Alyson is an ESRI 2019 Student of the Year

The Esri Development Center (EDC) Program confers special status and benefits on selected leading university departments and programs in GIS. Their students are challenged to develop innovative applications based on the ArcGIS platform and related elements of the geospatial technology ecosystem. Prizes are awarded to each Student of the Year named by each EDC.

Alyson Lloyd is this year’s UCL ESRI 2019 Student of the Year.

Alyson's PhD, completed last year, explored the loyalty card dataset of a prominent UK high street retailer, providing a unique opportunity to study the dynamics, potentialities and limitations of such data in research.

Her work addressed the inherent uncertainties in using consumer datasets by quantifying issues of representation and data quality. She then assessed the potential of such consumer information to enhance current knowledge of spatiotemporal population processes.

The work made a decisive contribution to evaluating the provenance of the consumer Big Data that now accounts for a growing share of the information collected about citizens. As well as evaluating issues of content and coverage in loyalty programme data, GIS was also used to uncover their inherent uncertainties, and practical guidelines were devised for their management.

Alyson continues to use her GIS skills in relation to consumer data, having worked since graduation for the Asos UK clothing retailer.

See

• 2019 Esri Development Center Students of the Year
• Alyson Lloyd