USC CS Colloquium Lecture Series

John P. WilsonProfessor of GeographyUSCTitle: "Fusing Computer Science and Geography: Research Advances and Opportunities in Geographic Information Science"Abstract:This talk will start from a typical geographic research project – the Green Visions Plan project that provides a vision and tools to support public and private investment to protect and restore native biodiversity, improve watershed health, and remedy inequities in recreational open space across the southern California region. From there, the talk will endeavor to situate this work and similar projects within the rapidly evolving field of geographic information science and the Geographic Information Science and Technology (GIST) Body of Knowledge that was recently published by the University Consortium of Geographic Information Science and the Association of American Geographers. This leads to a discussion of the role of geography and computer science as fundamental building blocks for the next generation geographic information science toolsets. The talk concludes by noting some of the ongoing research projects in the USC GIS Research Laboratory and how they might advance those tools and the accompanying datasets.Biography:Dr. John P. Wilson is Professor of Geography at the University of Southern California where he directs the GIS Research Laboratory and also holds an adjunct appointment as Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. From 1998 to 2001 he was Chair of the Department of Geography at the University of Southern California. From 1992 to 1997 he was Professor of Geography in the Department of Earth Sciences, Adjunct Professor of Soil Science in the Department of Plant and Soil Science, and Director of the Geographic Information and Analysis Center at Montana State University. His early career was an Assistant Professor (1984-1990) and then Associate Professor of Geography (1990-1994) with corresponding adjunct appointments in Soil Science at Montana State University. He founded the Geographic Information and Analysis Center at Montana State University in 1989 and the GIS Research Laboratory at the University of Southern California in 1997. He has held several visiting appointments in environmental studies, geography, and planning at the Australian National University, the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, and the University of Waikato in New Zealand.He founded the journal Transactions in GIS (Blackwell Publishers) in 1996 and has served as Editor-in-Chief since its inception. He has served on the editorial board of Applied Geography (1992-2001) and has just started a four-year term on the editorial board of the Annals of the Association of American Geographers. He has chaired the Applied Geography Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers (1989-1991) and the Research Committee of the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (2002-2005). He is currently President of the University Consortium of Geographic Information Science and an active participant in the UNIGIS International Network, a worldwide consortium of 20+ institutions who collaborate on the development and delivery of online geographic information science academic programs. His research is focused on GIS tool development, spatial analysis, and environmental modeling. He has published numerous books and articles on these topics, including two edited volumes Terrain Analysis: Principles and Applications (John Wiley and Sons, New York, 2000) and the Handbook of Geographic Information Science (Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, 2006). Much of this work is collaborative and multidisciplinary in character with the general goal of improving our knowledge and understanding of human impact on both the natural and built environments. The work of his group can be seen on the website http://www.uscgislab.net/. He has received numerous honors for his research and teaching, the most recent being a Mellon Award for Excellence in Mentoring from the Center for Excellence in Teaching at the University of Southern California (2005) and an Albert S. Raubenheimer Outstanding Faculty Award for his research, teaching, and service contributions in the College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences at the University of Southern California (2004). Host: Cyrus Shahabi

Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Nancy Levien