Stan Openshaw
Encyclopedia
Stan Openshaw is a retired British geographer
. His last post was professor of human geography
based in the School of Geography
at the University of Leeds
. After eighteen years at Newcastle University, including three years as professor of quantitative geography, he moved to work in Leeds in 1992. Stan was a leading researcher in computer-based geography
and his work aimed to automate aspects of geographical research and reduce subjectivity in geographical analyses. He worked hard and was not just enthusiastic, but inspirational and catalysed research, developed researchers, projects and collaborations, and helped to evolve geographical information systems, analysis technology and models that in their day were state-of-the-art. Stan is still passionate about geography and keen to learn about the employment of geographical approaches that attempt to make the world a better place. In the past, he debated the direction geography should take putting forward a view that the subject needed an applied and scientific edge that harnessed the growing power of computers to make positive impacts to help us avoid and mitigate risk and cope better with disasters.
In 1992 Stan set up the Centre for Computational Geography
(CCG) as an inter-disciplinary unit at the University of Leeds
, a group dedicated to bringing computers to bear on complex social and physical problems. Stan directed the CCG for seven years until suffering a severely disabling stroke in 1999 after which he was retired.
Stan became a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society
and a Chartered Statistician
in 1993, a Fellow of the Institute of Statisticians
in 1983 and a Member of the British Computer Society
in 1983.
In 2012 at the GISRUK conference in Lancaster a special session is being arranged to celebrate Stan's work and career
" B.A. Honours Geography Thesis has six chapters describing the physical and socio-economic geography of the region in the south east of Scotland
. It contains tables of data, maps, aerial and ground level photographs, diagrams, statistical analysis, considerable description and details of two surveys (one about tourism which Stan aimed at tourists in Dunbar, and another about agriculture which Stan aimed at farmers). It may be that there is more than one copy of this thesis produced in 1968 and submitted to Newcastle University, but it would not be surprising for Stan to have kept a copy. A copy is stored with other artifacts of Stan's in a collection called "The Stan Openshaw Collection" the physical manifestation of which resides for the time being at the University of Leeds
.
Stan's "Processes in urban morphology
with special reference to South Shields
" Ph. D. Thesis is archived at the British Library
as microfilm no. : D10191/74. The thesis submitted to Newcastle University was completed in December 1973. It was compiled over several years (and for at least the latter part) whilst Stan worked in the Planning Department at Durham County Council. Stan wrote an abstract of the thesis and keeps it with his copy of the work. The abstract has now been reproduced on-line on his CCG
PhD Web Page.
Stan's research career blossomed in the Department of Town and Country Planning at Newcastle University, where, during the 1970s he worked on zone design methodology, for regional based administration, and for the analysis of socio-economic data in geographical and planning contexts. During the same period he developed a way to estimate death or kill rates of various nuclear bombing strategies evolving computerised techniques for identifying locations with the highest concentration of something. In the 1980s he pioneered the use of multimedia
geographical information systems by spearheading the BBC Domesday Project
.
Stan strove to remove human bias from the scientific process and was a strong believer in human-competitive machine intelligence. In the late 1980s and through the 1990s he worked to develop automated geographical analysis tools and "geographical explanation machines", which aimed to assist human researchers in the formation of hypotheses about the causes of geographical clusters
and patterns in data. Stan introduced genetic programming
to geography and demonstrated the predictive capabilities of artificial intelligence
techniques and the modelling and inference capabilities of fuzzy logic
. Perhaps his best known contributions, however, were to the field of geodemographics and location modelling, working on the classification of groups of people and the development of spatial interaction model technology for analysing networks of demand and supply.
In 1996, as the World Wide Web began to blossom, Stan encouraged a growing global community of computational geographers to meet for a first international GeoComputation
conference which was hosted at the University of Leeds in 1997. The event was a great success and initialized a series of international conferences that is still on-going (see the GeoComputation Conference Series Home Page for details).
(N.B. This is a work in progress, there is much detail to add...)
Geographer
A geographer is a scholar whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society.Although geographers are historically known as people who make maps, map making is actually the field of study of cartography, a subset of geography...
. His last post was professor of human geography
Human geography
Human geography is one of the two major sub-fields of the discipline of geography. Human geography is the study of the world, its people, communities, and cultures. Human geography differs from physical geography mainly in that it has a greater focus on studying human activities and is more...
based in the School of Geography
School of Geography, University of Leeds
The School of Geography is part of the Faculty of Environment at The University of Leeds based in the UK. It is a teaching and research organisation that disseminates information and curates knowledge on diverse geographical topics.- History :...
at the University of Leeds
University of Leeds
The University of Leeds is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England...
. After eighteen years at Newcastle University, including three years as professor of quantitative geography, he moved to work in Leeds in 1992. Stan was a leading researcher in computer-based geography
Geography
Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...
and his work aimed to automate aspects of geographical research and reduce subjectivity in geographical analyses. He worked hard and was not just enthusiastic, but inspirational and catalysed research, developed researchers, projects and collaborations, and helped to evolve geographical information systems, analysis technology and models that in their day were state-of-the-art. Stan is still passionate about geography and keen to learn about the employment of geographical approaches that attempt to make the world a better place. In the past, he debated the direction geography should take putting forward a view that the subject needed an applied and scientific edge that harnessed the growing power of computers to make positive impacts to help us avoid and mitigate risk and cope better with disasters.
In 1992 Stan set up the Centre for Computational Geography
Centre for Computational Geography
The Centre for Computational Geography is an inter-disciplinary research centre based at the University of Leeds. The CCG was founded in 1993 by Stan Openshaw and Phil Rees, and builds on over 40 years experience in spatial analysis and modelling within the School of Geography...
(CCG) as an inter-disciplinary unit at the University of Leeds
University of Leeds
The University of Leeds is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England...
, a group dedicated to bringing computers to bear on complex social and physical problems. Stan directed the CCG for seven years until suffering a severely disabling stroke in 1999 after which he was retired.
Stan became a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society
Royal Geographical Society
The Royal Geographical Society is a British learned society founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical sciences...
and a Chartered Statistician
Chartered statistician
Chartered Statistician is a professional qualification in statistics offered by the Royal Statistical Society in the United Kingdom...
in 1993, a Fellow of the Institute of Statisticians
Institute of Statisticians
The Institute of Statisticians was a British professional organization founded in 1948 to protect the interests of professional statisticians. It was originally named The Association of Incorporated Statisticians Limited, but this was later changed...
in 1983 and a Member of the British Computer Society
British Computer Society
The British Computer Society, is a professional body and a learned society that represents those working in Information Technology in the United Kingdom and internationally...
in 1983.
In 2012 at the GISRUK conference in Lancaster a special session is being arranged to celebrate Stan's work and career
Education
- Ph.D., Geography, Newcastle University, 1974
- B.A. (first class) honours degree, Geography, Newcastle University, 1968
Scholarship
Stan's "Southern - East LothianEast Lothian
East Lothian is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, and a lieutenancy Area. It borders the City of Edinburgh, Scottish Borders and Midlothian. Its administrative centre is Haddington, although its largest town is Musselburgh....
" B.A. Honours Geography Thesis has six chapters describing the physical and socio-economic geography of the region in the south east of Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. It contains tables of data, maps, aerial and ground level photographs, diagrams, statistical analysis, considerable description and details of two surveys (one about tourism which Stan aimed at tourists in Dunbar, and another about agriculture which Stan aimed at farmers). It may be that there is more than one copy of this thesis produced in 1968 and submitted to Newcastle University, but it would not be surprising for Stan to have kept a copy. A copy is stored with other artifacts of Stan's in a collection called "The Stan Openshaw Collection" the physical manifestation of which resides for the time being at the University of Leeds
University of Leeds
The University of Leeds is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England...
.
Stan's "Processes in urban morphology
Urban morphology
Urban morphology is the study of the form of human settlements and the process of their formation and transformation. The study seeks to understand the spatial structure and character of a metropolitan area, city, town or village by examining the patterns of its component parts and the process of...
with special reference to South Shields
South Shields
South Shields is a coastal town in Tyne and Wear, England, located at the mouth of the River Tyne to Tyne Dock, and about downstream from Newcastle upon Tyne...
" Ph. D. Thesis is archived at the British Library
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...
as microfilm no. : D10191/74. The thesis submitted to Newcastle University was completed in December 1973. It was compiled over several years (and for at least the latter part) whilst Stan worked in the Planning Department at Durham County Council. Stan wrote an abstract of the thesis and keeps it with his copy of the work. The abstract has now been reproduced on-line on his CCG
Centre for Computational Geography
The Centre for Computational Geography is an inter-disciplinary research centre based at the University of Leeds. The CCG was founded in 1993 by Stan Openshaw and Phil Rees, and builds on over 40 years experience in spatial analysis and modelling within the School of Geography...
PhD Web Page.
Stan's research career blossomed in the Department of Town and Country Planning at Newcastle University, where, during the 1970s he worked on zone design methodology, for regional based administration, and for the analysis of socio-economic data in geographical and planning contexts. During the same period he developed a way to estimate death or kill rates of various nuclear bombing strategies evolving computerised techniques for identifying locations with the highest concentration of something. In the 1980s he pioneered the use of multimedia
Multimedia
Multimedia is media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which use only rudimentary computer display such as text-only, or...
geographical information systems by spearheading the BBC Domesday Project
BBC Domesday Project
The BBC Domesday Project was a partnership between Acorn Computers Ltd, Philips, Logica and the BBC to mark the 900th anniversary of the original Domesday Book, an 11th century census of England...
.
Stan strove to remove human bias from the scientific process and was a strong believer in human-competitive machine intelligence. In the late 1980s and through the 1990s he worked to develop automated geographical analysis tools and "geographical explanation machines", which aimed to assist human researchers in the formation of hypotheses about the causes of geographical clusters
Geographical clusters
A geographical cluster is a localised anomaly, usually an excess of something given the distribution or variation of something else.. Often it is considered as an incidence rate that is unusual in that there is more of some variable than might be expected...
and patterns in data. Stan introduced genetic programming
Genetic programming
In artificial intelligence, genetic programming is an evolutionary algorithm-based methodology inspired by biological evolution to find computer programs that perform a user-defined task. It is a specialization of genetic algorithms where each individual is a computer program...
to geography and demonstrated the predictive capabilities of artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
techniques and the modelling and inference capabilities of fuzzy logic
Fuzzy logic
Fuzzy logic is a form of many-valued logic; it deals with reasoning that is approximate rather than fixed and exact. In contrast with traditional logic theory, where binary sets have two-valued logic: true or false, fuzzy logic variables may have a truth value that ranges in degree between 0 and 1...
. Perhaps his best known contributions, however, were to the field of geodemographics and location modelling, working on the classification of groups of people and the development of spatial interaction model technology for analysing networks of demand and supply.
In 1996, as the World Wide Web began to blossom, Stan encouraged a growing global community of computational geographers to meet for a first international GeoComputation
GeoComputation
GeoComputation is an emergent paradigm for multidisciplinary/interdisciplinary research that enables the exploration of previously insoluble, extraordinarily intricate problems in geographic context.-Introduction:...
conference which was hosted at the University of Leeds in 1997. The event was a great success and initialized a series of international conferences that is still on-going (see the GeoComputation Conference Series Home Page for details).
PhD Students
| Name of Student | Year of Completion | Thesis Title | University Affiliation |
|---|---|---|---|
| James MacGill | 2001 | Applications of Artificial Life Technologies to Geography | School of Geography, University of Leeds School of Geography, University of Leeds The School of Geography is part of the Faculty of Environment at The University of Leeds based in the UK. It is a teaching and research organisation that disseminates information and curates knowledge on diverse geographical topics.- History :... |
| Young-Hoon Kim | 2000 | Intelligent location optimisations (ILOs) in GIS environments | School of Geography, University of Leeds School of Geography, University of Leeds The School of Geography is part of the Faculty of Environment at The University of Leeds based in the UK. It is a teaching and research organisation that disseminates information and curates knowledge on diverse geographical topics.- History :... |
| Linda See | 1999 | Fuzzy Logic Applications in Geography | School of Geography, University of Leeds School of Geography, University of Leeds The School of Geography is part of the Faculty of Environment at The University of Leeds based in the UK. It is a teaching and research organisation that disseminates information and curates knowledge on diverse geographical topics.- History :... |
| Gary Diplock | 1996 | The Application of Evolutionary Computing Techniques to Spatial Interaction Modelling | School of Geography, University of Leeds School of Geography, University of Leeds The School of Geography is part of the Faculty of Environment at The University of Leeds based in the UK. It is a teaching and research organisation that disseminates information and curates knowledge on diverse geographical topics.- History :... |
| Danny Dorling Danny Dorling Daniel Dorling, frequently referred to as Danny Dorling, is Professor of Human Geography at the University of Sheffield. He is also a Professor at University of Canterbury and in the Department of Social Medicine of the University of Bristol.-Biography:... |
1991 | The Visualization of Spatial Structure | Department of Geography, University of Newcastle upon Tyne |
(N.B. This is a work in progress, there is much detail to add...)