Jim Sparks
School of Liberal Arts/The Polis Center
Expert Bio
Jim Sparks has spent most of his career working with geospatial information. His experience has come through positions as construction surveyor, cartographer, parcel mapper, and consultant. He has worked in county government, state government, higher education and the private sector.
In October 2007, the Indiana governor appointed Sparks as the state’s first geographic information officer, with a statutory mission to facilitate the development, maintenance and distribution of comprehensive statewide geographic data.
Since March 2018, Sparks has been the director of geoinformatics at The Polis Center at Indiana University, on the IUPUI campus.
Sparks served as president of the board of the Indiana Geographic Information Council in 2019 and is now as past president on the council’s executive committee. He has been actively involved with IGIC since its inception in 2000. He is also a member of the National States Geographic Information Council.
Areas of Expertise
Geographic Information Systems management, Geographic Information Systems policy, Geographic Information Systems for government.