New lectureship in GeoInformatics

The CGI and the Department of Geography and Sustainable Development within the School of Geography and Geosciences at St Andrews is seeking a Lecturer in GeoInformatics:

This is an exciting opportunity to contribute to the newly formed Centre for GeoInformatics under the leadership of Professor Stewart Fotheringham in the Department of Geography and Sustainable Development. We are seeking an active researcher who will help the Centre develop a strong international research reputation.

The CGI is looking for someone with research interests in any area of Geographic Information Science (GIScience) with a PhD in GIScience/Geoinformatics or related topics in Computer Science. Additional expertise in health-related geoinformatics would be welcome. The candidate should have a proven record of research publication, a track record of international collaboration, be able to demonstrate excellent teaching and communication skills. Additionally, candidates and should have a track record of successful grant proposals and working with teams of researchers from different disciplines. Visit the above link or the St Andrews vacancies posting for more details.

PhD studentship in GeoInformatics and Housing reserach

CGI is looking for a PhD student to work on development of new analysis and/or visualisation methods for long-term Scottish housing data.

“How can GeoInformatics help with Reducing Risks and Enhancing Effectiveness in Non-Profit Housing Provision”

The University of St Andrews has been awarded an interdiciplinary PhD Studentship co-funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and HOME Housing Association to commence at the latest on 1 January 2013. The project aims to develop new spatial data analysis and/or visualisation methods. These methods should cover both a theoretical approach, such as for example, introducing new appropriate spatio-temporal statistical, data analysis and/or visual analytical methods for tracking occupation and analysing changes in housing in general, as well as specific implementations to use available housing data in Scottish context.

Student will be jointly supervised by Professor Stewart Fotheringham, Centre for Geoinformatics, and Professor Duncan Maclennan, Centre for Housing Research, at the University of St Andrews, in collaboration with HOME.

Candidate should preferably have spatial analysis skills and technical capabilities (e.g. programming knowledge is highly desirable) and needs to be UK-based to fulfill the requirements of the funding agency.

Application deadline is 23 November, 2012. More information is available here.

Who’s shaping up to win big?

After playing around with our Olympic medal cartogram (mentioned in this previous post), here are a few interesting observations we’ve come up with:

  1. Despite its large population, the UK seems to be punching above its weight compared to most countries
  2. The leaders (China and the US) are only slightly inflated when looking at total medals, and appear to be under-achieving when we consider the pool they have to pull from
  3. Despite their massive population size, India (pop. 1.2 billion) and Indonesia (pop. 242 million) are doing very poorly, especially compared to Slovenia (pop. 2.0 million), and New Zealand (pop. 4.4 million), who are massively overcompensating for their smaller populations!
  4. Countries like Australia and Japan are pretty much ‘on par’ with their medal achievements
  5. *Jamaica and North Korea are dwarfing big hitters like Spain and Brazil.
  6. *When population is taken into account, China’s 1.3 billion people are slimmed down against New Zealand and Sweden, who perform well despite their small numbers.

We’ll keep adding to the list as things progress…

* From The Telegraph article.