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Dr Peter Whigham BSc(Hons)(ANU), PhD(NSW)
SIRC
Director
Assoc. Prof., Department of Information Science
Peter
is Director of the Spatial Information Research Centre (SIRC) and actively
pursues research interests in physical and
abstract spatial modelling. His interests include all aspects
of
spatial research, and in particular the use of machine learning techniques
for modelling spatio-temporal patterns, the use of spatial systems
for modelling ecological behaviour, and the influence of space
on population genetics models. He also performs basic
research in the field of evolutionary computation, especially genetic
programming.
Currently he is supporting the curriculum development of the Bachelor
of Applied Science majoring in Spatial Information.
email | homepage | personal page
Prof George Benwell BSurv, PhD(Melb), MPhil(City) MNZCS, MISAust, MNZIS
Head
of Department — Information Science
George's research and
teaching are mainly focussed on spatial information processing and analysis
and land related information systems. He is also conducting research
on the equitable access to information and the implementation of demand
driven ICT community infrastructures. He teaches INFO
480 dissertation or case study paper. He has been involved with research
in Australia, New Zealand, Peru, Chile, Canada, Fiji, England, America,
Malaysia and Tonga, and has published over 250 research papers and articles.
He is also Dean of Research for the School of Business
and Coordinator of the Spatial Information Processing Research Theme,
and is on the boards of three commercial IT related companies
in Otago/Southland.
Dr Colin Aldridge BSc(Auck), DipTch(Christchurch),
DipGrad(Otago), PhD(Otago), AMAusIMM, MNZCS
Lecturer, Department of Information Science
Colin has a strong industry background in mineral exploration
geology. He now has a keen research interest in data mining, particularly
computer-supported knowledge discovery in geological and other spatial
data. He teaches in the areas of foundations of information
science and information technology, spatial information systems and information
engineering.
Dr Albert Chong MS PhD (Washington) NZCLS NZCD ASPRS
Senior Lecturer, Department of Surveying
Albert has published fifty plus technical papers and received three international awards for his research and teaching. He specialises in high precision GPS measurements, digital photogrammetry and high precision close-range photogrammetry. He will happily give you advice on how to derive a contour map of your eyeball using Adam MPS-2 analytical workstation or Geomatic Canada DVP digital workstation! Albert can calibrate your film-based or digital camera in minutes using Australis, a photogrammetric bundle software (Uni. of Melbourne). Albert can also determine the height of a crime suspect based on measurements from digital video footage.
Assoc Prof Dave Craw BSc(Otago), MSc(Calgary), PhD(Otago)
Department of Geology
Research
Interests
- Environmental geology & geochemistry.
- Economic geology, vein and placer gold.
- Structure & mineralization in the Haast Schists.
- Fluid flow in
orogenic belts; Himalayan geology.
Assoc Prof Kath Dickinson
Department of Botany
Director, Ecology Degree Programme
Co-ordinator, Alpine Ecology Research Group
Research Interests:
- Long-term trends in non-forest ecosystems including tussock grasslands, shrublands and alpine communities;
- The population demography of the rare endemic alpine species Myosotis oreophila;
- Patterns and processes in epiphyte communities;
- Patterns and processes in wetland ecosystems;
- Species diversity and community ecology in low to high alpine environments;
- Plant-invertebrate relationships:- community
ecology and diversity with implications for biological conservation.
Dr Mike Hilton MA (Auck), PhD (Auck)
Senior Lecturer, Department of Geography
Mike completed his PhD at the University of Auckland in 1989 on
processes of sedimentation in nearshore-inner shelf environments (the
submarine environments between the beach and the middle continental shelf).
This study was commissioned by the (then) National Water and Soil Conservation
Authority in relation to the environmental impacts of coastal sand mining.
He then worked for the Department of Conservation for two years, drafting
coastal provisions of the Resource Management Act 1991, including the
New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement
He lectured coastal management, coastal processes and environmental management at the National University of Singapore from 1992 to 1995, where his research focused on coral reef geomorphology and the management of tropical coastal resources. During this period he travelled throughout South and Southeast Asia.
Mike joined the Department of Geography Department at the Universty of Otago in 1995, with responsibilities in the areas of environmental management, planning, coastal management and coastal processes. He is involved in various national and international organisations concerned with coastal science and environmental management, namely the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research (based in Kobe, Japan), the national International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme Committee of the Royal Society of New Zealand, and the Land Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone Programme of IGBP.
Alec Holt BSc, DipSci, MCom(Otago), MNZRS
Director, Heath Informatics
Senior Lecturer,
Department of Information Science
Alec
is the Director of the Health Informatics programme. This involves
the Post Graduate Diploma in Health Informatics, MHealSc masters and
PhD
students in Health Informatics. His teaching and research expertise are
in the areas of Health Informatics, Geographical Information Systems
(GIS), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet-based teaching and Pacific
Peoples issues in IT. He has applied his expertise in E-Health, Public
and Environmental Health, Tourism, Sport (especially team sport such
as
rugby) and handheld computing domains. Recently he has been involved
in
research supported by the World Health Organisation in Fiji, Samoa,
Tonga, Palau, Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia.
email | homepage | personal page
Peter Knight BA(Guelph), BSc, MSc(Tor), DipHydSurv(Humber)
Lecturer, Department of Surveying
Peter Knight joined the Department of Surveying in 1997. He came to
New Zealand from Canada to teach the University of Otago's Hydrographic
Surveying papers. Peter graduated in 1980 with a Diploma in Hydrographic
Surveying from Humber College in Toronto. This start in surveying enabled
him to begin a 10 year university career that produced a BA (Guelph 1987);
BSc (Surveying-Toronto 1990); and an MASc (Civil Engineering-Toronto
1994). Peter's career as a Hydrographer continued with his appointment
as a multi-disciplinary hydrographer with the Canadian Hydrographic Service
(1993), a position he held until coming to Otago. Peter is currently
enrolled in a PhD working toward completion in 2004.
Research Interests:
- Bluff Oyster Fishery
- Common Pool Resource Management
Dr Brendan McCane
BSc(hons) (James Cook) PhD(James Cook)
Senior Lecturer, Department of Computer Science
My research interests include computer vision, pattern recognition and
machine learning. My research focus at the moment involves developing
real-time eye and hand tracking techniques for use in a virtual sculpting
environment. One of the major challenges is to develop robust systems
that work in a variety of environments with a variety of users, and I
am looking at utilising machine learning to enhance the robustness of
these systems.
I also have an interest in computer graphics and participate in the computer graphics group here at the University of Otago.
email | homepage | personal page
Bruce McLennan BCom(Otago), PgDip(Otago), MCom(Otago)
Associate Research Fellow, Department
of Information Science
Bruce unexpectably passed away at the end of May, 2008. This was a great shock and sadness
to all of us at SIRC, the University and of course his personal friends and collegues. Bruce
was the backbone of SIRC and his loss is felt on a daily basis. As a tribute to his long standing
relationship with SIRC this entry will remain. Bruce, we all miss you.
Bruce is interested in researching spatial information systems, spatially
enabled data-driven web systems, and spatial visualisation. He has been
involved in a number of GIS development projects for the Ministry of
Commerce, the Ministry of Health and the Department of History at the
University of Otago. He also teaches basic cartography and visualisation
on the Spatial Information (SPIN) courses. He has been involved with
two major research projects for the World Health
Organization (WHO) to produce a global atlas on violence and a research
website concerning environmental aspects of health in large cities around
the world. He has also been involved in projects for the UNFAO. He is currently
undertaking PhD studies in the area deriving interactive anatomical training
materials from 3D medical imaging.
Dr Renaud Mathieu BSc Ag(Toulouse), MSc(Cranfield),
PhD(Marne-la-Vallée)
Lecturer, Department of Surveying
Renaud
grew up in Africa before obtaining a BSc in agronomy (Toulouse - France).
He then completed a MSc in Applied Remote Sensing at Cranfield University
(UK) in 1992. During the next four years he worked in Chile with an institute
of French co-operation and the University of Chile. He completed a PhD
in Geographic Information Science from the Marne-la-Vallée in
Paris, France in 1998. Before joining the Department of Surveying in
2000, Renaud spent one year as Post-Doctoral fellow at a Research Center
for
Geomatics
in Laval University, Canada.
Renaud's expertise and research interests are related to the application of remote sensing technologies to agriculture as well as to natural resource management and conservation. Most of his recent research works are orientated to the retrieval of earth surface biophysical parameters from radar and optical remote sensing data at both large and medium scale.
email | homepage | personal page
Dr Antoni Moore BSc (Hons) (Portsmouth), MSc(Leicester),
PhD(Plymouth)
Lecturer, Department of Information Science
Tony has a background working as a geographical information
systems (GIS) analyst in the UK, applying GISystems and GIScience to
the coastal and marine zones. His research interests include the development
and use of intelligent information systems, particularly in the context
of decision support, spatio-temporal modelling, cartographic generalisation
and visualisation. He teaches on the Spatial Information (SPIN)
courses (as part of the Bachelor of Applied Science degree majoring in
Spatial Information) as well as the Spatial Data Structures papers.
email | homepage | personal page
Assoc Prof Hamish Spencer
Department of Zoology
Research Interests:
- The maintenance of genetic variation in populations.
- The population genetics of genomic imprinting.
- Population-genetic models of maternal selection.
- New Zealand molluscs.
- History of eugenics.
- Applications of phylogenetics to New Zealand taxa.
- Population-genetic theory for frequency-dependent selection.
- Spatial effects on population genetic models.
Neil Sutherland BSc DipSci (Otago) MNZIS
Senior Teaching Fellow, Department
of Surveying
Neil
grew up in Dunedin and obtained his BSc from Otago in 1972. He then worked
for the Department of Lands and Survey/DOSLI for many
years, specialising in geodesy, deformation projects, and astronomy.
During this time, two further periods were spent at Otago University
in postgraduate study. He joined the Department of Surveying in 1988.
Research interests fall into the general areas of GIS/LIS and cadastral
systems. Recent research completed includes studies of temporal aspects
of the New Zealand LIS and the use of GIS and fuzzy boundaries to record
Maori interests in land. He also maintains interests in surveying software,
surveying calculators, and computing in general and its application to
flexible learning and distance teaching.
Brendan Woodford
NZCDP(Stage III), BSc(Otago), DipSci(Otago), MSc(Otago)
Lecturer, Department of Information Science
Brendon lectures in the diverse areas of knowledge engineering, the theory of information science and symbolic artificial intelligence. He mainly teaches in the areas of artificial neural networks, fuzzy systems, data visualisation, and image processing and recognition. He also conducts research for the Knowledge, Intelligence and Web Informatics Laboratory (KIWI) into developing intelligent decision support systems for New Zealand's horticulture industry.
email | homepage | personal page
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