Congratulations to Dr. LuAnn Wandsnider, who, with colleagues Dr. Christopher Dore and alum John Swigert, was awarded the 2014 Asa T. Hill Memorial Award by the Nebraska State Historical Society at their annual banquet last week. The Asa T. Hill Memorial Award recognizes individuals or groups who have made substantial contributions to Great Plains archaeology. Dore and Wandsnider were recognized for their development of the Nebraska State Cultural Resource GIS, the first in the nation. They developed and validated the GIS in the mid-1990s with Dept. of Transportation funds, enabling researchers and heritage managers to better access information on cultural resources within the state of Nebraska. They published on this at the time, inspiring other state historic preservation offices to follow their lead. MA student John Swigert refined the GIS, adding in 2000 a user-friendly graphical user interface that makes Nebraska’s Cultural Resource GIS among the most accessible in the nation.
