Faustina Ankomah ('01 M.S.) was used to creating maps with pencils and stencils. But that changed when she was introduced to GIS as a geography and sociology undergraduate student at the University of Ghana.

"The maps were alive," she says. "You could tweak the data. You could change the data. And you could change the map because they had different color palettes."

Now working as a senior information systems analyst for XTO Energy, Ankomah brings together information with GIS.

"If you can see it on a map, you can remember," she says. "I can give you a lot of statistics and data trying to form associations and you can walk away without remembering the exact statistics. If I show the area of concentration -- this red area is ground zero -- you can easily make an association."

Ankomah came to UNT for her master's degree on the advice of her brother Kweku Donkor ('01 M.S.), who also majored in applied geography and now works for the Federal Aviation Administration in Frederick, Maryland. For her thesis, Ankomah conducted a geographic analysis of teen births in North Texas, finding that socioeconomics was a more prevalent factor than race.

After graduating, she worked as a GIS analyst and coordinator for the Denton Central Appraisal District from 2002 to 2008, then served a yearlong stint as a consultant for the city of Denton before landing her job at XTO Energy.

In her current position as scrum master, she makes sure that the team's tasks -- such as development and testing -- are aligned.

"Once things go from progress to done, I get a rush of happiness," she says.

For XTO, a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil, the team could be finding oil and gas around the United States. If 500 gas wells show up on a map, but 200 wells show up in one particular area, then that raises questions.

"What is it about that area that makes it easier to dig gas?" Ankomah says. "The rock formation on the surface will make you look at things further down. The visual connections are easier to remember with maps."

While working as an intern and geographer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Jennifer Holland ('08, '11 M.S.) was approached by her bosses. Would she be willing to write code in GIS?

"That one question has definitely shaped and guided my career," she says.

She was already enrolled in the GIS programming class taught by geography professor Pinliang Dong, and her bosses' query led her to translate her GIS skills for the federal agency, which provides engineering and construction for infrastructures, waterways and recreation areas. By writing code to automate tasks or create custom GIS web applications, she can create online maps and webpages showing information the agency needs to manage.

"It takes a special mind to write code, and I didn't realize I had that," she says. "The process is kind of addictive. It's like solving algebra problems all day. It's very exhilarating when you get it done."

Holland says geography makes her happy, combining her love for the outdoors and geology -- she collects rocks -- with meteorology and hydrology.

"I've always wanted to help people through my work in whatever way I could," she says, "and there's a geographic component to everything we see."

For her thesis at UNT, she used a factor analysis and other statistical and spatial techniques to understand the ground­water quality of the Trinity Aquifer and the influences on it, such as hydrochemical processes, agricultural activities and land use.

"My analysis helped us to understand the aquifer better," says Holland, who also works as a GIS adjunct professor at Tarrant County College. "In my thesis and career, I've wanted to find subjects I love and use GIS to understand them."

When he was a high school student in China, Zongpei Tang ('06 M.S.) received a gift -- a map with an aerial photograph of his hometown of Kunming, China. His best friend, a middle school classmate who was crazy about maps, thought Tang would enjoy them too.

Tang looked at that map every day, fascinated that he could see the stadium, a park, roads, mountains and streams.

"It was the first time that I had a whole picture of what the city looked like," he says. "I felt like I was a giant in a small world when I was reading the map. I could find a shortcut to the museum from my home, locate the park I had never been to before and do much more. That was the magic of the map."

Now as a senior GIS project manager in the Richardson office for Halff Associates, an engineering consulting firm, he manages GIS projects, conducts geospatial data analysis and creates maps that help stakeholders make decisions. The maps display major natural and manmade features -- such as water, endangered species habitats, parks and transportation networks -- so the public can understand environmental constraints.

"GIS marries art and science perfectly," he says. "It can handle complicated spatial analysis and modeling, and also visualize geospatial data and their spatial relationships through art."

Tang earned his undergraduate degree in China, majoring in economic geography and urban planning. He worked briefly for a government agency but wanted to get back into geography -- particularly GIS, because it meshed with his interest in computers. He chose to pursue his graduate degree at UNT after he was offered a teaching assistant position.

For his thesis, he developed a "fuzzy modeling approach" using GIS to assist people in finding the best residential locations based on factors such as school rankings and proximity to parks and retail centers.

Tang has been at Halff since 2007, where he's working on a project for FEMA that updates the flood insurance map for several North Texas counties. The map, using hydrologic and hydraulic modeling, will feature a 100-year floodplain that shows which properties need to buy insurance.

He says the map helps the public and decision makers understand environmental constraints and make better decisions.

"A picture is worth a thousand words," Tang says. "A map is even better."