Speaker Biography: Stephen Walsh

Dr. Stephen J. Walsh is a Professor of Geography, Director of the Landscape Characterization & Spatial Analysis Lab (LC&SAL), and Research Fellow of the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA. He is the former Amos H. Hawley Professor of Geography (1993-1996) and Director of the Spatial Analysis Unit at the Carolina Population Center (1992-1997). He is the past Chair of the GIS (1997-1999) and the Remote Sensing (1995-1997) Specialty Groups of the Association of American Geographers (AAG). In 1997, Professor Walsh was the recipient of the Outstanding Contribution Award and Medal from the Remote Sensing Specialty Group of the AAG, in 1999 was awarded Research Honors from the Southeastern Division of the AAG, and in 2001 was awarded National Research Scholarship Honors from the Association of American Geographers. Dr. Walsh is on the editorial boards of Plant Ecology (1996-present), Journal of Geography (1995-present), GeoCarto International (1999-present), and formerly The Professional Geographer (1997-2001) and the Southeastern Geographer (1992-2000).

Dr. Walsh has recently co-authored special remote sensing and GIS application issues in the Journal of Vegetation Science (1994) and Geomorphology (1998); and co-edited books for Kluwer Academic Publishers, "GIS and Remote Sensing Applications in Biogeography and Ecology" (A.C. Millington, S.J. Walsh, and P.E. Osborne 2001) and "Remote Sensing and GIS Applications for Linking People, Place, and Policy" (S.J. Walsh and K.A. Crews-Meyer, in press). Professor Walsh's research interests are in GIS, remote sensing, spatial analysis, physical geography, and population-environment interactions. Specific research foci are on pattern and process at the alpine treeline ecotone, scale dependence and information scaling, and landuse/landcover change modeling. Major studies are underway in Ecuador, Thailand, Latvia, and North Carolina and Montana, USA.