Speakers

Dr. Roger Tomlinson, GISP, generally recognized as the "father of GIS," is known as a visionary geographer who conceived and developed GIS for use by the Canada Land Inventory. His pioneering work, beginning in the early 1960s, changed the face of geography as a discipline and he was awarded an Order of Canada, which is Canada’s highest civilian honor. Governments and scientists around the world have turned to him to better understand the environment and changing patterns of land use, and to better manage urban development and the use of natural resources.

Dr. Tomlinson’s contributions include chairmanship of the International Geographical Union’s GIS Commission for 12 years, and where he pioneered the concepts of worldwide geographical data availability. He is a past president of the Canadian Association of Geographers and a recipient of its rare Award for Service to the Profession. The Association of American Geographers in the United States awarded him the James R. Anderson Medal of Honor for Applied Geography in 1995. Dr. Tomlinson is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and winner of its prestigious Murchison Award for the Development of Geographic Information Systems. In 1996 he was awarded the GIS World Lifetime Achievement Award for a lifetime of work with geographic information systems, and he was the first recipient of the ESRI Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997. Dr. Tomlinson was awarded the Order of Canada in February of 2004.

Born in Cambridge, England, Dr. Tomlinson adopted Canada as his home in 1957. During the spring of 1962, while on a plane bound from Ottawa to Toronto he met Lee Pratt, then recently named head of the Canada Land Inventory (CLI). Tomlinson then was chief of the computer mapping division at a Canadian airline service. Pratt described a vast mapping project CLI was about to undertake - a multilayer land-use/ planning map of Canada's inhabited and productive land--around 1 million square miles. Tomlinson told Pratt some of his ideas might work for CLI and Pratt eventually hired him to head the program that resulted in the first GIS.

He holds bachelor's degrees from Nottingham University in England and Acadia University in Canada; a master's degree from McGill University in Canada; and a Ph.D. from University College in England.

Dr. Tomlinson is the principal of Tomlinson Associates, Ltd., Consulting Geographers, which was established in 1977 in Ottawa, Ontario. He has advised clients such as the World Bank, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the U.S. departments of Commerce and Agriculture, U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Bureau of the Census, the Canadian Forest Service, and numerous U.S. state and Canadian provincial and municipal government agencies.

Prof. Roel Vertegaal is one of Canada's top designers of advanced interactive technologies, a scientist and musician. He is Professor of Human-Computer Interaction at the prestigious Queen’s University in Canada, where he directs the Human Media Lab (www.humanmedialab.org), which was designed by world-renowned designer Karim Rashid. Roel is also President and CEO of Xuuk, Inc, a startup that founded the digital signage metrics industry, and leads the Computing and the Creative Arts Program at Queen's. Roel studied Electronic Music at Utrecht Conservatory in The Netherlands, and holds a Master's in Computer Science and PhD in Human Factors.

Roel founded the alt.chi sessions at the annual ACM CHI conference, co-founded the ACM Eye Tracking Research and Applications conference and chaired the ACM Tangible, Embodied and Embedded Interactions (TEI 2012) conference. Prof. Vertegaal pioneered the use of 2x2D mappings for semantic gesture-based sound synthesis, eye tracking in user interfaces, Attentive User Interfaces for notification management, and Natural UIs using body, head and eyes as input. He coined the term Organic User Interface, pioneering the first spherical and cylindrical interactive computers and the first flexible paper computers and smartphones (PaperWindows and PaperPhone). His scientific contributions include studies on the effect of eye contact on turn taking in group conversations to usability studies of flexible displays, to modelling the effects of streptococcal pathogens on collagen autoimmunity and computer vision of polar bears in the arctic. His current work is on Organic User Interfaces: flexible and multi shaped display interfaces that allow industrial designers to embed high resolution multitouch displays into everyday things.

Justin Barton has spent considerable time over the years helping establish CyArk's standards for both long-term data archiving as well as data collection during field work. He has worked closely with CyArk's software development team during the evolution of CyArk's Site Manager online data management suite as well as working closely with Partners who are using the tool externally to guide customization, utility, and maintenance.

Justin received his BA in Anthropology from UC Berkeley. It was there that he was first exposed to the use of terrestrial laser scanning in archaeological research through the scanner owned by UCB's Archaeological Research Facility. Shortly after completing his BA, Justin came to work for CyArk as a Production Specialist, processing data from field activities. After one year at CyArk, just moved to the UK to study for an MA in Field Archaeology at University College London's Institute of Archaeology. However, he remained involved with CyArk throughout this two-year adventure. His MA research focused on the use of laser scanning and its integration with GIS for a 'multi scalar' GIS to provide the best tools for assessment and preventative conservation work for earthen architecture (his case study was the site of Ancient Merv, Turkmenistan). Justin has published multiple articles (both peer reviewed and not) about his research.

After completing the MA, Justin returned to the US and CyArk full-time. Since his full-time return, he has held the positions of Project Manager, Production Manager, and now Technical Services Manager. Justin continues to have a personal interest in the use of sanning for preservation and conservation of earthen architecture, one of archaeology's most fragile resources.

John Bacus is the Product Manager for SketchUp at Trimble Navigation, where he is primarily responsible for growing the SketchUp family of products. Prior to joining Trimble, John was SketchUp's Product Manager at Google and prior to that the Director of Product Design for @Last Software. He has worked on SketchUp from its first Mac OS X release through the product's acquisition by Google in 2006 and then again by Trimble in 2012. During this time, SketchUp has won numerous awards, including "3D Product of the Year" and a "5 Mice" rating from Macworld Magazine. In the last year alone, there have been over 30 million unique user activations of SketchUp— making it the most widely used 3D modeling product in the world. Prior to his work on SketchUp, John was a professional design consultant working on a wide range of architectural and urban design projects in both Europe and the U.S. John holds an MArch. (Thesis Prize) from the Rice University School of Architecture, and a BArch. (Ledlie Award) from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art.

Diana S. Sinton is the Director of Spatial Curriculum and Research at the University of Redlands (California) where she leads LENS (LEarNing Spatially), a campus-wide initiative to integrate mapping and spatial perspectives into diverse academic disciplines. She helped to design their School of Education’s online Spatial Literacy for Educators program and teaches its first course, Foundations of Spatial Thinking. She serves on the Geography Education Research Committee for the National Geographic’s Road Map to Geoliteracy project, is a member of the European Union’s Spatial Citizenship (SPACIT) project, and is on Esri’s Education Advisory Board.

Diana’s broad and applied research interests include the roles of geospatial technologies and spatial literacy in teaching and learning, the use of social and cultural data within GIS applications, and crisis mapping. She is a co-coordinator of the Analysis Team of the Standby Task Force, an international group of skilled volunteers that contributes mapping and geolocated data responses for humanitarian situations. Diana’s publications include The People’s Guide to Spatial Thinking (NCGE, forthcoming) and Understanding Place: GIS and Mapping across the Curriculum (Esri Press, 2006). Previously, she was the GIS Program Director at NITLE (the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education), and she has taught GIS, geography, and environmental studies at Alfred University and the University of Rhode Island. Diana has degrees from Middlebury College (BA) and Oregon State University (MS, PhD). More of her ideas can be found at dianamaps.com, Twitter’s @dianamaps, and the soon-to-be-launched, teachGIS.org.

Ed Parsons is the geospatial technologist of Google , with responsibility for evangelizing Google’s mission to organize the world’s information using geography and tools, including Google Earth, Google Maps, and Google Maps for Mobile. In this role, he also maintains links with universities and research and standards organizations, which are involved in the development of geospatial technology.

Ed is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and is the author of numerous articles, professional papers, and presentations to international conferences. He developed one of the first blogs, EdParsons.com , in the geospatial industry.

Ed will be joining us from Google's London UK headquarters via Google Hangout.