Project Team Relationships and End User Engagement

Mark Birkin

Mark Birkin is Professor of Spatial Analysis and Policy in the School of Geography at the University of Leeds.  He has wide-ranging leadership experience ranging from managing individual projects to institutional responsibilities. From 2001 until 2005 Mark was Director of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Informatics, and has also spent four years as leader of the Centre for Spatial Analysis and Policy. He is currently Director of External Relations in the School of Geography. Mark is the joint PI with Professor Mike Batty (UCL) of the GENeSIS node of ESRC‚’s National Centre for Digital Social Research, and is also director of the JISC project‚ Nationel e-Infrastructure for Social Simulation.  He is editor of the journal Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy, a member of the editorial board of Transactions in GIS, and a member of the JISC Geospatial Working Group. Mark is responsible for the overall management of the project; overseeing that the project-wide workplan is maintained.

Nick Malleson

Dr Nick Malleson (BSc Computer Science, MSc Geo-Informatics, PhD Geography) is a research fellow in the School of Geography at the University of Leeds and a member of the Centre for Spatial Analysis and Policy (CSAP). Dr Malleson’s research is interdisciplinary and centres around the development and application of spatio-temporal computational models in the social sciences. His recently completed doctoral research implemented a complex micro-level model which used geospatial data and artificial intelligence to predict and explore occurrences of residential burglary in real cities. Nick’s role will centre around data capture, data analysis and the production of software tools.

Alex Hirschfield

Alex Hirschfield is Professor of criminology and Director of the University of Huddersfield's Applied Criminology Centre. He has over 30 years' experience in research and consultancy and has led large scale national evaluations for the Home Office (burglary reduction), Neighbourhood Renewal Unit (crime and regeneration) and Youth Justice Board (Preventing Violent Extremism). As a former geographer (BA and PhD from Leeds) who became a criminologist, Alex is in an ideal position to see the connections between both disciplines. Over the years he has developed a number of conceptual and analytical frameworks that identify both the end users of geospatial data sets for crime analysis and the potential uses of such data. He was one of the first to apply crime hotspot techniques to British police data in the early 1990s in an ESRC funded project and went on to develop a system for producing social, land use and demographic profiles for high crime areas. Alex is well-known in the Environmental Criminology academic community and as a member of the AGI’s Crime and Disorder Special Interest Group and a former Senior Home Office Adviser to Government Office Northwest, has strong connections with practitioners and end users. His role in the JISC Project will be to oversee the criminological aspects of the work, develop appropriate theoretical frameworks for the research and draw upon his external links to engage with the user community. To see how he gets on, just watch this space!

Andrew Newton

Dr Andrew Newton (BSc Geography, Msc GIS. PhD Environmental Criminology) has 11 years research experience in environmental criminology and expertise in working with geospatial data for research and policy evaluation projects using Geographical Information Systems. One of his key research interests is the geography of crime,  and he secured funding in this area from a number of sources including the Home Office, Alcohol Education Research Council, Department for Transport Merseyside PTE, EPSRC, ERDF (EU), Government Office North West and the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission (AGCL, Canada). He has published widely in the field and has presented at over fifty national & twenty-five international conferences. His role will be to develop and analyse internet based survey to establish the current levels of awareness and interest exists in mapping crime and using geo-spatial data, to identify the user needs of this community, and liaise closely with these organisations and stakeholders in the development of this project .