Spatial Analytics with Python 🌎 + Lightning Talks ⚡️
Details
Join us on October 27th at 6:30 PM for an evening exploring geospatial data science with Python, featuring Brendan Collins, Founder & CTO at Makepath and creator of Xarray-Spatial along with a round of lightning talks from the community!
Please bring your 💻 to follow along and sign up using your official government-issued name.
🍕 Pizza & drinks will be provided - Thank you, Makepath!
Agenda
🌎 xarray-spatial: In and Out of the Raster-verse
Speaker: Brendan Collins (Founder & CTO at Makepath)
Spatial data comes in many shapes and sizes, but some of the most powerful spatial analysis techniques begin by viewing the world as a grid.
Led by the library's creator and maintainer, this talk introduces Xarray-Spatial, an open-source Python library for scalable raster analysis with CPU and GPU acceleration.
We'll learn how to enter the Raster-verse by bringing spatial data into Xarray, explore the Raster-verse using algorithms for terrain analysis, hydrology, proximity, and more, and escape the Raster-verse through techniques like zonal statistics and polygonization.
Finally, we'll discuss contributing to the Raster-verse, sharing lessons from maintaining Xarray-Spatial and how AI-augmented development is transforming open-source contributions, code quality, and scientific software engineering.
Whether you're a GIS practitioner, data scientist, or Python developer, you'll leave with practical ideas for working with spatial data and contributing to open source.
👨💻 About the Speaker
Brendan Collins is the Founder and CTO of Makepath, where he helps early-stage startups and Fortune 500 engineering teams realize their product ambitions.
A former employee of Anaconda, Brendan has spent the past decade applying PyData technologies, including NumPy, Xarray, and Numba, to engineering challenges across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors.
When not writing in the third person, Brendan enjoys swimming, playing the banjo, and gardening.
⚡️Lightning Talks
Death by a Thousand Check-Ins: Observability for AI Coding Agents
Elliot Gardiner — Code Telemetry
Similarity-Sensitive Entropy : Entropy over a similarity space
Joseph Miller — Researcher / Statistician
Who Gets Left Behind? A Reproducible Pipeline for Health Equity
Ushashi Podder — NYC Department of City Planning
We welcome additional lightning talks from attendees, time permitting! If you’d like to speak, let an organizer know when you arrive!
🤝 Networking
Connect with fellow data enthusiasts, Python developers, researchers, and community leaders. Build meaningful connections, exchange ideas, and explore opportunities for collaboration.
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📍 Event Details
Doors open: 6:00 PM
Doors close: 7:00 PM
Event: 6:30–8:30 PM
Venue: CUNY Graduate Center
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Important Information
Please register using your official government-issued name and bring a government-issued photo ID for check-in.
This, and all PyData NYC events, is an all-level event. Newcomers and beginners are welcome!
This event and all NumFOCUS-affiliated events and spaces, both in-person and online, are governed by our Code of Conduct.