My focus is on technologically appropriate treatment of historical resources in order to visualize, analyze and understand the past.
I have a BS in computer science and a post-baccalaureate certificate in GIS, both from Penn State. I’ve been researching, writing, and speaking about DC history since 1997. I researched and wrote the Columbia Heights Heritage Trail and the chapter on Columbia Heights in the second edition of Washington At Home (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010).
I created the DC Historical Building Permits Database and the initial draft of HistoryQuestDC. Here is a video of my 2016 presentation to the GIS symposium at George Washington’s Mount Vernon. In it I discuss in some detail my use of GIS for historically surveying the buildings of Washington DC. I continue to research the city’s buildings for the DC Historic Preservation Office, through an agreement with the Historical Society of Washington DC, and to update HistoryQuestDC to reflect new development across the city.
I conceived and co-founded PrologueDC’s Mapping Segregation project and made many static maps, as well as the original versions of the two story maps found on that project page.
My new project is Mapping Early Washington, focusing on the founding of the City of Washington and its existence and growth in the 1800s.
Brian Kraft 