Speakers Profiles
Andy Allan
Andy is the Technical Lead at CloudMade, a company providing commercial services based on OpenStreetMap data. Also a long-time OSM contributor, Andy has mapped swathes of South-West London by bike and has more recently been developing the cycle map and other cycle related OSM products. After graduating with an MSci in Chemistry from Imperial College, Andy has developed a career in IT including ICT Support management at Imperial College and joined CloudMade in April 2008.
John Bartholomew
John graduated with M.A. from Aberdeen University in 1977 and went on to study cartography at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology under Ernst Spiess. After short assignments in different cartographic companies (John Bartholomew and Son Ltd.; Kümmerly+Frey and Orell Füssli), he graduated with M.B.A. at Edinburgh University. While working for 16 years with Reader's Digest in an international marketing role, John moved from Zurich to New York. From there he worked on different North American and European assignments. He returned to the UK in 2004 and to his roots in map-making with GeoWise Limited where he is now responsible for the rapid expansion of InstantAtlas into all international markets.
Tom Burslem
CycleCity Guides is a specialist producer of cycling maps and guides. Founded in 1996, with the production of the Bristol cycling map, we have now produced maps for areas all over the UK. The on-ground surveying has always been a very important aspect of our work, and before the journey planner project we completed audits in Greater London, Tyne & Wear, Devon, Somerset and Staffordshire. Clients include local authorities, cycling campaign groups, and the sustainable transport charity, Sustrans.
Tom Burslem joined the company in 2004 having completed the postgraduate diploma in Cartography at Oxford Brookes University. He is a keen cyclist.
Chris Croly:
Currently Assistant Keeper (Research) with Aberdeen City Council's Archaeological Unit with a remit for historical research, curating Aberdeen's Tolbooth Museum and managing the City's commemorative plaques.
Andrew Currie
My introduction to the world of maps and the art and efficiency of cartographic expression began at school in the 1950s thanks to an inspired geography teacher. My cartographic education continued with a M.A.Hons. (Edin.) Geography with cartography /surveying, followed by a post-graduate Dip.Cart. (Glas.) where my chosen vocation was further enthused by John Keates. My 40 years-plus working life has been largely devoted to commercial cartographic publishing (small scale mapping) of a wide range of products in educational, reference, motoring and recreational fields. I have held editorial, production and publishing positions with Philips, Collins-Longman, Bartholomew and Harper-Collins, as well as association with Librairie du Liban before and after I went freelance in 1992, setting up my own cartographic publishing consultancy:Creative Viewpoint - 'Where ideas map out".
Alastair Dawson
Alastair graduated with a BSc Hons Geography from the University of Aberdeen (1974). He was a Rotary Scholar at Louisiana State University (1974-76) where he obtained an MSc Geography. Thereafter he completed a PhD at the University of Edinburgh (1976-80). After a period of employment at the University of London, he was appointed Lecturer in Geography at Coventry University in 1980 and was appointed Professor in Quaternary Science in 1998. His principal research interests include Quaternary coastal changes, tsunamis as well as Scotland's weather and climate history.
Sue Dawson
Sue is a graduate of Coventry University. Her research expertise lies in the areas of Holocene sea-level change, coastal and climate change, tsunami sedimentation and diatom biostratigraphy. Sue has published over 20 papers in scientific journals and conference proceedings. Her present research activities include projects on Holocene relative sea level changes in the Maldive archipelago,
Danny Dorling
Danny Dorling works with the Social and Spatial Inequalities Group (SASI) in the Department of Geography, University of Sheffield. (See http://www.shef.ac.uk/sasi).
With Mark Newman and Anna Barford he is author of the 'Real World Atlas' being published in September 2008 by Thames and Hudson, and with Mary Shaw, Bethan Thomas and George Davey Smith, of 'The Grim Reaper's Roadmap' being published in October 2008 by Policy Press. This talk is based on an article to appear in "Significance Magazine" in September 2008 titled: "Looking from outside the Goldfish bowl"
Mark Douglas
A senior geologist with Schlumberger Information Solutions and specialises in 3D modelling, Geology and Seismic, having graduated from Aberdeen University in 1994. He has held positions working for Exxon Mobil and Shell. All my relatives were Geographers, of sorts, so I was brought up surrounded by maps with aunties and uncles who were geography teachers and a father who was a minister. My interest in mapping has been imbedded for a long time and, although I can work some of the most complex software available, I have not resorted to sat nav preferring to stick with a good OS map, getting lost now an again makes life more fun.
Stuart Gill
I graduated with a BSc (Hons) Mapping Science from the University of Luton in 1998 and started working for Racal Survey (became Thales Geosolutions), in September of the same year. I left Thales at the end of 2001 and started working in my current position of Cartographer at Coventry University. In 2004 I was offered an opportunity to teach Illustrator within the University's School of Lifelong Learning, where I have run 9 iterations of the course. I have organised and run two successful Society of Cartographers 'Freehand to Illustrator' workshops. I have supported the last three Summer Schools with short two hour Illustrator workshops.
Cristina Gomez
MSc Forest Engineering in Madrid (Spain); MSc Applied Geospatial Technologies in Aberdeen (UK). Currently working with optical medium and high spatial resolution satellite data in the determination of forest structural parameters for the assessment of biomass and carbon pools in the Central Mountain Range of Spain. As part of the Aberdeen Institute for Coastal Science and Management she works with coastal photogrammetry and laser data, collected from the ground (terrestrial laser scanner) and from aircraft (lidar) to generate DTMs for the assessment of geomorphological changes in beach and dune environments.
Paul Hardy
Paul graduated in 1975 with a M.A. in Computer Science from Cambridge University. He worked for 28 years at Laser-Scan Ltd as Chief Programmer, then Product Manager, and then Principal Consultant. After the collapse of Laser-Scan in 2003, he became Product Manager for Cartography at ESRI in Redlands California and managed the engineering of key cartographic software developments into ArcGIS. Since 2007 he has been back in England, and now is an ESRI Europe consultant focused on European National Mapping Agencies. His professional interests include automated cartography, map generalization, geospatial data models and data re-engineering techniques. (See http://www.pghardy.net/paul/)
David Hume
David is Senior Cartographer and head of the Design & Imaging Unit at the Department of Geography, Durham University, and has worked in Cartography at Durham since 1977. In that time David has overseen the evolution of the job from the days of Rotring pens and Permatrace to today's digital production techniques. He has been using Freehand since the arrival of the first Apple Mac in the unit in 1991 running Aldus Freehand version 3, and has used all versions of Freehand since (with the exception of the rather dodgy version 4!). The lack of development in Freehand since Macromedia's takeover by Adobe has seen a reluctant migration to Illustrator CS3, but he is slowly becoming a convert! Has been using Avenza's MapPublisher in conjunction with Freehand since 2000 beginning with MapPublisher version 3.5 and is currently endeavoring to get to grips with version 7.6 for Illustrator.
Alex Kent
After degrees at Oxford Brookes University and Queens' College, Cambridge, Alex lectured in GIS, Remote Sensing, and Cartography while acting as an independent consultant on a variety of geospatial projects. A fascination with topographic maps led to his PhD thesis An Analysis of the Cartographic Language of European State Topographic Maps, which won the National Geographic Society's New Mapmaker Award for 2007. Alex became Assistant Editor of The Cartographic Journal in 2006, Editor of the Bulletin of the Society of Cartographers in 2007, and in June this year, was appointed Head of the Cartographic Unit at Southampton University
Aaron Lawton
Aaron has a wide ranging design background and draws on 20 years' experience in the fields of heritage management, tourism development, outdoor access, environmental arts, visitor experience and communications, including heritage interpretation and visitor information. Aaron's company Aaron Lawton Associates carries out work ranging from site assessment, visioning, feasibility and master-planning to research, concept development, content creation, design and creative project management. Whilst not a cartographer himself, Aaron has managed a number of large-scale mapping projects, including production of five panoramas for Cairngorms National Park and establishing mapping standards on Scotland's 55 National Nature Reserves. Aaron is currently involved in a project to identify a set of definitive criteria for choosing and using maps in outdoor recreation.
Max Oulton
Max Oulton joined the NZ Government operated Department of Lands and Surveys in 1968. After some basic cartographic training and a 10 year stint drawing 1:50000 Cadastral and Topographical maps by hand, he started work at The University of Waikato as sole cartographer, field technician, computer IT support and general fix-it man for the Geography Dept. He now runs a small unit of 2 staff that generates a large variety of cartographic products including Tribunal Mapping, Estuarine and coastal mapping for NIWA (Nat. Inst of Water & Atmospheric Res.), Hazard mapping for IGCI (International Global Change Inst.), distinctive Campus maps for local Hospital Boards, specialised geological mapping and a plethora of illustrative, publicity and general cartographic and graphic work. His eldest son lives in Glasgow, the youngest in Perth, WA, and a daughter in Cambridge, NZ.
David Palmer
Dr David Palmer spent 10 years in the Royal Navy before proceeding to Glasgow University where he studied physics. On attaining his Masters in Science David proceeded to embark on a collaborative Ph.D within the Gravitational Waves and Centre for Systems and Controls research groups at Glasgow University. His Ph.D research was in the modelling and control of vibration isolation systems for ground based gravitational wave detectors. Following his Ph.D research, before embarking on his current career path of acoustician, he spent a period of time within the Centre for Science Education furthering his interest in science pedagogy. David is currently employed as Technical Director of Noise Mapping within the Environmental section of Faber Maunsell. He has a attained a great deal of noise mapping experience through the noise modelling of such transport links as the proposed AWPR (Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route), the M8 upgrade, Associated Network Improvements and others. His expertise in the field of noise mapping has been further enhanced through the production of the Noise Maps for Scotland, a requirement of the European Noise Directive, and the subject of today's talk.
Ed Parsons
Ed Parsons is the Geospatial Technologist of Google, with responsibility for evangelising Google's mission to organise the world's information using geography, and tools including Google Earth, Google Maps and Google Maps for Mobile. He was the first Chief Technology Officer in the 200-year-old history of Ordnance Survey, and was instrumental in moving the focus of the organisation from mapping to Geographical Information. He came to the Ordnance Survey from Autodesk, where he was EMEA Applications Manager for the GIS Division. During his tenure, he helped Autodesk to become one of the key providers of GIS software. Earlier in his career he was a Senior Lecturer at Kingston University, where he helped establish Europe's first undergraduate course in GIS. He earned a Master degree in Applied Remote Sensing from Cranfield Institute of Technology and is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, London. He is the author of numerous articles, professional papers and presentations to International Conferences, and has developed one of most popular Weblogs in the Geospatial Industry, www.edparsons.com.
Tom Patterson:
Tom grew up in the Adirondack Mountains of northern New York. Seeking warmer climes, he received an M.A. in geography from the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 1982. Next, Tom taught classes and worked for five years as Cartography Laboratory Manager at the University of Utah. He now works as a cartographer for the U.S. National Park Service, Harpers Ferry Center designing maps for publications movies, multimedia, and indoor and outdoor exhibits. Shaded relief is his major interest in cartography. Tom is a former president of the North American Cartographic Information Society (NACIS) and is active in the ICA Commission on Mountain Cartography. He lives in the Washington, D.C. exurbs of northern Virginia.
Bob Reid
Bob Reid is presently the Convenor of the National Access Forum advising the Scottish Government on the implementation of the new arrangements for access to the countryside in Scotland. Bob Reid is a Planning Consultant by profession. He was formerly Director of Planning for Aberdeen. He is a Winston Churchill Fellow. He was President of the Mountaineering Council for Scotland and is still an active member of the Scottish Mountaineering Club. He has authored many articles about mountaineering, access and planning in Scotland.
David Schobesberger
David studied Cartography and Geoinformation Science at the Department of Geography and Regional Research, University of Vienna. Since 2004, he has worked as a cartographer and web programmer at the same department. He is currently working on a PhD and is conducting geographic and cartographic research for the cartographic "Cultural History Information System for the Western Himalaya" project. His main interests are topographic cartography, 3D mapping and web mapping.
Mike Shand
Mike has been a practicing cartographer since 1969, his first cartographic job was with the Ordnance Survey, since 1972 he has been involved in mapping, GIS research and teaching at the University of Glasgow from where he graduated in 1997. He has been Secretary of the Society of Cartographers since 1987, is a Fellow of the British Cartographic Society and has twice won the SOC Wallis Award for 'excellence in cartography'. He has conducted overseas mapping, training workshops and consultancy projects in Tanzania, India, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria over a 20 year period. Mike's expertise is in map design, layout and production using Adobe Illustrator, ArcGIS and MapInfo.
Recent published maps include: Brúarjökull Glacier, Iceland – 2007, Geology of the Western Galway Granite, Ireland – in press 2007, Geology of the Central Galway Granite, Ireland – 2006, SPAR Atlas, Riyadh Region, Saudi Arabia – 2006, þorisjökull Glacier, Iceland – 2006, Visitor's Map of the Selous Game Reserve, Tanzania – 2004. Mike's passions in life include cartography, Tanzania, Findhorn and golf.
Nick Tasker
Nick describes himself as an 'imagineer' and has enjoyed a wide variety of roles within the hydrographic sector, including practical marine cartography, new product development and a range of technical marketing posts. He has been instrumental in the development of a range of digital nautical publications including the award winning Admiralty TotalTide tidal prediction software. He has also taught graphic and visual communication prior to re-specialising in Communications and has recently taking up a new role as Commercial Communications Manager for the UKHO. He is interested in all water sports and is a keen sailor and sea kayaker. Nick is a member of the Government Communications Institute and immediate past Chairman of the Society of Cartographers.
Roger Wheate
Roger got his B.Sc in Geography at St. Andrews (a few years before Prince William). He move to Canada and completed a MA in cartography, returning to St.Andrews in 1996 to write up his Ph.D in remote sensing. As the only full-time professor in geomatics at the University of Northern British Columbia (opened in 1994), his work involves the integration of cartography, GIS and remote sensing in mapping mountain landscapes, especially recreation, alpine vegetation and glaciers. Since 2006, he has been mostly occupied by a 5 year project to map the glaciers of western Canada.
Iain Wright
Iain Wright is a research postgraduate at Aberdeen University. After graduating with a Geography degree from Dundee University in 1973, he worked in IT for Ford, the NHS, Burmah Oil and latterly Zurich Financial Services. During that time he gained substantial experience in designing and delivering user friendly systems, and usability testing. The lure of early retirement provided him with the opportunity to rekindle his long held interest in cartography. He is currently a governor of Dundee University, where he is also a member of the Finance and Policy committee. He is married with two grown up daughters and lives in Aboyne, Aberdeenshire.