Last week marked my three year anniversary as Public Lab staff, though I’ve been working with Public Lab since the mapping of the BP disaster. It’s amazing to think how far we’ve come as a community and an organization since our scrappy band of aerial mappers spread across the Gulf Coast in the wake of the oil spill, mapping hundreds of miles of spill with just a few shared kite and balloon kits.

Looking back on 2015 with my usual December nostalgia, I’m so proud of the work we’ve accomplished this year. We wrapped up an great project in partnership with the EPA Urban Waters program and our Gulf Coast community to map wetland restoration projects around New Orleans, marking the end of our first Federal grant partnership - a project that wouldn’t have been possible without Stevie and our Gulf Coast crew. We also celebrated Public Lab’s 5th anniversary by sharing funny, inspiring and heartening memories from the community. And we hosted another round of Barnraisings, this year in Chicago and New Orleans, where we welcomed new partners to the community, met online collaborators in person for the first time, launched The Barnraiser daily news, and ate an unimaginable amount of tacos.

This is all to say THANK YOU to the entire Public Lab community for another great year of collaboration, creative thinking, and camaraderie. What was your favorite Public Lab moment in 2015 and what do you aspire to in 2016?