James Cheshire

My research interests centre around how innovative datasets can be applied to human geography and I also have a passion for map-making and data visualization. I am the co-author of the critically acclaimed books London: The Information Capital, Where the Animals Go and Atlas of the Invisible. My work has been recognised by awards from the Royal Geographical Society, The American Association of Geographers, The North American Cartographic Information Society and the British Cartographic Society. In 2023 I was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society.

More about Professor Cheshire

I completed a BSc (1st Class Hons.) in Physical Geography at the University of Southampton before undertaking a PhD in GIScience at the UCL Department of Geography. My PhD topic was the spatial analysis and visualisation of large surname databases.

After completing my PhD, I was first appointed Lecturer in Advanced Spatial Analysis and Visualisation at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) before moving to the UCL Department of Geography where I became Associate Professor of Quantitative Human Geography before promotion to full professor in 2019. I am currently the founding director of the UCL Social Data Institute, which seeks to amplify UCL’s advanced research and teaching in Social Data and Methods.

Teaching

I am the convenor on the following modules: 

• Data Analysis (POLS0010)
• Cartography and Data Visualisation (GEOG0162)

Publications

To view Professor Cheshire's publications, please visit UCL Profiles:

Publications

Research Interests

My research interests span quantitative geography with a strong focus on the development, visualisation and application of quantitative methods for large and complex population datasets. The strategic importance of this work has been recognised by the significant funding it has attracted to date, demonstrating my significant leadership in innovating data analysis and visualisation for the social sciences.

In 2017 my sustained disciplinary contribution was recognised by the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) when I was awarded the Cuthbert Peek Award “for advancing geographical knowledge through the use of mappable Big Data”.

Research Impact

My work has had a major impact beyond UCL. It has been featured in national and international media features including interviews on NPR, the Today Programme and World at One (Radio 4) and full-page features in the Guardian, Washington Post and Sunday Times.

It is from this experience that I have been able to engage in a sustained two-way dialogue with a number of media outlets in order that they can improve their coverage of geographic datasets. I am also on the media expert list for the Royal Geographical Society and have been keen to advocate more constructive media engagement with colleagues and embed it into their practice.

In addition, I have led a growing number of consultancy projects for organisations such as the Football Association, British Academy and England Cricket Board. This work has involved the use of innovative mapping and visualisation platforms developed as part of my ongoing UCL research.

They have been featured in several case studies by UCL Consultants who are keen to grow this area of work on account of their success. My work mapping deprivation for the Scottish Government contributed to winning the Royal Statistical Society’s Statistical Excellence Award in Official Statistics 2017.

In addition, I have been called upon to provide advice to international governments and statistical agencies including Taiwan, Japan and Brazil. This work has been foundational to leveraging further benefits to UCL in the form of several high-profile co-funded PhDs with major organisations such as ARUP, Walgreens Boots Alliance and Kantar World Panel.

Finally, my research outputs now form a major part of the revised secondary school curriculum for geography. A number of the interactive websites I have led the development on now appear in National Curriculum guidance, revision guides and exams for both GCSE and A-Level.

Research Students

Current PhD Students

*denotes Primary Supervisor, ** denotes Secondary Supervisor

 

• *Rob Davidson. Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council with the Health Foundation. (2022-)
• *Hamish Gibbs. Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. (2021-)
• *Louise Sieg. Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council with Huq Industries. (2020-)
• ** Nikki Tanu. Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council with BT. (2020-)
• **Jakub Wyszomierski Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council with Office for National Statistics. (2019-)
• *Jason Tang. Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council with Kantar WorldPanel. (2019-)

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Completed PhD Students

• *Abigail Hill. Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council with Local Data Company. (2019-2022)
• *James Todd. Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council with ARUP. (2018-2022).
• *Terje Trasberg. Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council with Local Data Company. (2017-2022).
• **Nilufer Sari Aslam. Funded by Economic and Social Research Council. (2015-2022).
• **Karlo Lugomer. Funded by Economic and Social Research Council. (2016 -2019). 
• **Timothy Rains (part time). Funded by Economic and Social Research Council. (2015-2019). 
• *Balamurugan Soundararaj. Funded by Economic and Social Research Council. (2016-2019).
• *Alyson Lloyd. Funded by Economic and Social Research Council. (2015-2018). 
• **Guy Lansley. Part time staff funding. (2014-18). 
• **Alistair Leak. Funded by Defence Science and Technology Laboratory. (2013- 2017).
• *Faisal Umar. Funded by Nigerian Government. (2012- 2016). 
• **Christopher Gale. Funded by Economic and Social Research Council and Office for National Statistics. (2010-2014). 
• **Hrishi Ballal. Funded by the European Research Council Mechanicity Project. (2013-2015). 

Research Grants, Prizes and Awards

Major Centre Grants (£23 million total)

Awarded as part of Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the ESRC “Big Data Network”, these mark significant strategic investments around which many other initiatives are based.

• ESRC Consumer Data Research Centre. £11.5 million (February 2014 to April 2024). Co-I, 30% FTE. As Deputy Director of the Centre, I have significant line management responsibilities for 3 postdoctoral researchers, in addition to oversight of key aspects of the secure data infrastructure on which the project depends.
• ESRC Administrative Data Research Centre. £11.5 million. (October 2013 – September 2018) Co-I, 5% FTE, 5 years (project leads are P Smith, D Martin and R Gilbert). This was a major investment led by the University of Southampton with collaborators at UCL, the Office for National Statistics and the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

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Other Grants – Principal Investigator (£655k total)

• Knowledge Exchange Funding: Camden Council. £15k (July – September 2022). Creation of a report on the use of data for Camden Council’s Future High Street’s Programme.
• Q-Step Transition Funding. £120,000 (October 2018-October 2020). Nuffield Foundation funding to continue the successful UCL Q-Step Centre.
• Development frontiers in crime, livelihoods and urban poverty in Nigeria (FCLP). £261,819 (January 2018-December 2019). 20% FTE 1 year. ESRC/ DfID Development Frontiers Award. Response to a call to “fund innovative, strategic and catalytic research with the potential to radically impact on sustainable development concepts or practices, or lead to new thinking and action on poverty reduction”.
• Big, Open Data: Mining and Synthesis. £243,145 (October 2013 – March 2016). 50% FTE 2.5 years. ESRC Future Research Leaders Award. A hugely competitive call to “enable outstanding early-career social scientists…to acquire the skills set to become the future world leaders in their field.”
• Adaptive Networks for Complex Transport Systems. £15,000 (January 2012 - March 2012). EPSRC Additional Sponsorship. (Co-I F Medda). 

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Other Grants – Co-Investigator (£152k total)

• New visualization methods for profiling datasets and analysis pipelines. £10,500 (January 2019 – July 2019). Alan Turing Institute (PI R Ruddle, Co-Is J Cheshire, S Fernstad)
• The analysis of names from the 2011 Census of Population. £136,504 (March 2015 - February 2016). 5% FTE 11 months. ESRC Secondary Data Initiative. (PI P Longley and Co-Is J Cheshire, A Singleton).
• Cities for Human Locomotion. £6000 (July 2013 - September 2013). UCL Grand Challenges. (PI S Marshall with Co-Is N Tyler, J Cheshire, C Holloway). 
• 2022 Royal Scottish Geographical Society Bartholomew Globe Award (and honorary fellowship). In recognition of the pioneering approach to cartographic representations of large and complex datasets and communicating to a broad audience to highlight the importance of GIS and related skills to geographers today. For the book Atlas of the Invisible.
• 2022 Wenjin Book Award. Sponsored by the National Library of China is the biggest non-governmental publication award in China. For the book Atlas of the Invisible.
• The AAG Globe Book Award for Public Understanding of Geography (2021). This award is given for a book written or co-authored by a geographer that conveys most powerfully the nature and importance of geography to the non-academic world. For the book Atlas of the Invisible.
• The British Cartographic Society Award. (2021): One of the most prestigious awards for recognising cartographic excellence. Entrants are drawn from leading publishers, world mapping agencies and academics. The award recognised the pioneering mapping and visualisation contained in the book Atlas of the Invisible
• The Stanford’s Award for Printed Mapping. For the book Atlas of the Invisible. (2021)
• The J C Bartholomew Award for Thematic Mapping. For the book Atlas of the Invisible. (2021)
• International Cartographic Association 3rd Place (Atlases). For the book Atlas of the Invisible. (2021)
• Society of Cartographers' Wallis Award (2019).
• North American Cartographic Information Society’s Corlis Benefideo Award (2018) recognises “a body of work and the perspective it brings to the field of cartography, and the contributions it makes to the world as a whole.”
• Awarded the Royal Geographical Society’s Cuthbert Peek Award (2017) “for advancing geographical knowledge through the use of mappable Big Data”.
• The British Cartographic Society Award (2017), The award recognised the pioneering mapping and visualisation contained in the book Where the Animals Go.
• The J C Bartholomew Award for Thematic Mapping. For the book Where the Animals Go. (2017)
• Winner of the London Book Fair Innovation in Travel Publishing Prize. (2017): A major prize recognising “the world’s best travel writing”. For the book Where the Animals Go.
• The British Cartographic Society Award. (2015). The award recognised the pioneering mapping and visualisation contained in the book London: The Information Capital. It is the first publication to secure multiple honours from the British Cartographic Society
• The Stanford’s Award for Printed Mapping. For the book London: The Information Capital.  (2015)
• The J C Bartholomew Award for Thematic Mapping. For the book London: The Information Capital. (2015)
• Nominated for the Elsevier Atlas Award for Impact.