I am a computer geek who goes out and pokes sticks in the dirt. I have close to 20 years' experience in GIS-related research and software development in academia and industry. My formal training is in GIS and geospatial technology, computer science, watershed and wetland hydrology, and environmental modelling. My informal training is in sensor networks, the tech business, how you're really supposed to develop software, and keeping one's sanity while raising kids. My main research lies in the integration of data acquisition technologies, GIS, artificial intelligence, and environmental models into innovative tools that maximize information effectiveness in environmental decisions. Current projects include development of adaptive telemetry systems, real-time sampling adjustment in sensor networks, and automated reasoning on sensor data for hazard identification. I am usually a Program Committee member for the GeoComputation and GIScience conference series, and I only occasionaly unleash bad jokes, depending whom you ask.

My background is in GIS, spatial simulation modelling, software design & development, and watershed & wetland hydrology. I have particular fondness for terrain analysis and terrain-driven simulation modelling.

My main 'geocomputation' R&D interests lie in developing spatial data acquisition and spatially explicit modelling tools, integrated with GIS. However, I focus very much on the notion of GIS as a platform for problem representation, reasoning, and decision-making: information-centric spatial decision support rather than data-centric geomatics. I take a 'big picture' or integrationist view of the spatial data stream, from sensor through to analysis or decision-making application. This extends right into the development of our spatial data acquisition tools and distributed sensor network platforms. In my view, definition and management of the 'sensor web' that measures the world should be just as integrated into the decision-making tools as definition and management of the analyses that use the measurements to understand the world.

I am very interested in sampling strategies that adapt to the spatial and temporal patterns discovered as the data are collected, and integrating automated reasoning approaches (e.g. expert systems and other rule-based programming) directly into the entire data stream, from sensor through to application. In this way, the whole data collection flow can adapt to the dynamics of the system, in a way that makes sense for that particular system and for the particular problem-solving or decision-making objectives.

My main 'field' R&D interests lie in identifying very fine spatial and temporal scale patterns in hydrologic systems (e.g. changes over square meters over the course of a rainfall) and linking how that heterogeneity affects our knowledge and modelling at the watershed or regional scales. In particular, my group has explored surface soil moisture dynamics in 'nano-catchments' during rainfall events. We also do some field testing of radio modem performance when transmitting environmental data from mobile data collection systems. We identify and model interactions with terrain, built features, etc. so we can realistically model mobile data communication in simulation models. Field science is not my lab's primary strength. I very much enjoy doing it, but we don't do a lot of it. My group is most effective in a collaborative role with 'real' field scientists.

I hope this gives you a sense of what I'm about. If we have common and complementary interests, I would love to hear from you.

61-574: Advanced Topics in Geoinformatics Offered Fall 2009, jointly with 67-410 (contact me for information) [Calendar Description]

Undergraduate Teaching

	67-310: GIS Problem Solving and Spatial Modeling Offered Fall 2009 (contact me for information) [Calendar Description]
	67-410: Advanced Methods in GIS Analysis Offered Fall 2009, jointly with 61-574 (contact me for information) [Calendar Description]