Ecole Navale

Welcome to my Web page !

I am a Professor in Computer Science and Director of the Naval Academy Research Institute (located in Britany in North West France) whose objective is to develop applied research oriented to the maritime environment and its sustainable development. I was previously head of the GIS research group at the Naval Academy Research Institute, Senior Lecturer in Computing at the Nottingham Trent University, Associate Lecturer at the Open University in the UK, Senior Researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, and consultant for GIS companies and international GIS programs in the field of high education. I hold a MSc in Databases from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Burgundy (France). I am also a research associate at the Centre for Planning Studies at the Laval University, a research fellow at the Joint Laboratory for Geographical Information Science at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and a member of the Semantic Web Services Research Network at the Nottingham Trent University. My research work incorporates theoretical and applied domains of GIS. Current and past research interests are as follows (see list of publications for details) :

Spatio-temporal models for GIS. This involves the development of conceptual time and GIS models, and have been for many years my main area of research. These models have been applied to urban and environmental GIS. I am interested by alternative models of space, from the application of naive geography principles to computational models (e.g. space syntax)

Semantic and cognitive-based GIS. This is a novel domain of personal interest where I am involved with several PhD students in the modelling of navigation knowledge and landscape perception.

Integration of GIS and simulation systems, with applications to traffic and transportation GIS.

Maritime, environmental and urban GISs. A domain of GIS applications where interaction with pluri-disciplinary scientists is somehow rewarding.

WEB, wireless and GIS systems. A booming domain that brings many novel challenges, from the development of location-based systems to the spatial analysis of the WEB, when considered as a social network.

From 2001 to 2007 I was acting as the editor in chief of the Revue Internationale de Géomatique and I am currently serving as co-director of the French national research network in GIS, so-called, MAGIS for "Modelisation et Application des SIG. Regarding service to the community I was the co-founder in 2001 of the series of IEEE and then Springer workshop on Web and Wireless Geographical Information Systems (W2GIS) held successively and alternatively between Asia and Europe. This symposium is intended to provide an up-to-date review of advances in recent development of Web and Wireless Geographical Information Systems. In 2006 I was the co-chair of the 3rd International Workshop on Conceptual Modeling for Geographic Information Systems (COMOGIS’2006), the 3rd International Workshop on Spatio-temporal Database Management (STDBM’2006) and the ACM track on Advances in Spatial and Image-based Information Systems (ASIIS’06). In 2008 I was the co-chair of the 2nd International Workshop on Semantic and Conceptual Issues in GIS (SeCoGIS 2008) held in Barcelona in conjunction with ER 2008. I am regularly involved in the program committee of the GIScience, COSIT, W2GIS, SeCoGIS, ACMGIS, WEBIST, IMSA and AGILE international conferences. I am in the editorial boards of the International Journal of Web Engineering and Technology, the Journal of Geographical Information Sciences edited by the CPGIS, the American Journal of Applied Sciences and the international Journal of Applied Logistics. In 2009 I will be one of the chairs of the International Conference on Spatial Information Theory (COSIT’09) to be held at the Aber Wrac’h, September 21-25, in North West Britanny, France.

My teaching activities include several computer science and computing courses. I have also developed several modules connected to my research activities in the domain of GIS, remote-sensing, sustainable development, simulation and multi-agent modelling.