Participatory Modeling Methodology: Tightening the GeoWeb Design Loop

Tim Nyerges(*), Piotr Jankowski(1) and Brent Hall(2)
* speaker, Department of Geography, University of Washington, USA
1 Department of Geography, San Diego State University, USA
2 School of Surveying, University of Otago, NZ

Dr. Timothy Nyerges is Professor of Geography at the University of Washington where he specializes in teaching and research related to participatory geographic information systems (GIS) focusing on sustainability management for land use, transportation, and water resource related issues. He received his Ph.D. from the Ohio State University in 1980 specializing in database management languages for GIS. For the past fifteen years he has undertaken research projects funded by NSF and NOAA to explore development and evaluation of networked GIS, particularly as supported by cyberinfrastructure technology, for enabling stakeholder participation in decision support. Many of the ideas from that research focus on sustainability management appearing in his recent textbook titled Regional and Urban GIS: A Decision Support Approach co-authored with Piotr Jankowski and published by Guildford Press. Current NSF-funded research projects include one about participatory (human-computer-human) interaction modeling as the foundation of participatory modeling methodology and another about high performance, service-oriented computing for spatial-temporal modeling called CyberGIS. He is the director of the Professional Masters Program in GIS for sustainability management for the University of Washington’s Professional and Continuing Education Division. As the immediate past president of University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS) he is co-organizing the geospatial extension program - a US national university network to foster research, workforce development, and GIS extension specialists.

Presentation file: PDF

Dr. Paul Torrens is an Associate Professor in the School of Geographical Sciences & Urban Planning at Arizona State University, Director of its Geosimulation Research Laboratory, and Senior Sustainability Scientist. He is also an Affiliate in the University’s Center for Social Dynamics and Complexity, as well as the GeoDa Center for Geospatial Analysis and Computation. Paul holds a Ph.D. from University College London (2004), Master’s degrees from Trinity College Dublin (1999) and Indiana University (1998), and a Bachelor’s degree from Trinity College Dublin (1996). He is a member of the Editorial Boards of the Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Future Internet, Geojournal, the International Journal of Microsimulation, the International Journal of Society Systems Science, Lecture Notes in Mechanics, and Wireless Engineering and Technology. He also serves on the Scientific Advisory Board for Savannah Simulations in Geneva, Switzerland. His projects have been supported by the U.K. Economic and Social Research Council, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Herberger Foundation, Science Foundation Arizona, Autodesk, Inc., and Alias Research. Paul’s work earned him a Faculty Early Career Development Award from the U.S. National Science Foundation in 2007 and he was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers by President George W. Bush in a ceremony at the White House in 2008. The Presidential Early Career Award is the highest honor that the U.S. government bestows upon young scientists; he is the first geographer to receive the Award.

Presentation file: PDF