Seminars in Geospatial Science

The Geospatial Science seminar series provides a weekly term time forum for current research and ideas, as well as speakers from prospective employers. The programme comprises a mixture of invited international and UK speakers, and researchers at the postgraduate and postdoctoral levels in UCL. The intended audience is our own M.Sc. Geographic Information Science and M.Sc. Geospatial Analysis students (who may find the sessions useful in formulating research questions and dissertation proposals of their own), Ph.D. researchers, and staff involved in our various research programmes and grants.

Seminars will take place at 4.30pm on Tuesdays, usually in Room G07 in the Pearson Building or in the Pearson Lecture Theatre if the audience is too large. A list of previous seminars in the series can be found here and if available, the slides here. Seminars will be chaired by Tao Cheng, Claire Ellul, Muki Haklay or Paul Longley.

Programme

15 January 2013. Mapping in Disaster Response Situations.
Chris Phillips, Map Action (Chair: Claire)
Abstract
The talk will introduce MapAction (who they are, what they do and why they do it) and will cover the role of mapping and how great /critical/all important maps are in disaster response situations. Chris will use his real-world experience of disaster situations, in particular Haiti, as case studies throughout the talk, and will also discuss what’s happening in the wider arena of humanitarian mapping.

 

22 January 2013. GIS at Arup
Damien McCloud, Arup (Chair: Claire)
Abstract
Damien will be talking about the use of GIS at Arup, which is a multi-national firm of designers, engineers, planners, consultants and technical specialists (responsible for, amongst many other things, the roof of Kings Cross Station). You can find some introductory information about their use of GIS here.

 

29 January 2013. Open Source and Astun Technology
Jo Cook, Astun Technologies (Chair: Claire)
Abstract
Jo will give a brief summary of what open source is, and what it's not, and talk about what they do at Astun Technology. She will discuss the technologies that she thinks are key in open source at the moment, then will talk about some ways forward for people interested in taking things further.
Jo has previously worked as an archaeologist with Oxford Archaeology, and started working with Open Source technologies as a way to overcome financial constraints on buying software. She became involved in the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) in 2006, and has been heavily involved ever since, founding the UK chapter, and having a stint on the Board of Directors. She made the decision to concentrate full time on open source GIS about 2.5 years ago, and now works for Astun Technology, where they have a suite of mapping products all built on the open source stack

 

5 February 2013.
Ralph Diment and Richard Goodman, Intergraph Corporation (Chair: Claire)
Abstract
Coming soon

 

12 February 2013.
Reading Week - No Seminar

 

19 February 2013.
Mike Worboys (Chair: Paul)
Abstract
Coming soon

 

26 February 2013.
TBC (Chair: Claire)
Abstract
Coming soon

 

5 March 2013.
Environmental SIG from the AGI (Chair: Claire)
Abstract
Coming soon

 

12 March 2013.
Crossrail (Chair: Claire)
Abstract
Coming soon

 

19 March 2013.
Group Project Week - No Seminar