Zack Dinh < Back

Geographer

Zack Dinh, GISP, FAA Part 107

Geospatial Solutions Engineer | Sustainable Development and Climate Resilience

Zack Dinh outdoors with a drone controller

Education

University of California, Berkeley | MLA Environmental Planning Emphasis

  • Climate resilience through integration of natural systems within urban environments. Portfolio
  • Thesis: Environmental monitoring at scale with satellite imagery and computer vision (deep learning object detection). Presentation
    • Located and estimated the environmental impact of all fish farming activity in Greece (6,600 fish farming cages).

San Francisco State University | BA Urban Studies & Planning, Geography Minor

  • Bicycle Infrastructure: Designed and completed a cross-campus bikeway for the facilities department.
  • Urban Design: Ocean Avenue Resource Guide for SF Economic & Workforce Development. Guide

Experience

Solutions Engineer | Advanced Spade Company | Signal Hill, CA | May 2025–Mar 2026

  • Mapping: Developed GNSS/GPS hardware and Android data collector app to document subsurface utilities; delivered CAD packages with Autodesk Civil 3D; trained field team on end-to-end workflow.

Senior Geospatial Analyst | Cargill (largest private US company) | Remote | Jan 2023–Feb 2025

  • GEOINT for Commodities Trading: Developed automated remote sensing pipelines with AWS resources and machine learning algorithms to conduct country-scale agriculture monitoring for sustainable sourcing (deforestation-free palm oil) and commodities trading.

Founder | Sea Warden | Los Angeles, CA | June 2020–Oct 2022

  • Traceability: Awarded $25k from UC Berkeley and $130k from VC to pilot remote monitoring (satellite time-series with AI/ML, and mobile app) to enhance seafood certification programs established by WWF.

Research Assistant | UC Berkeley | Berkeley, CA | June 2019-December 2019

  • Environmental Monitoring: Completed 20 UAS orthomosaic surveys of 4 wetland habitat sites.

GIS Analyst | Intersect Power (acquired by Google) | San Francisco, CA | May 2018–May 2019

  • Energy: Discovered multiple sites for utility-scale solar projects with ArcGIS Pro suitability analysis.
  • GIS Coordinator: Led GIS data procurement and data management.

UAS Test Engineering Intern | 3D Robotics (acquired by Esri) | Berkeley, CA | Sep 2017–Apr 2018

  • UAS: Identified opportunities to increase accuracy of Site Scan drone mapping platform.
  • Conducted field tests comparing RTK survey data with UAV photogrammetry data.

Urban Planner/GIS Analyst | Community Design + Architecture | Oakland, CA | June 2015–May 2017

  • Urban Planning: Identified capacity for 170k homes on public lands near SF Bay transit hubs with ArcGIS.
  • Urban Design: Prepared existing conditions GIS data for transit oriented development projects.

Additional Experience

Founder/Geospatial Consultant | Superbloom Geographics | Apr 2026–present

  • Geospatial support for site analysis and environmental monitoring.

Instructor | UC Berkeley

  • InLand: invited to teach landscape architecture summer course (Jun - Aug 2025).
  • Geography Department: Graduate student instructor; 60 students in 3 sections (Jan - May 2020).

Field Data Collection

  • Land Surveyor | Denn Engineers: Total Station, AutoCAD, Construction surveying (Mar - May 2025).
  • Hivemapper (2019), Near Space Labs (2022).

Urban Planning

  • SF Municipal Trasnportation Agency: Urban Planning Initatives Group (2014-2015).
  • SPUR: Transportation Policy Intern (2014).

Prototyping

  • 3D printing, SketchUp, Arduino, Teensy microcontroller, Sparkfun, u-blox hardware.

PUBLICATIONS

A Review of Unoccupied Aerial Vehicle Use in Wetland Applications
Drones, MDPI | May 25, 2021

Sea Warden:
A Remote Sensing-enabled Decision Support System for the Sustainable Management of Marine Aquaculture in the Greek Sea Space
University of California, Berkeley | May 1, 2020

Geomorphic and Hydraulic Controls on Coho Salmon Outmigration in the Russian River Watershed, California
University of California, Berkeley | Nov 23, 2019

Viable Public Lands For Workforce Housing
Metropolitan Transportation Commission | Aug 7, 2018

Freedom to Move:
How the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority can create better transportation choices in the South Bay
SPUR | Jul 14, 2014

PORTFOLIO