Dana Bauer joins Avencia as a Research Intern and works on Cicero™, Avencia’s Web API elected official lookup, conducting research of new elected officials’ contact information, elections, district shape files, and drawing geographic boundaries of elected officials’ districts. She is pursuing a master's degree in geography at Temple University, where her research interests are in the areas geographic information systems, spatial statistics, and the urban environment. For her master’s thesis, Dana is using local statistical techniques to explore the relationships between socioeconomic status and green space throughout the Philadelphia region. Prior to joining Avencia, Dana mapped community gardens as part of a summer internship with the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. Before becoming a geographer, Dana spent more than five years writing feature articles about science and technology for Research/Penn State, Penn State’s magazine for scholarly and creative activity.

 Carissa Brittain, Software Developer primarily works on Sajara®, Avencia’s web-based geographic digital asset management software that operates the award-winning PhillyHistory.org, the City of Philadelphia Department of Records’ online digital archive of historic photos. Carissa has over 9 years experience in software design, development and maintenance. Most recently she was employed by the United States Air Force with the 2nd Weather Group, HQ Air Force Weather Agency, where she supervised a weather report customization/GIS team and developed GIS applications. Her experience also includes more than 4 years developing against ESRI’s ArcGIS platform and more than 3 years technical writing experience.

Josh Marcus, Software Developer, has ten years of experience applying his software engineering, system architecture, and management experience to building sophisticated, scalable web-based applications.  Prior to joining Avencia, Josh served as Chief Technology Officer for Solutions for Progress, a public policy technology company.  In that role, he led the development of The Benefit Bank for several state governments, a web-based application that helps low income households gain access to tax credits and public benefit programs. At Avencia, Josh works on Cicero™, Avencia’s Web API elected official lookup, and implementations of Kaleidocade™, a web-based software that displays maps, charts, tables, statistics and reports for aggregated, geographic indicators that enables the US Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention to provide stronger support and services to communities.

 Aaron Ogle, Software Developer, brings over five years of industry experience to Avencia.  As a software developer, he is responsible for the development of web-based mapping solutions based upon ESRI ArcGIS and Microsoft .NET technologies and works on ParcelExplorer, which enables the public to quickly and efficiently get vital parcel records information including scanned versions of the paper-based registry maps on any property in Philadelphia. He most recently comes from Seattle, WA and the Varolii Corporation where he was responsible for developing client-specific communications software and integrating it with corporate enterprise systems. Aaron also has experience developing applications in Unix environments with Java.

       Deborah Sting, Project Assistant, works on product marketing activities pertaining to the Sajara® software and customer service for PhillyHistory.org. Prior to joining Avencia, she worked with the Winnetka Historical Society, where she assisted with exhibit development and implementation, catalogued and processed artifacts, and coordinated the first phase of a historic photograph preservation project. She also held a position in the Education Department at John G. Shedd Aquarium, where she developed educational programming for diverse audiences and interacted with guests through presentations and activities.  

About Avencia

Avencia is an award-winning, Philadelphia-based geographic analysis and software development firm specializing in the creation of innovative location-based software tools to enhance decision-making processes in governments, businesses, and non-profits.  With offices in Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Washington State, the company has years of experience working with small and large municipalities across the country, as well as non-profit organizations, foundations, and corporations, and has developed various flexible solutions that help clients answer complex community-based questions while improving their business processes, creating web-based and analytical solutions that can easily and seamlessly be integrated with clients' applications.

 For more information, visit www.avencia.com or contact Abby Fretz at 215-701-7503 or afretz(at)avencia.com