The GLaD Podcast

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May 2026

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About the show

From the creators of the Spatial Analytics + Data interview and seminar series, we bring you the GLaD Podcast—Geography, Life + Data. A little geography, a little (academic) life, a little ”geography life”, and LOTS about data, mostly spatial. Join your hosts, Dani Arribas-Bel, Rachel Franklin, and Levi Wolf for conversations, interviews, and even a few hot takes.

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34 recent

May 27, 2026Episode 3358 min

Embeddings for the rest of us

Today, we’re talking about embeddings. Unless you’ve been living… well, I don’t know where, you might have heard of the term generative AI. At the core of this technology is an obscure idea, word embeddings, that powers much of its magic. Embeddings work for text, but not only so. They also work for imagery and other types of geospatial data. This idea is taking force in certain circles, and we thought it’d be worth spending some chat time with this! Join us for a (hopefully) "lay enough" conversation about one of the most interesting ideas in geo-data that the last few years have produced.

May 6, 2026Episode 321 hr 9 min

Episode 32: Baby Talk

You think balancing babies and a career is tough; try recording a podcast episode about the topic! Kidding. Sort of. In this episode, Dani, Levi, and Rachel are joined by special guest, Elisabetta Pietrostefani, from the University of Liverpool, for a wide-ranging conversation about babies and (academic) work. The complicated decisions around whether and when to have kids. Things we wish we'd thought of. Tips for navigating different stages of kid and career. One of the most interesting things about this episode, we think, is just how tricky it was to navigate the conversation—an important takeaway lesson!

April 8, 2026Episode 3147 min

Episode 31: Academic Love Languages

For this episode, join Dani, Rachel, and Levi for a discussion about Academic Love Languages. Does getting public recognition make you feel warm and fuzzy? Or would you rather the freedom to curl up in a quiet office, reading and writing? We're all different, and it helps to be aware of what makes us (and others) feel valued, cared for, or supported. So, how do you show your colleagues that you value them? And, what makes you feel valued as a colleague? Join us for a spirited discussion about whether such a thing exists and let us know your academic love language by emailing us at thegladpodcast@gmail.com

February 13, 2026Episode 3058 min

Episode 30: Predictions for (the rest of) 2026

Happy new year!!! We know, we know, we’ve been in 2026 for a while already (already too long?). But this is the first episode we recorded this year, the first one with Levi as a dad (yay!), and one where the “year” itself will somewhat feature. So we find it apt to start with a cheerful approach. The reason behind this episode is that I’m such a sucker for “best of…” and “what’ll happen in…” compilations. Like the best sci-fi, they tell you a lot more about the present, its hopes and anxieties, than about the year they either review or speculate on. And that’s always interesting to me. So Dani spent most of December listening to “hot takes” from all sorts of podcasts… And here at GLaD HQ, we’re all made of the “hot take” stuff. So, possibly several weeks “late” (in time is overrated!), here it is: our hot takes for 2026.

January 9, 2026Episode 291 hr 5 min

Episode 29: The oldest profession in geography

Come for the catchy episode title, stay for the wide-reaching discussion about spatial data, visualization, and cartography. We're joined this time by Anthony Robinson, from Pennsylvania State University, for a conversation about what cartographers do, what cartography looks like in the 21st century, what makes a map, and the challenges of "personal cartography." We've even got some requisite hot takes on spatial analysis and data (...and cartography!).

December 16, 2025Episode 2857 min

Episode 28: “Opening the academic source” with Serge Rey

Today, we’re joined by a close friend of the podcast (someone some of us personally credit with changing our lives forever!), Serge Rey, to talk all things open, open source, and academia. Serge is Professor for Geography at San Diego State University and BDFL for the PySAL project. He’s been one of the most outspoken voices advocating for closer adoption of the open source ethos in academia, so we thought who better to unpack the open conundrum.

November 11, 2025Episode 271 hr 2 min

Episode 27: Are you GLaD about GeoAI? A conversation with Krzysztof Janowicz

On this episode, we talk with Prof. Krzysztof Janowicz, Professor of Cartography and Geoinformation Science at the University of Vienna. Prof. Janowicz is an expert in GeoAI, and has been researching the field over his entire career. Join us to learn a bit more about GeoAI—the nuts and bolts of what GeoAI is, whee it came from, and where the fast-paced field is going. Learn with us about the basics of foundation models and representation learning, and think through how GeoAI can help your research or practice. As always, we welcome feedback, episode suggestions, and questions from listeners at thegladpodcast@gmail.com. And, please rate and review us on your favorite podcast app—every bit helps!

October 16, 2025Episode 2648 min

Episode 26: A day in the life of… Wenfei Xu

Today we’re “repeating” special guest. We enjoyed so much talking to Wenfei Xu anbout mobile phone data in our last episode (Episode 25: What we talk about when we talk about mobile phone data), that we decided to bring her on board again. But there’s a twist: this time, we’re returning to our “A day in the life of…” series, where we explore the behind-the-scenes view of what it is like to be a GLaD researcher. Wenfei i Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of California, Santa Barbara. An urban planner by training, Wenfei has worked a lot with mobile phone data, but also has a super interesting story to how she arrived at that research interest. Come the fancy data, stay for engaging conversation about hopping between academia and industry, traversing disciplines, and… an Exhibitions entry in your CV.

September 12, 2025Episode 2545 min

Episode 25: What we talk about when we talk about mobile phone data

Here's an episode all about data—mobile phone data, to be exact. What are we talking about when we talk about using “mobile phone data” in our research? How are these data generated? Who produces them? What is this data good for…and maybe not so good for? How is it accessed and used? So many questions! To help provide some answers, in this episode Rachel, Levi, and Dani are joined by special guest, Wenfei Xu, Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at UC Santa Barbara.

August 13, 2025Episode 241 hr 4 min

Episode 24: AI & GLaD in Practice: a field report

AI is now definitely changing how we live our (geography) lives. Join Rachel, Dani, and Levi for a chat about how Artificial Intelligence is emerging in our GLAD lives. How is it being used "in the wilds" of teaching, research, coding, publishing, and beyond. Should you be farming out your peer reviews to a computer? Vibe coding with your friend Claude? Setting out on AI-generated running routes? And, as always, do we really need more papers faster than ever before? We chat through this, with some advice and reflections on where AI might change our own practice and how it's certainly changing the way academia (writ large) works. Let us know what you think at thegladpodcast@gmail.com. Did we miss something about AI that you now can't live without? Have we missed your favorite anecdote about a deluge of digital dreck? Send us an email! Resources we discussed: Nature's recent editorial on peer review and AI https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00894-7 Harper Reed's post on how to code well with LLMs https://harper.blog/2025/04/17/an-llm-codegen-heros-journey/ Ethan Mollick's "reasoned optimism" about thinking with AI https://www.oneusefulthing.org/ Simon Willison's blog tracking the frontier of LLMs https://simonwillison.org

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