Geospatial Intelligence Internship at the RCMP Great Lakes Marine Security Operations Centre

Over the summer of 2020, Fabio Oliveira and Tanner Noth, now fourth-year Geographic Analysis students, completed their work placement with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). The students developed a methodology to fill an intelligence gap regarding coastal security. They used techniques studied in their third-year courses “GIS Programming”, “Spatial Databases”, and “GIS and Decision Support” to collect, geocode, and store relevant data. They then applied multi-criteria decision analysis with inspiration from risk-terrain modelling to determine the most vulnerable points along the coast of Lake Erie. Like regular employees or contractors, the students also had to deliver weekly reports, an interactive dashboard, and an executive summary of the project.

Working remotely due to COVID-19 was challenging but through regular communication with their RCMP supervisor, the students were able to simulate working in an office environment and meet the project timelines. Fabio notes that his classroom skills were tremendously valuable, but this larger research project required much more self-guidance than course work does. “The project opened up my future path as I was focused on Retail Geography but am now also considering Crime Analysis as a possible career.” Tanner in turn, whose main interest is in Environmental Geography, was further motivated to pursue graduate studies in geospatial analysis.