Senior GIS Analyst, Duke Energy

Ohio, USA

Duke Energy is one of the largest utilities in the U.S., with nearly eight million customers across multiple states in the Midwest and Eastern Seaboard. Like other utilities, Duke is seeking to modernize and provide affordable, reliable, and greener energy for growing markets through improved engineering efficiencies and asset management; these goals will be met only though applied geospatial data, GIS and spatial IT. Kari Hicks joined Duke about five years ago as a GIS technician and has risen in her field to become a senior GIS analyst.

Hicks studied geography, GIS, and atmospheric sciences at Ball State University in Indiana, where she also worked as an undergraduate research assistant on projects such as the exploration of geopolitical impacts on non-renewable resources in the developing world. Later, as a research assistant at Indiana University, Bloomington, she worked on international human geography studies. Hicks also served as an associate instructor at the same university, teaching GIS and remote sensing fundamentals.