Matthew Hanson is a geospatial engineering leader with 25+ years of experience translating remote sensing science into reliable software and operational systems. Currently Director of Geospatial Technology at Element 84 and active in remote sensing open-source projects, he brings deep expertise in backend geospatial tooling, imagery processing, LiDAR and multisensor workflows. His career spans building production-grade processing pipelines, decision-support web apps, and real-time satellite ground station algorithms for government and commercial customers. A long-time contributor to projects like landsat-util and GeoNode, he pairs hands-on refactoring and test modernization with product-focused architecture. Based in Dover, NH, he also blends a creative entrepreneurial side—co-owning a pottery studio—illustrating a practical maker’s mindset beyond code.
14 years of coding experience
31 years of employment as a software developer
M.S., Imaging Science, M.S., Imaging Science at Rochester Institute of Technology
A utility to search, download and process Landsat 8 satellite imagery
Role in this project:
Backend Developer
Contributions:13 commits, 2 PRs, 5 pushes in 11 months
Contributions summary:Matthew primarily focused on refactoring and improving the `landsat-util` project. They updated the codebase by modifying how cloud coverage is handled, removing unused imports, and switching the testing framework from nose to pytest. Additionally, they bumped the project version and integrated changes from the master branch into the develop branch, indicating a role in maintaining and updating the project's codebase. These actions suggest a focus on code quality and project maintenance.
GeoNode is an open source platform that facilitates the creation, sharing, and collaborative use of geospatial data.
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Contributions:86 commits, 10 pushes, 1 comment in 3 years 5 months
Contributions summary:Matthew primarily contributed to the back-end functionality of the GeoNode project. Their commits focused on fixing bugs related to shapefile uploads and database interactions, and adding features for deleting layers from GeoNetwork. The user also reorganized the project's URL structure by adding comments and reorganizing sections. This user also added URL names to improve template rendering.
pythondjangosharingfacilitatesgis
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