School of Geography
 

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Giles Foody

Professor of Geographical Information Science, Faculty of Social Sciences

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Research Summary

I have broad interests in geography - spanning activity that lies in the social sciences (e.g. on the motivations, ability and potential of volunteers/citizen sensors to advance geographic research),… read more

Selected Publications

Current Research

I have broad interests in geography - spanning activity that lies in the social sciences (e.g. on the motivations, ability and potential of volunteers/citizen sensors to advance geographic research), the environmental sciences (e.g. on land cover changes on the carbon cycle and patterns of biodiversity) and technology/engineering (e.g. on machine learning methods for image analysis). My main research interests focus on the interface between remote sensing, informatics and ecology/environmental science. A major recent focus of work built on these interests is on studying 'slavery from space' linked to the University's Rights Lab.

My early research in the 1980s was focused on land cover mapping from radar imagery. This included work on enhancing mapping by the use of object based analyses. Initial postdoctoral research continued to focus on enhancing the representation of land cover. This work used mostly optical imagery and focused on the mapping of continua. This work included pioneering studies on the production of continuous fields and led naturally to further work on the mixed pixel problem. The latter led to work on soft/fuzzy classification that developed further into super-resolution mapping in which the output map is at a finer scale than the basic unit of measurement. It also included pioneering work using AI, not simply as an alternative to conventional methods but as a means to undertake new analyses with mixed pixels viewed as an asset rather than simply a problem. Other methodological work has focused especially on good practices in mapping, especially with regard to the assessment and use of map accuracy. Throughout, the focus has been on land cover and its dynamics and often undertaken within the context of ecological, hydrological and, recently, social science applications.

I have been fortunate to work on a variety of projects with a range of collaborators, including 50 research students who have worked under my supervision. This work has been supported by research funding from a variety of bodies. Since 2014, the major awards I have been an investigator on:

  • ESRC IAA Mode B, Operationalising a sargassum monitoring service, PI, £10,000, 2022-2023.
  • UoN KE Strategic Fund, continuation of SargAssure project, PI, c.£40,000, 2022.
  • UKRI ODA and FTX Foundation, Co-I, £45,000, 2022-2023.
  • UK Space Agency, SargAssure, IPP Technology Development Programme, Principal Investigator, £279,050, 2021-2022.
  • GCRF, Validating sargassum detection, Principal Investigator, £158,533, 2020-2021.
  • GCRF, Brick kilns of the south Asia Brick Belt: optimising a research and impact platform to address objects of UN SDG intersectionality, Co-I, £94,232, 2020-2021.
  • UK Space Agency, International Partnerships Programme, SAtellite Sargassum Monitoring System (SASAMS) - developing real-time monitoring service for Mexico's Caribbean coast, Principal Investigator, £290,057, 2020-2021.
  • UK Space Agency, International Partnerships Programme, Anti-trafficking support system for Uganda's sustainability (AstUS), Co-I, £283,357, 2020-2021.
  • BBSRC, Citizen science for Earth observation (Citizens 4EO), Co-I, £16,507, 2019.
  • NERC, Spatio-TEmporal Dynamics of forest response to ENSO Drought (STEED), Co-I, 2018.
  • British Academy, Remote sensing to inform sustainable development, Principal Investigator, c. £24,600, 2018.
  • EPSRC, Satellite remote sensing of sites associated with slavery, Principal Investigator, c. £12,000, 2018.
  • EU, Final Action dissemination grant, Principal investigator, c. €9,400, 2017
  • EU, Lead of workpackage 5 of the LandSense citizen observatory, ~€343,000, 2016-2020.
  • EU, Final COST Action TD1202 grant period award, Principal Investigator, €232,309, 2015.
  • EU, Transition to Horizon extension of COST Action TD1202, Principal Investigator, €74,350, 2014.
  • EU, COST Action TD1202, Principal Investigator, €147,545, 2014.

To-date, research has resulted in >250 refereed journal articles, 9 books and >200 other publications (book chapters, conference papers etc). My publications have been cited >43,000 times and I have a 'h' index of 100 (source - Google Scholar). In field based standardized citation lists that account for self-citation I am ranked 2nd in the world in the subject including geomatics. In other recent surveys, I am ranked 1st and 3rd in the world for studies of land cover and remote sensing respectively.

I am a Fellow of the IEEE (FIEEE) and in 2021 I was elected an ordinary member of Academia Europaea (MAE). I have also been fortunate to receive several prizes, most recently the RSPSoc's Taylor and Francis Award (2020), the IEEE David Landgrebe award (2019) and 2 global peer review awards (2019). The Rights Lab's Data/Measurement theme I work in has also received major awards for its research on slavery from space. A full list of awards is available in my CV which is available on request.

I have served on a variety of committees (e.g. RCUK grant panels (including roles as chair)); sub-panel 14 of REF2021, sub-panel C17 of REF2014 and H32 of RAE2008) and on the editorial board of 17 journals (including two as editor-in-chief).

School of Geography

Sir Clive Granger Building
University of Nottingham
University Park
Nottingham, NG7 2RD

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