I’m Liam, a PhD candidate at Charles Sturt University, Australia. I have a background in geographic information systems (GIS), working in the the environment sector as a GIS analyst for a number of years. While my research occupies most of my time at the moment, I have also operated as a GIS consultant. I decided to set up this site to share some of my work and experience. So feel free to get in touch if you have any questions.

How does geography & process influence the patterns we observe?

This is a pretty broad question, but it is one that focuses my current research. Often we try to explain patterns in a response (e.g. species occurence) by finding statistical relationships with a set of variables. Given the same processes driving the response, but change the spatial structure of the envrionment, would we observe the same relationships?

My PhD explores this topic by using virtual species to understand how the spatial structure of the environment influences the transferability of species distribution models (SDM). Individual based models (IBM) play an important part in simulating processes that drive species distributions and how distributional patterns change between landscapes.

Geographic Information Systems

Before moving into research, I obtained a Masters of GIS & Remote Sensing from Charles Sturt University. In my roles in the environment sector I developed GIS data management systems using both ESRI and open source software (QGIS, PostGIS etc). I am familiar with both Python and R, using them to undertake data analysis, spatial modelling and automate GIS workflows.

Oh yes, I make maps too!