Nadine Alameh, Ph.D., was a mere toddler in 1975 when civil war broke out in her native Lebanon. A bloody conflict between different religious and political factions within and outside the country dragged on for years, transforming Beirut from a cosmopolitan capital (some referred to it as the Paris of the Middle East) into a scarred battlefield where bombs fell and bullets flew daily.
For the first 22 years of Alameh鈥檚 life, she, her brother, and her sister survived the daily challenges of a war zone. As children, they were shuttled by their single mother from temporary home to temporary home 鈥� trying to wrest some semblance of normalcy from the chaos of their surroundings. Some nights they would sleep on the beach, others they would find refuge at a friend鈥檚 home. Alameh recalled one particularly jarring memory as her mother, Nada, drove the family through the treacherous streets of Beirut: 鈥淪he had a VW Beetle. She put us in the back and put stuff on top of us. You could hear not just the bombs, but also the snipers,鈥� Alameh remembered. 鈥淎nd she said, 鈥業f the car stops, you stay there. Because it means I got shot. You stay there, and if you don鈥檛 hear anything, then you just keep going.鈥欌��
Even as she navigated this peripatetic and traumatic early life, Alameh managed to excel in school, often using books as a refuge to escape the horrors of her reality. When she was 18, Alameh applied for a position in the highly competitive computer engineering program at the American University of Beirut. She not only passed the entrance exam, she scored in the top seven of all applicants and received a full scholarship even though she鈥檇 never seen a computer up to that point in her life.
The courage that saw Nadine Alameh through the extremely difficult circumstances of her early life in Beirut has been a hallmark of her career ever since. As she continually sought out challenges and excelled in fields that were foreign to her, Alameh has emerged as a leading thinker in the field of geospatial science.
When she was an undergraduate student in Beirut, Alameh said that one of her instructors encouraged her to apply for a scholarship to attend graduate school at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), even though she had no desire for such a long-distance move. 鈥淚 never wanted to go anywhere because I didn鈥檛 want to leave my mom and my sister and my brother,鈥� Alameh said. But she did apply for one of the four MIT scholarships, and she won. Alameh was randomly assigned to the master鈥檚 program in urban planning with a concentration in geographic information systems (GIS), a tool for visualizing and analyzing spatial data. This would be her introduction to geospatial science.
During her graduate program, which she started in 1995, Alameh interned at MIT鈥檚 Intelligent Transportation Systems Lab, where researchers were creating geospatial simulations of the 鈥淏ig Dig,鈥� a massive infrastructure project to build a tunnel that rerouted Interstate 93 through the heart of Boston. Her advisor in that lab suggested that, with a few extra classes, Alameh might obtain a Ph.D. in addition to her master鈥檚. She followed the advice and emerged from MIT in 2001 with a doctorate in information systems engineering in addition to two master鈥檚 degrees: one in civil engineering and one in city planning.
Through her graduate school experience at MIT, Alameh said she developed a sense for the all-encompassing nature of geospatial science. Everything happens in space and time,鈥� Alameh said. 鈥淭his is the starting point. But also, there鈥檚 the spatial relationships of things that give you a whole new insight into anything.鈥�
Alameh continued to hone her expertise in the emerging field of geospatial science as she secured various positions after grad school: as a project manager for a company that did contract work for NASA; as senior technical advisor to NASA's Applied Science Program's Geoscience Interoperability Office (GIO) mission; as the president of MobiLaps LLC, a software technology and professional services company; as CEO of software company Snowflake Software; and as chief architect of Innovations and Technology Strategy at giant aerospace firm Northrop Grumman. Starting in 2019, Alameh served as the CEO and president of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), a concentration of more than 500 industry, government, research, and academic organizations that strive to make location information 鈥淔AIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable).鈥� During her tenure as head of OGC, Alameh also served as a member of the U.S. Department of the Interior鈥檚 National Geospatial Advisory Committee and as a board member of the United Nations Global Geospatial Information Management private sector network.
Throughout her journey in geospatial science, Alameh has made a point of building the field and increasing the ability of underrepresented groups to access it. Since 2022, she has been a board member of LebNet, a nonprofit focused on enabling tech entrepreneurs and professionals of Lebanese descent to succeed on a global stage. And in 2019, Alameh became the first ever Leadership in Diversity Award Recipient at GoGeomatics Canada鈥檚 GeoIgnite Conference. In early 2023, she won the 24th Annual Women in Technology Leadership Award in the Non-Profit and Academia category. Alameh said that her approach of fueling geospatial science and technology while simultaneously championing diversity and women in STEM fields is one of the reasons she chose to come to as its inaugural executive director in September 2023. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a bigger mission here than geospatial,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 helping the society, which is what we should really all be doing after all.鈥�
Alameh also noted that she has had a front-row seat to a remarkable evolution in geospatial science, from desktop GIS to web GIS to web services to cloud computing to the growth of Earth observation to autonomous everything to artificial intelligence/machine learning to 3D and digital twins and now video gaming.
鈥淕eospatial science has expanded into more markets that can fit on a piece of paper,鈥� Alameh said. 鈥淭his is the energy of geospatial, this is the energy of TGI.鈥�
At the helm of TGI, she expressed her goal to steer the young organization into a bright future as the central node of a thriving geospatial ecosystem taking shape in the St. Louis region. 鈥淭here鈥檚 no shortage of opportunities in geospatial. We can do many things and be successful and have the consortium and keep everybody happy,鈥� she said. 鈥淏ut that鈥檚 not enough, at least for me. I want TGI to be known for its impact not only on geospatial but also on society and the planet. That鈥檚 the big idea.鈥�
Established by a legacy investment from Andrew C. Taylor, and led by 天美传媒制片厂, TGI is a consortium of eight research and academic institutions including the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, Harris-Stowe State University, the University of Illinois Urbana鈥揅hampaign, Missouri University of Science & Technology, the University of Missouri, the University of Missouri鈥揝t. Louis and Washington University in St. Louis. Together the consortium houses more than 100,000 students and 5,000 faculty, hundreds of whom are engaged in geospatial science and technology. Already, TGI has inventoried the geospatial expertise across this sprawling consortium and identified several application areas where researchers are applying emerging and exciting geospatial tools and thinking. These tools include artificial intelligence/machine learning, geoinformatics, and remote sensing, and the challenges to which these methodologies are applied run the gamut, from health and agriculture to environment and national security.
With no shortage of raw material in the TGI consortium in terms of talent, expertise, and research excellence, Alameh said that an eventual goal is to position TGI as a hub of geospatial science that can not only characterize the dynamic world we inhabit but help predict what changes might be coming our way. 鈥淪o you come to TGI for the, 鈥榃hat鈥檚 going to happen in 50 years? What鈥檚 going to happen in 100 years?鈥欌�� she noted. 鈥淪o not analytics today, but actually to anticipate the future.鈥�
As a new war gripped the Middle East in the fall and winter of 2023, Alameh was forced to relive the trauma of her early life in Beirut even as she delighted in the promise of her new role at TGI. 鈥淔or the first week [of the Israel-Hamas War] I could not sleep,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 see the bombs again when I sleep, because that鈥檚 what I see on the news.鈥�
But as she has throughout her life, Alameh will marshal on and face new challenges with hope, focus, and above all, courage.
鈥淚鈥檓 proud that I built on every move every time, consistent with who I am, which is taking what I know and trying something new,鈥� Alameh said. 鈥淚 like that when I look back, it鈥檚 like: This is crazy, but I had the courage somehow.鈥�
Story by Bob Grant, executive director of communications for the .
This piece was written for the 2023 SLU Research Institute Annual Impact Report. The Impact Report is printed each spring to celebrate the successes of our researchers from the previous year and share the story of SLU's rise as a preeminent Jesuit research university. More information can be found here.