Mark Becker                                                                                                                          

Mark Becker leads the Geospatial Applications Division at CIESIN, and is an adjunct faculty member at the Mailman School of Public Health. His primary interests are the development of GIS applications for public health programs, and improving urban and regional planning through geospatial technologies. At CIESIN he has partnered with numerous departments and programs at Columbia University to assist in the use of geospatial technologies: with the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health, looking at the effects of air pollution on children’s health; with the Columbia Superfund Basic Research Program, developing GIS training programs in Bangladesh; and working with the Research Translation Core of the program to bring the findings and techniques of the project to a wider audience.

Since 1988, he has been the co-director of Bergen Save the Watershed Action Network (Bergen SWAN), a watershed association for the Upper Hackensack River Watershed. He is currently the vice-chair and trustee for the Meadowlands Conservation Board of Trustees. He holds an M.A. in Geography from Hunter College of the City University of New York.

Publications

Nash, D., B. Elul, M. Rabkin, M. Tun, S. Saito, M. Becker, and H. Nuwagaba-Biribonwoha. 2009. Strategies for more effective monitoring and evaluation systems in HIV programmatic scale-up in resource-limited settings: Implications for health systems strengthening. Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes 52, Supplement 1:S58–S62.

Lederman, S.A. F.P. Perrera, V. Raug, V.D. Tang, T. Hsuan, L. Weiss, L. Hoepner, M. Becker. Forthcoming. A study of the effects on the newborn of maternal exposure during pregnancy to air pollution from the World Trade Center tragedy.

Van Gene, A., H. Ahsan, A. Horseman, R.K. Dhar, Y. Zheng, I. Hussain, K. M. Ahmed, A. Gelman, M. Stute, H. J. Simpson, S. Wallace, C. Small, M. Becker, H. Ashen, M.F. Parvez, V. Slavkovich, N.J. Lolacono, H. Momotaj, A.A. Seddique, M. Shahnewaz, and J. Graziano. 2002. Promotion of well-switching to mitigate the current arsenic crisis in Bangladesh. Bulletin of the World Health Organization 80:732-737.

Rosenzweig, C. and B. Solecki, eds.  Climate change and a global city. New York: The Earth Institute at Columbia University.

Haskin K., and M. Becker. 2000. More ways of the watershed. Claryville, NY: Frost Valley Press.

Goldsmith V., M. Becker, D. Williamson, J. Tobar. 1997. Urban topography: 3D database construction for propagation modeling in an urban environment. GIS World (September):43–54.

Recent Publications