Alysha Van Duynhoven wins the 2025 Esri Canada Center of Excellence in GIS Student Associate Achievement Award
Alysha Van Duynhoven was awarded the 2025 SFU Esri Canada Center of Excellence (ECCE) in GIS Student Associate Achievement Award based on her continued accomplishments in the SFU ECCE during the past year. Her research has advanced the cutting-edge field of GeoAI through the integration of GIScience, spatial modeling and land-use science. She is an active member of the SFU ECCE since 2018 and contributed blogs to the network, participated in Esri User Conferences and led the SFU team to victory in the 2018 national GeoApp Challenge. In 2024 Alysha also won the prestigious Esri Young Scholars Award for Canada for developing 鈥淭he Geographic Automata Add-In for ArcGIS Pro,鈥� a .NET-based tool for spatiotemporal modeling in education and research. This award included presenting her work at the Esri International User Conference and Education Summit in San Diego. She has also showcased her research at GIS Day 2025. In teaching, she has distinguished herself as a dedicated and well-liked TA for our GIS courses, earning the 2025 SFU Faculty of Environment TA/TM Teaching Excellence Award. Beyond her numerous academic contributions and awards, Alysha actively supports her peers and volunteers in the broader GIScience community and most recently at the 32nd International Cartographic Conference. She defended her PhD thesis and was conferred the degree at SFU鈥檚 Fall 2025 Convocation marking an exceptional conclusion to her graduate studies.
Congratulations Alysha!