Mary De La Garza began her professional career serving in the United States Navy, travelling the world as a Public Affairs Officer before studying geology and eventually landing in IT. She was the Systems Administrator at Mercy Housing in Denver, Colorado, before moving to Iowa in 2001 to manage OSA's IT and research technology needs. She is an FAA-licensed drone pilot and is interested in looking at landscapes at and below 400 ft. Mary continually works on building her capacity for flying different types of drones and recently trained on a DJI Matrice 300 RTK. She spearheads OSA's efforts to gather data from archaeological sites using photogrammetry, infrared, and lidar technologies. 

As OSA Research Technology Director, Mary maintains all aspects of technology, manages research data, and works to develop web applications and databases increase data accessibility for Iowa archaeological research. 

Contact Mary regarding the Iowa Site File/I-Sites GIS, web and mobile application development, aerial 3D models,  and drone-based research opportunities.