Melanie Sutton

Background

About Melanie Sutton

Dr. Sutton collaborates with professionals using geospatial analysis and data visualization on problems critical to population and environmental health, including health outcomes, crime mapping, ethnic/cultural diversity, climate change, ecosurveillance, and biodiversity. One of her community engagement activities was showcased in her “The Summer of the Crab: Engaging Citizen Scientists in Informatics Research” invited presentation to the Rite of Passage Lecture Series at the University of West Florida in 2015. She has planned, marketed, and offered both face-to-face and online computer application/IT training programs since 2005 to business, public health, and healthcare professionals, as well as to high school and college educators. Topics have included data management, data visualization, and geospatial analysis, supported by creative and constructive hands-on activities. Dr. Sutton also teaches undergraduate and graduate online courses at the University of West Florida (UWF) in bioinformatics, health information systems, medical/public health informatics, and computer/GIS applications in public health and healthcare. Her research interests and publications span these areas, as well as computer vision, robotics, digital mammography, and online instruction and assessment. International work includes the privilege of presenting twice at the International Conference and Research Center for Computer Science in Schloss Dagstuhl, Germany as one of 40 researchers of international standing in their respective fields invited to participate in Dagstuhl Seminar 09431: From Form to Function and Dagstuhl Seminar 06231: Towards Affordance-Based Robot Control. An additional invited lecture was also provided to the School of Mathematics, University of Wales, Bangor, United Kingdom, and transmitted through video-link to the Universities of Cardiff, Swansea, and Aberystwyth. Accolades for her accomplishments include: U-Care Award and U-Make A Difference Awards from the UWF Excellence Matters Faculty and Staff Reward and Recognition Program, Appreciation Award from Pensacola chapter of the American Society of Safety Engineers, Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching and Advising Award from UWF, and Outstanding Instructor of the Semester Award from UWF. She additionally received an Honorable Mention Pattern Recognition Society Award for an outstanding journal article published in Pattern Recognition. For a list of her publications, visit Dr. Sutton on ResearchGate: