Pedestrians and the Built Environment during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Changing Relationships by the Pandemic Phases in Salt Lake County, Utah, USA. Transportation Research Record, 03611981221083606

2022

  • McKnite AM, Job KM, Nelson R, Sherwin CMT, Watt KM, Brewer SC. (2022). Medication based machine learning to identify subpopulations of pediatric hemodialysis patients in an electronic health record database. Inform Med Unlocked. 34:101104. doi: 10.1016/j.imu.2022.101104.
  • Watt, JH, Brunelle, A, Brewer, S, Bentz, B, Morris, J, DeRose, RJ. (2022) Holocene record of vegetation change and mountain pine beetle outbreaks at Lake of the Woods, Montana, USA. Western North American Naturalist 82 (3), 524-536
  • Medina, R.M., Brewer, S., Linke, A.M., Nicolosi, E.A., Allain, M., Tharp, D. (2022). The sociospatial ecology of deaths during police interactions in the United States, 2016–2020. Political Geography 98, 102710
  • Codding, B.F., Coltrain, J.B., Louderback, L., Vernon, K.B., Magargal, K.E., Yaworsky, P.M., Robinson, E., Brewer, S.C., Spangler, J.D. (2022). Socioecological dynamics structuring the spread of farming in the North American Basin-Plateau Region. Environmental Archaeology 27 (4), 434-446
  • Vernon, K.B., Yaworsky, P.M., Spangler, J., Brewer, S., Codding, B.F. (2022). Decomposing habitat suitability across the forager to farmer transition. Environmental Archaeology 27 (4), 420-433
  • Bhattarai, A., Cova, T.J., Brewer, S.C. (2022). Perceived Recovery Trajectories in Post-Earthquake Nepal–A Visual Exploration With Self Organizing Maps. IEEE Open Journal of the Computer Society 3, 111-121
  • Shyr, D.C., Kelly, B., Brewer, S.C. (2022). Predicting Relapse In Pediatric Patients with Acute Leukemia Undergoing Stem Cell Transplant Using Interpretable Machine Learning-A Proof-of-Concept Study of Applying Machine Learning, Pediatric Blood and Cancer, 69.
  • Fuhriman, C., Medina, R.M., Brewer, S. (2022) Introducing a Dataset of Multi-Scale Geographies of ISIS Ideology from ISIS Sources. Terrorism and Political Violence 34 (4), 817-834
  • Kim, K., Yang, W., Brewer, S. (2022). Analyzing Change in Business Activity before, during, and after Autonomous Shuttle Bus Service in the Old Las Vegas Downtown Area. Journal of Urban Planning and Development 148 (1), 04021065
  • Wilson, K.M., McCool, W.C., Brewer, S.C., Zamora-Wilson, N., Schryver, P.J., Lamson, R., Huggard, A.M., Coltrain, J.B., Contreras, D.A., Codding, B.F. (2022). Climate and demography drive 7000 years of dietary change in the Central Andes. Scientific reports 12 (1), 1-16, 1
  • Qiu, C., Ciais, P., Zhu, D., Guenet, B., Chang, J., Chaudhary, N., Kleinen, T., Li, X., Müller, J., Xi, Y., Zhang, W., Ballantyne, A., Brewer, S., et al. (2022). A strong mitigation scenario maintains climate neutrality of northern peatlands, One Earth, 5:1, 86-97, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2021.12.008.

Classes and workshops

These are current classes that I am teaching or developing.

  • GEOG 3215/5215 Climate change impacts, adaptation and mitigation
  • GEOG 5160/6160 Geocomputation
  • GEOG 6000 Advanced Geographical Data Analysis
  • GEOG 5680 Introduction to R
  • MAGIC AI Workshop ()
  • Geography AI Workshop (2024/4/12)