Nearly 80 Stony Brook students, faculty and staff participated in an innovative initiative called “Disaster Relief Map-A-Thon: Puerto Rico.”

Stony Brook is the first SUNY school to stage this type of technology-based response to a crisis, according to Chris Sellers, director, Center for the Study of Inequality and Social Justice and Policy.

The Map–A-Thon took place at the Stony Brook University Libraries North Reading Room and was organized by the Center for the Study of Inequalities, Social Justice and Policy, the Geospatial Center at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences and Stony Brook University Libraries.

Using their personal laptop computers, during a three-hour period Stony Brook students, professors and employees navigated satellite maps in search of buildings not yet documented in relief efforts.

Next, they zoomed in on street maps, traced outlines of structures and then uploaded and saved them to a master file used by the Red Cross as an aid to providing relief services to hurricane victims.

Read more: http://www.stonybrook.edu/happenings/featuredpost/stony-brook-community-pioneers-technology-based-response-to-puerto-rico-crisis/