[Geospatial] Invitation: Geospatial/GIS Meetup @ Wed Oct 14, 2026 12pm - 12:50pm (PDT) (geospatial at lists.ucr.edu)

[Janet Reyes]

Geospatial/GIS Meetup
Wednesday Oct 14, 2026 ⋅ 12pm – 12:50pm
Pacific Time - Los Angeles



Attachments
8.5 x 11 Fall 2026 GIS Flyer.pdf  
https://drive.google.com/open?id=12exDJgxAKZR-ja9tESB7FN6QpJnWwzJn


Hello everyone,

Our first Geospatial/GIS meetup of the academic year will be held on  
Wednesday, October 14 from 12:00-12:50 pm.

The meetup will take place on Zoom, and will be recorded.

The topic will be Can a Browser Beat GeoPandas? Rethinking geospatial  
computing for modern hardware


Presentation description
Much of modern GIS still rests on computational foundations designed more  
than two decades ago. Since then, processors have become massively  
parallel, new approaches to memory management and data layout have reshaped  
high-performance computing, columnar data has transformed analytics, and  
web browsers have become serious computing platforms. Yet many spatial  
workflows still inherit assumptions from an earlier era.

This talk asks a simple question: if GIS were redesigned today from a blank  
slate using modern hardware, data structures, and programming tools, what  
would it look like?


Using rgSpatial, a new geospatial engine built from scratch in Rust and  
Apache Arrow, we’ll explore how rethinking data representation, memory  
layout, I/O, and parallel execution can produce order-of-magnitude  
improvements in performance and memory efficiency. More surprisingly, the  
same engine compiles to WebAssembly and runs entirely in the browser - with  
no server, no installation, and no data leaving the user’s device - while  
substantially outperforming widely used GIS tools such as GeoPandas, R sf,  
and QGIS.

We’ll look at what this architecture makes possible. Large spatial datasets  
that traditionally require desktop software or cloud infrastructure can be  
analyzed interactively in a browser tab. Sensitive workflows can run  
entirely on-device, without sending data to a third party — an important  
capability in healthcare, law enforcement, defense, and critical  
infrastructure. And because the same engine runs across Python, R, and the  
browser, high-performance spatial computing no longer has to be tied to a  
particular application or deployment model.

Our presenter
Alex Jorion is the founder of Rapid Geospatial Systems, an Irvine,  
California–based technology startup developing high-performance GIS  
software. He has a background in engineering, energy, and software  
development, with experience building large-scale data analytics tools,  
web-based mapping and analytics dashboards, and automated market  
intelligence systems. Alex holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from UCLA  
and an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.



Mary-Michelle Moore, our STEM Teaching Librarian at UCR, will facilitate  
the meetup and will share a few announcements at the beginning.

To register, please respond to this calendar invitation, or register  
through Eventbrite. Registration is appreciated but not required.

Here is the Zoom information you will need to attend:

https://ucr.zoom.us/j/97764550317?pwd=gi7TZbbVCvlY9iyyNQ1uea6sKK4hxh.1

Meeting ID: 977 6455 0317

Passcode: 613355

Feel free to forward this invitation to anyone, especially those with an  
interest in geospatial computing.



Best,

-Janet Reyes
Geospatial Information Librarian


Organizer
Janet Reyes
janetre at ucr.edu

Guests
Janet Reyes - organizer
Matt Vaughn
Xing Shi
Steven Ries
Soumya Agarwal
Ariel Texis Muñoz
Xuanlin Du
Stephanie Gutierrez
Barbara Martinez Neda
Kathalinne Bella Gonzalez
Raymond Uzwyshyn
Lynn Sweet
geospatial at lists.ucr.edu
Justin Huft
Natalie Chan
ahaglund at esri.com
Dennis Lopez
Emily Agurcia
Cynthia Curiel Raygoza
Ulices Ramirez Lopez
Mary-Michelle Moore
Luis Barrios
Suryaa Charan Shivakumar
Worku Nida
alex.jorion at rgspatial.com
nvmike at outlook.com
Jimmy Calanchini
Joseph Farago-Spencer
Athena Bravo
Bani Badwal
Kritika Gupta
Mark Long
Bhawana Acharya
Ariana Firebaugh Ornelas
Megan Asaka
Noa Noh
Fan Bu
Andres Zamorano
Joy Banik
Mariana Reyes
citlaliroji at hotmail.com
Nirali Tailor
Deja Simon-Jennings
Daniel Khan
Rajesh Neupane
Elia Scudiero
Aakash Nagare
Bach Tran
sarahpz596 at gmail.com
lmusa at geoinovo.com
Ajit Singh
Saloni Bonde
Laura Chansavang
William Troxel
Chun-Yu Lin
Luat Vuong
sufuma at gmail.com
Nícolas Roque dos Santos
Mario Mendoza
William Porter
Kate Wanchi Huang
Jenny Chen
Mia Ashby
Tiffany Larrabee
Jacqueline Alba
Zhiyi Wang
ckurnia at esri.com
Ipek Aytac
Rocio Gomez
Ahmed Eldawy
Joshua Iniguez
Nan Li
Marlene Figueroa
Lynda Vernia
Valery Chan
Boluwatife Daodu
Akshay Jayaram
Kylie Mago
gerald.winkel at redcross.org
John Jiang
laragard at yahoo.com
kiran at mapsolgeo.com
Julia Torres
View all guest info  
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Reply for geospatial at lists.ucr.edu and view more details  
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Your attendance is optional.

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