Staff Spotlight: John Dunham and Emily Bunse

This Staff Spotlight features KGS Cartographic Services Manager John Dunham and Senior Cartographic Services Specialist Emily Bunse and their work as part of the KGS team.

By Ally Pruente

In a room adorned with Kansas geological maps, a table covered with past projects fills the space between two offices. In one room, John Dunham updates a digital map file while next door Emily Bunse works on a new interactive map resource. Together Dunham and Bunse make up the Cartographic Services Division at the Kansas Geological Survey.

Through their work, they support KGS research and service initiatives by designing and developing geologic maps and geographic information system (GIS) data products. Their digital data and online and printed maps serve as resources for research, industry, education, and other purposes.

Sample of KGS maps including Miami and Morris county maps.

Bunse began her mapping journey in 2017 as Dunham’s graduate research assistant. After graduating from KU with a master’s degree in geology, Bunse took a position at the Illinois State Geological Survey but stayed in touch with Dunham.

“At Illinois, she worked for one of my best friends,” said Dunham, who has worked at KGS for 27 years. “It was one thing when she took the job there after being a student here, because I didn’t have a position I could offer. If I had a position I could offer, she never would’ve left here — I would’ve made sure of that.”

When an opportunity arose at KGS in 2023 for Bunse to return, she took it.

During her time in Illinois, Bunse learned new tools and techniques she wanted to implement at KGS. One of her first suggestions upon returning to Kansas was to create something like the online handbook of Illinois stratigraphy, which allows up-to-date information on the rock layers found throughout the state to be held in one easily accessible digital location.

“When I started here again, I knew I needed to review and learn more about Kansas stratigraphy,” Bunse said. “I really missed that Illinois stratigraphy resource because that helped me a lot when I went over to Illinois.”

To that end they have started work on Kan. Strat, which will provide updated online information on Kansas stratigraphy and incorporate Bunse’s skills from Illinois and Dunham’s traditional and growing knowledge of mapping. This is just one way the team plans to provide more technology-based Kansas maps and related data to the public.

“We’re not just about these paper geologic maps,” Dunham said. “The data that we create and distribute is every bit as important, if not more important, than the maps themselves.”

Thanks to software advancements and broader data, maps now can contain a new level of information. This gives Bunse and Dunham the opportunity to experiment with maps and craft new visions for how they can be displayed.

“I enjoy figuring out what kind of data we can put into the database and our metadata,” Bunse said. “We’re just really trying to make a comprehensive story of the map that people can use digitally.”

With the advancements in technology available in the mapping world, Bunse and Dunham can create maps that will stand the test of time. From county maps to elevation maps and special projects like an educational map of the Flint Hills, they combine their knowledge, experience and creativity to meet users’ needs.

“One of the strengths of cartography services here is that we get into the mapping and the data and all that, but we’re not just data geeks,” Dunham said. “Both of us come with knowledge of what we’re doing. I’m not a geologist, but I am a physical geographer. Emily’s a geologist. And that knowledge gets us much further than if we just had all of our background in cartography or data analysis.”

Map of Kansas that displays different eras of geologic time.

Explore KGS maps and other data resources online: https://kgs.ku.edu/maps