Steven D. Prager is an Assistant Professor in the Department
of Geography at the University of Wyoming. He has been active with UCGIS since
entering the academic arena in 2004. In 2007 Prager was appointed Chair of the
UCGIS Education Committee. During his appointment as chair his emphasis has been
to strengthen the relationship and coordination between the Research and
Education Committees. Prager has consistently promoted the UCGIS educational
agenda through both published papers and professional presentations, and has
also been promoting use of the GIS&T Body of Knowledge in both European and
African settings. Following his tenure as chair, Prager was invited to extend
his term to help move a number of organizational initiatives forward and to
facilitate the transition process for the incoming Chair. As a board member,
Prager will continue fostering the integration of UCGIS research and education
activities and will use his experience and organizational knowledge to help
continue to build the value of UCGIS for the GIScience community.
Prager actively participates in UCGIS research activities. He also maintains his
own dynamic research agenda with publications spanning a variety of Geography
and GIScience topics ranging from sustainable development to complex networks to
spatiotemporal uncertainty. Prager’s current research, funded by the National
Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, addresses semantics and analysis of network
structures using biologically inspired optimization approaches.
Dr. Ling Bian is a Professor in the Department of Geography, University at Buffalo, State University of Buffalo. Her research interests and teaching activities have been in the broad area of GIScience. Her present research interests include individual-based and spatially explicit representation, interoperable process models, and geographic image retrieval. She has been involved in various UCGIS activities since the inception of UCGIS. These include serving as a delegate and alternate delegate for the University at Buffalo, participating in the activities in a number of UCGIS Summer Assemblies and Winter Meetings. In particular, she chaired the UCGIS Communication Committee during 2003-2005. During her tenure, she worked with the UCGIS Web Master, the previous chair of the committee, and the Executive Director to stabilize the UCGIS web/listserv and outreach to professional GIS communities, while continuing other established communication services for the UCGIS member institutions.
Jane Read, Associate Professor of Geography, Syracuse University; PhD (1999) Louisiana State University; MSc (1990) and BSc-Hons (1987) University of London, UK.
Professional experience: Syracuse University - Assistant Professor (1999-2005), Associate Professor (2005-present).
Prof. Read’s research interests include applications of remote sensing and GIS to environmental and biogeographical questions related to tropical environments, tropical forest ecology, and human-environment interactions (land-use and land-cover changes). She has worked in Costa Rica, Brazil and Bolivia, and is currently working in Guyana on an interdisciplinary project attempting to understand how changing indigenous cultural practices influence biodiversity in southern Guyana. Dr. Read has published in a variety of journals and edited books, including International Journal of Remote Sensing, Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, Remote Sensing of Environment, Ecological Applications, Ecological Modelling, Journal of Ecology, Journal of Applied Ecology, Ecology Letters, Global Change Biology, among others. She and her collaborators have received external funding for their research from the National Science Foundation, the W.M. Keck Foundation, FEMA, and The State University of New York - Environmental Science and Forestry. Prof. Read teaches courses in introductory and advanced GIS/GIScience, remote sensing, global environmental change, and tropical environments, and advises graduate students within her realm of expertise. She was awarded the 2005 Moynihan Award for outstanding teaching, research and service (Maxwell School, Syracuse University); the Syracuse University Chancellor’s Award for Public Service, awarded to her 2004 introductory GIS course; and was a 2001 Finalist for the AAG J.Warren Nystrom Disertation Award Competition. Prof. Read has served as Syracuse University’s lead delegate to UCGIS since joining the university in 1999. She served as Chair of the Communications Committee from 2005-2008. Prof. Read’s record of service to geography includes serving on the National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant Advisory Panel from 2007-2009; serving as President of the Syracuse Chapter of Sigma-Xi from 2007-2009; acting as Remote Sensing Specialty Group (RSSG) Program Co-Chair for the 2003 AAG meeting, RSSG Co-Director (2004-2006), and member of the RSSG awards committee (2006-present).
Dr. André Skupin is an Associate Professor of Geography at San Diego State University. He received a Dipl.-Ing. degree in Cartography at the Technical University Dresden, Germany, and a Ph.D. in Geography at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Areas of interest and expertise include geographic visualization, visual data mining, and information visualization. Dr. Skupin’s work has been strongly interdisciplinary, aimed at increased cross-fertilization between geography, information science, and computer science, and has been published in such diverse outlets as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and the Journal of Informetrics. Recent work has addressed novel methods for analyzing human movement, demographic change, and environmental sensor data as trajectories in n-dimensional attribute space.
Dr. Skupin currently serves as a science advisor to the San Diego Natural History Museum, is a partner within the World Resources Simulation Center (WRSC), and serves on an advisory panel for the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG). He also serves on the advisory board of Places & Spaces, a traveling exhibit of knowledge domain maps.
Dr. Skupin has been active within UCGIS since 2001, when he was elected by the AAG GIS Specialty Group to serve a two-year tem as AAG delegate to UCGIS. He has been SDSU’s lead delegate to UCGIS for several years. Between 2006 and 2009 he was Chair of the UCGIS Membership Committee.