Dr. Gregory Elmes is Professor of Geography at West Virginia University where he has taught and performed research for 25 years. He is co-director of the West Virginia State GIS Technical Center, the nexus for providing focus, direction and leadership to users of geographic information systems (GIS), digital mapping and remote sensing within the State of West Virginia. He is the chair of the IGU Commission on Geographical Information Science. He was President of the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS) from 1998 – 2000 and has been chair of the Association of American Geographers’ GIS and Energy and Environment specialty groups.
In 1986, while on sabbatical leave, he was awarded one of the first Master of Science in GIS degrees offered at the University of Edinburgh and subsequently brought that experience to bear on his department’s research and teaching at WVU. More recently he has been visiting Professor at the University of Linköping, Sweden, and at the University of Rome, La Spienza. He is currently pursuing research in space-time representations for use in health geography and in emergency response and management. He is part of a team investigating GIS and society implications of digital earth, and is investigating the contribution of GISc. to forensic science. He has recent publications on GIS and Society and GIS in Public Health. Previously, with the USDA Forest Service and multidisciplinary teams from Penn State and Virginia Tech, he helped develop GYPSES; a GIS decision support system for use for gypsy moth, risk / hazard characterization and management in Eastern forests. From 1995 -2000, he was a member of a team that created a series of atlases on heart disease mortality, now available on the Internet. Other current work includes research on the relationship of geographical accessibility to human perception and affective behavior.