Timothy Prestby

I am a mixed-method researcher with training grounded in cartography, geography, and communication studies. I received my Bachelor's Degree in Cartography and GIS from UW-Madison, and my Master's Degree in Geography from Penn State. I have published research on User-centered Design, Story maps, and Geospatial Big Data. For two years at Penn State, I was a research assistant under the supervision of Dr. Anthony Robinson (Geography Department) and Dr. Christina Grozinger (Department of Entomology) where I designed and conducted usability evaluations of Beescape, a map-based pollinator decision support tool.

I have also interned with the Apple Maps Cartography team where I developed display expectations and design specifications for territory representation. In 2022, I received an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship to fund my dissertation: Understanding Trust in Maps. My current research explores how trust has been conceptualized and studied in cartography and information visualization. It also investigates the design mechanisms and psychological variables that influence trust in maps.