Identity elements
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Name and location of repository
Level of description
Title
Date(s)
- 1971-2018 (Creation)
Extent
8.0 linear feet [8 record boxes]
Name of creator
Biographical history
Mary Elaine DeVries O’Neill was born in Armour, South Dakota, on June 13, 1950, to Ray and Ruby DeVries. She attended high school in Corsica, South Dakota, graduating in 1968. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Math in 1972 and a Master’s degree in Geography in 1994, both from South Dakota State University. She married Douglas O’Neill in 1993.
Her professional career includes various significant roles at South Dakota State University (SDSU) and other institutions. She has served as the SDView Coordinator at the Water Resources Institute since January 2014 and was the Program Manager for Remote Sensing at the Water Resources Institute from 2010 to 2013. From 1989 to 2010, she was the Manager of the Office of Remote Sensing at the Engineering Resource Center. Additionally, she worked as an Adjunct Instructor in several departments at SDSU, including Geography (2003-2013), Engineering Technology and Management (2005-2006), and Mathematics (Spring 2005). She was a Visiting Scientist at the EROS Data Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in 1993 and held various positions at the Remote Sensing Institute at SDSU from 1972 to 1989.
O’Neill has been involved in numerous projects and activities throughout her career. She was the principal investigator of a USGS-funded AmericaView project aimed at building partnerships and infrastructure in South Dakota to enhance the availability and use of remote sensing and geospatial data. She also supported USAID/Uganda’s Feed the Future Program as a Geographic Information System Specialist through an Intergovernmental Personnel Agreement with the USGS National Center for EROS from May 2011 to December 2012. Other notable projects include co-investigating remote sensing for water quality monitoring on the Lake Traverse Reservation, coordinating South Dakota’s Education Public Access Resource Center (EdPARC), and leading the Main Street Sioux Falls GIS Development and Maintenance project.
O’Neill has contributed to the field through international workshops and projects, including geospatial technology workshops for K-12 educators, digitization and spatial data conversion projects for the National Center for EROS, and collaborative projects in Poland and Israel. She has participated in remote sensing workshops in countries such as Bangladesh, India, Senegal, Sudan, and Nepal.
Beyond her technical contributions, O’Neill played a crucial role in establishing the Professional Staff Advisory Council at SDSU, which provides representation for non-faculty exempt staff members. She retired in 2013 but continues to impact the field through her ongoing work as SDView Coordinator.
Content and structure elements
Scope and content
The Mary O’Neill Papers are composed of course material, college course notes, files related to her work with AmericaView, South DakotaView, Upper Midwest Aerospace Consortium, and South Dakota State University. Also included is material related to the many research projects related to geospatial technologies, remote sensing, geographic information systems, and global positioning systems.
System of arrangement
Conditions of access and use elements
Conditions governing access
Open. Researchers are asked to make an advance appointment to access archival material. Items in this collection do not circulate and may be used in-house only.
Researchers conducting extensive research are asked to make an advance appointment to access archival material. Please call or e-mail prior to visiting the collection and indicate as much detail as possible about a particular topic and intended use.
Physical access
Technical access
Conditions governing reproduction
South Dakota State University supports access to the materials, published and unpublished, in its collections. Nonetheless, access to some items may be restricted as a result of their fragile condition or by contractual agreements with donors.
Languages of the material
- English
Scripts of the material
Language and script notes
Finding aids
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Immediate source of acquisition
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information
Accruals
Related materials elements
Existence and location of originals
Existence and location of copies
Related archival materials
Selected Publications/Reports:
O’Neill, M. and K. Dalsted. 2010. Chapter 2: Obtaining Spatial Data. In S. Clay (Ed.), GIS Applications in Agriculture, Volume 2, Invasive Species. CRC Press (submitted for publication).
Thanapura, P., D. Helder, S. Burckhard, E. Warmath, M. O’Neill, D.H. Galster, 2007. Mapping urban land cover using QuickBird NDVI image and GIS spatial modeling for runoff coefficient determination, Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing, 73 (1):57-65.
O’ Neill, M, K. Dalsted, P. Thanapura, D. Clay, C. Reese, S. Shin, J. Lee, J. Kim, and H. Jeon. 2005. SDView: Remote Sensing Partnerships, Infrastructure, and Data for South Dakota, Proceedings of the ASPRS 2005 Fall Convention – Pecora 16 Symposium, 23-27 October, Sioux Falls, South Dakota (American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing), unpaginated CD-ROM.
O’Neill, M. and V. Shelhamer. 2005. GIS Instruction: A Case Study in Precision Agriculture. Presented at the 2005 ESRI Education Users Conference, 23-26 July 2005, San Diego, CA.
O’Neill, M., C. Soeffing and R. Woodburn. 2003. K-12 Geospatial Education in South Dakota: Past, Present and Future. Presented at the 2003 ESRI Education Users Conference, 6-9 July 2003, San Diego, CA.
O’Neill, M.E. and H. Copeland. 1999. Prairie to Mountain Explorer: GIS and Remote Sensing Datasets for the Classroom. Presented at the National Association of Research in Science Teaching Annual Meeting, 28-31 March 1999, Boston, MA.
Chang, J., D. Clay, K. Dalsted, S. Clay and M. O’Neill. 2003. Use of Spectral Radiance at Multiple Sampling Dates to Estimate Corn (Zea mays) Yield Using Principal Component Analysis. Agronomy Journal.
Thanapura, P., S.A. Clay, D.E. Clay, C. Cole, K. Dalsted and M. O’Neill. 2000. Integrating Remote Sensing (Aerial Images), Geographic Information System (GIS), and Global Positioning System (GPS) Data: The Case of Mapping Weeds in a Moody County (South Dakota) Field.
O'Neill, M.E., K.J. Dalsted and R. Rykhus. 1995. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Economic Development at the Tribal Planning Level.
DeVries, M.E. and K.J. Dalsted. 1993. Use of GIS to Enhance the Analysis of SLAR Data.
DeVries, M.E. and M.L. Anthony. 1993. Agman - An Agricultural Database Manager. Software documentation prepared with funding from the US Agency for International Development, Project #698-0466.
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Name access points
- O'Neill, Mary (Subject)