Keynote Speakers

Professor William Cartwright

William Cartwright is President of the International Cartographic Association.  He is Professor of Cartography and Geographical Visualization in the School of Mathematical and Geospatial Sciences at RMIT University, Australia. He holds a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Melbourne and a Doctor of Education from RMIT University.  He has six other university qualifications - in the fields of cartography, applied science, education, media studies, information and communication technology and graphic design. He joined the University after spending a number of years in both the government and private sectors of the mapping industry. His major research interest is the application of integrated media to cartography and the exploration of different metaphorical approaches to the depiction of geographical information.

top

David DiBiase

David DiBiase directs the John A. Dutton e-Education Institute within the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences at the Pennsylvania State University. His team of learning design specialists consults with faculty members in the College’s five academic departments to design, develop and deliver online certificate and degree programs serving adult professionals across the U.S. As a faculty member in Penn State’s Department of Geography, David manages and teaches in its online Master of Geographic Information Systems degree program. David’s research interests include e-learning practice, strategy and policy as well as GIS ethics. He has earned awards for educational innovation from Penn State, the Association of American Geographers, Environmental Systems Research Institute, and the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science.

top

Matt Duckham

Matt Duckham is a Senior Lecturer in GIScience at the Department of Geomatics, University of Melbourne, Australia. His research is in the area of distributed computation with uncertain spatial and spatiotemporal information. In recent years, his main research focus has been on decentralized spatial computing in geosensor networks, for example monitoring spatial events using only in-network processing with no centralized control. He has also published extensively in the related topics of location-based services and location privacy; spatial information fusion; vagueness, uncertainty, and granularity in spatial information; spatial data quality; and computational geometry. Matt has published three books, including co-authoring the second edition of the major GIScience text book "GIS: A computing Perspective". In 2007 he co-chaired the international Conference on Spatial Information Theory (COSIT'07) in Melbourne and two other international workshops (DG/SUM'07 in Melbourne on distributed and mobile spatial computing, and PALMS'07 in Mannheim, Germany on privacy in location-based services).

top

Professor Mark Gahegan

Mark Gahegan is Professor of GIScience within the School of Geography, Geology and Environmental Science, at the University of Auckland. His academic degrees are in Information Systems (from the University of Leeds, UK), and in the crossover area between Computer Science and Geography—Geographical Information Science (from Curtin University, School of Computing Science, Perth, Australia). His research interests are in: geographical information science, representing meaning in the earth sciences, geovisualization, remote sensing, geocomputation, spatial data structures and algorithms, open systems for disaster relief, e-science and e-education. He recently relocated to New Zealand, following nine years as Associate Director of the GeoVISTA Center for visualization and spatial analysis research at Penn State. He also just finished a stint as the Americas editor for the International Journal of Geographical Information Science, and is currently on the editorial board of 7 other academic journals. He is an active participant in several e-science and e-education initiatives, including the Geosciences Network (GEON), and helps to direct e-research activities at the University of Auckland.

top

Professor Lorenz Hurni

Lorenz Hurni has been Associate Professor of Cartography and director of the Institute of Cartography at the ETH Zurich since November 1996 (Full Professor since October 2003). He is managing editor-in-chief of the Atlas of Switzerland, the Swiss national atlas. He studied geodesy at ETH Zurich and as an assistant at the Institute of Cartography, he implemented a digital cartographic information system for teaching and research purposes. In connection with his doctoral thesis, he developed methods allowing the entirely digital production of topographic and geologic maps and derived 3D visualisations. He developed the first programme for automated generation of cartographic cliff drawing. In 1994 he took up a position at the Federal Office of Topography (swisstopo) in Wabern. As a project leader for computer-assisted cartography, he worked mainly on the implementation of an interactive graphics system for the digital processing of national maps. All topographic maps of swisstopo are currently produced using that system. The emphasis of Hurni's research lies in cartographic data models and tools for the production of printed and multimedia maps. Another focus of research covers interactive, multidimensional multimedia map representations. Under his lead, the prize-winning multimedia Atlas of Switzerland, as well as the new interactive version of the Swiss World Atlas, the official Swiss school atlas, are being developed. Lorenz Hurni is a member of numerous national and international scientific and professional commissions and of the Leopoldina - German Academy of Sciences. He is also a co-chair of the ICA Commission on Mountain Cartography.

top