My name is Ben Townsend, and I am in my first year of the 5-year M.S. + Ph.D. program. I recently received my B.A. in Geography from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, where I worked on projects revolving around GIS, public health and sustainable development. My research is focused on how we can more effectively understand, analyze and visualize health and health outcomes using GIS, Remote Sensing and spatial statistics. I am also interested in how the environment (both the natural and built environment) influence human health.