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Graduate Program in Spatial Analysis

The faculty members who supervise and teach in the Master of Spatial Analysis cover a wide range of expertise in geography and related disciplines, as well as applications of geographic information systems (GIS) in business, retail, real-estate, economics, conservation, environment, resource management, planning, policy, public health, crime analysis, and immigration and settlement, to name but a few fields. The following “tag cloud” (thanks to TagCrowd beta) summarizes some of our expertise.

Faculty members are from the program's academic home, the Department of Geography , and from affiliated departments across campus. Feel free to contact individual professors from the following list through the Ryerson directory  or ask the MSA program director to make an initial contact.

 

Program Faculty Members (Department of Geography)

David Atkinson, Assistant Professor, Department of Geography
MES University of Waterloo, PhD Queen's University
Arctic biophysical systems, remote sensing, carbon flux, GIS and environmental analysis.

Douglas Banting, Professor, Department of Geography
PhD University of Western Ontario
Geographic analysis in the workplace; environmental applications of GIS; GIS and runoff modelling; greenroofs.

Michal Bardecki, Professor, Department of Geography
PhD York University
Environmental assessment and decision-making, economic valuation, cumulative impact management, media and the environment, geography of Las Vegas.

Harald Bauder, Associate Professor, Department of Geography
PhD Wilfred Laurier University
Social, cultural and economic geography; urban geography; geographic practice; critical geographies.

Brian Ceh, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Geography
PhD University of Western Ontario
Business and commercial geography, urban-economic studies, GIS, geo-quantitative analyses, retail and marketing geography, regional science and economic development.

Philip Coppack, Professor, Department of Geography
PhD University of Waterloo
GIS applications in geodemographic and recreation analysis, facilities location, business; Internet GIS applications; Economic and behavioral analysis of non-priced amenity environments and their role in recreation; Environmental perception and the creation of vernacular landscapes; Structure of the rural-urban fringe.

Frank Duerden, Professor Emeritus, Department of Geography
MA University of Manitoba
Land and resource management, regional development, northern Canada, circumpolar issues, land claims.

Wayne Forsythe, Professor, Department of Geography
PhD University of Salzburg, Austria
Urban Change Detection, Geospatial Analysis of Sediment Contamination, Remote Sensing, GIS.

Sutama Ghosh, Associate Professor, Department of Geography
PhD York University
Urban social geography, immigration and settlement geography, transnationalism, 'race' and racism.

Tony Hernandez, Professor, Department of Geography, and Director, Centre for the Study of Commercial Activity
PhD Manchester Metropolitan University, England
Retail location, business GIS, site research, location strategy, geodemographics.

Peter Kedron, Assistant Professor, Department of Geography
PhD University at Buffalo
Economic Geography, Evolutionary Economic Geography, Urban and Regional Analysis, International Business: Foreign Direct Investment, Spatial Analysis, Spatial Statistics, Environmental Justice

Anthony Lea, Adjunct Faculty, Department of Geography
PhD University of Toronto
Geodemography, socioeconomic and demographic correlates with behaviour, advanced site evaluation models, spatial interaction models, location-allocation models, spatial decision support tools and systems, shopping behaviour.

Andrew A. Millward, Associate Professor, Department of Geography
PhD University of Waterloo
GIS and remote sensing applications in disturbance ecology and urban forestry.

Claus Rinner, Associate Professor and MSA Program Director, Department of Geography
PhD University of Bonn, Germany
Geographic visualization, spatial decision support systems, participatory GIS, Web mapping, location-based services, geodata infrastructures, health and urban applications of GIS.

Stephen Swales, Associate Professor, Department of Geography
MA University of Calgary
Business and marketing geography, GIS, community vulnerability and adaptability to climate change.

Eric Vaz, Assistant Professor, Department of Geography
PhD New University of Lisbon, Portugal
Spatial Analysis, Geographic Information Science, Complex Systems, Neogeography, Urban and Regional Geography, Spatial Decision Support Systems, Economic Geography, Business GIS, Information Management

Lu Wang, Associate Professor, Department of Geography
PhD York University
GIS and consumption analysis, GIS and health, spatial accessibility modeling and visualization, geostatistics, immigration and settlement, retail internationalization.

Shuguang Wang, Professor, Department of Geography
PhD University of Alberta
Geography of urban retailing, GIS applications in the study of commercial activity, Ethnic economy, Economic geography of China.

Maurice Yeates, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for the Study of Commercial Activity
PhD Northwestern University, FRSC
Spatial modeling, Business geomatics.



Program Faculty Members (Other Departments)

Marcos Escobar,Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics
PhD University of Toronto
Financial mathematics, stochastic processes, dependence structures, time-spatial modelling, biostatistics.

Sebastian Ferrando, Professor, Department of Mathematics
PhD, University of Toronto
Signal processing, image processing, applied probability and stochastic processes; ergodic theory; financial mathematics.

Murtaza Haider, Associate Professor, Ted Rogers School of Management
PhD University of Toronto
Applied spatial econometrics, transportation demand forecasting, housing market analysis, and logistics management.

Songnian Li, Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering
PhD University of New Brunswick
Collaborative GIS and geographic visualization; spatial decision support systems (SDSS); Web-based and wireless mapping and GIS; spatiotemporal GIS.

Pamela Robinson, Associate Professor, School of Urban and Regional Planning
PhD University of Toronto
Urban sustainability, environmental design, environmental planning, urban governance, public engagement and progressive pedagogy.

Sara K. Thompson, Assistant Professor, Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology
PhD University of Toronto
Spatial distribution and social ecology of violent crime; urban violence; social inequality

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Spatial Analysis:
Program Details
Program-Related News

12 Sept 2013 – MSA faculty member Dr. Lu Wang and her former student Wei Hu (MSA ’12) published their research on “Immigrant health, place effect and regional disparities in Canada” in the widely read scientific journal Social Science & Medicine.

27 August 2013 – Today was orientation day for more than twenty new MSA students starting the program next week. Fernando Ozuna (MSA ’05), senior manager with one of the major Canadian banks, spoke to the incoming class about the transferability of spatial analysis skills and the power of maps as decision support tools.

03 July 2013 – Four students with MSA links and two MSA professors presented their research results at parallel conferences in Salzburg, Austria! Prof. S. Swales, incoming MSA student Colleen Middleton, and Prof. W. Forsythe presented "The Use of Geographic Information System (GIS) Analysis to Delimit a Protected Area for Old-growth Red Pine Forest in Wolf Lake, Temagami, Ontario, Canada" at the GI_Forum Symposium. In addition, Prof. W. Forsythe, Chris Marvin (Canada Centre for Inland Waters), current MSA student Cameron Hare, Joseph Aversa (MSA '10), Prof. Swales, Elfriede Eder (Franziskanergymnasium, Bozen, Italy) and Adrian Gawedzki (MSA '11) presented "Geovisualization of Arsenic in Lake Erie Sediments" at the 25th Applied Geographic Information Processing Symposium.

31 May 2013 – New major research projects by MSA faculty members! Drs. C. Rinner and P. Robinson are co-applicants on a Canada-wide, five-year SSHRC Partnership Grant. This funding will help support future MSA student research addressing the partnership’s central question of “How the geospatial web 2.0 is reshaping government-citizen interactions”. In addition, Dr. H. Bauder leads a three-year SSHRC Partnership Development Grant on “Integration trajectories of immigrant families”, in which Drs. S. Ghosh, T. Hernandez, and S. Wang are among the co-applicants.

22 May 2013 – Congratulations to Adrian Gawedzki (MSA '11) and Peter Rodriguez (MSA '09) for their article on “Geospatial Estimation of Mercury Contamination in Buffalo River Sediments” which was led by MSA faculty member Dr. Wayne Forsythe with colleagues Kim Irvine and Mary Perrelli from Buffalo State.

20 March 2013 – Alumni news: Congratulations to GIS Analyst Manoj Dangwal (MSA ’04) on winning a 2012 Employee Excellence Award at Allstate Insurance Company of Canada.

26 February 2013 – She did it again! Second peer-reviewed journal article by Lisa-Jen Ferrato (MSA ’12) on her research “Comparing Hyperspectral and Multispectral Imagery for Land Classification of the Lower Don River, Toronto” with supervisor Dr. Wayne Forsythe.

21 February 2013 – MSA program director Dr. Shuguang Wang led the publication of an article on “Recent Trends of Ethnic Chinese Retailing in Metropolitan Toronto”, which is partially based on Jason Zhong’s (MSA ’09) major research paper on “Delineating Ethnoburbs”.

15 February 2013 – Congratulations to MSA faculty member Dr. Doug Banting, who is part of a team that won a major research contract from the City of Toronto to develop “GIS-Based Hydrologic and Hydraulic Models for Combined-Sewer-System Management”. The Ryerson team will help the City to comply with new federal wastewater systems effluent regulations.

20 December 2012 – Congratulations to MSA faculty members Dr. Wayne Forsythe and Dr. Claus Rinner: Wayne received a 2012/13 Faculty Service Award for exceptional contributions to the Department of Geography, Faculty of Arts, Ryerson University, and the profession of Geography. He currently serves as Vice President of the Canadian Association of Geographers - Ontario Division (CAGONT). Claus received a 2012/13 Faculty SRC Award for outstanding achievements in scholarly, research, and creative activities. His research program and publication record is driven by MSA student research.

01 November 2012 – Emily Hazell (MSA ’12) gave an invited presentation on “Geographic variation and clustering of gastroschisis in Canada, 2005-2010” at the Canadian Congenital Anomalies Surveillance Network conference. This work was the outcome of Emily’s MSA Practicum in the Maternal-Infant Care Research Centre at Mount Sinai Hospital.

13 October 2012 – Four 2012 MSA graduates supervised by Professors Forsythe and Swales presented their research at the CAGONT conference this weekend. The work by L. Ferrato, J. Floroff, C. Krnic, and M. Wilson ranged from thermal energy site selection to land cover classification, fire modeling, and the analysis of river sediment contamination. And for the second year in a row, the CAGONT Master’s Research Paper award went to an MSA: Congratulations to Lisa Ferrato on her winning paper on “Comparing Hyperspectral and Multispectral Imagery for Land Cover Classification of the Lower Don River, Toronto”!

10 September 2012 – We are welcoming 24 new MSA students from a variety of education, career, and life paths into the program. We are looking forward to an exciting year of learning and collaboration. At the same time, 16 out of 17 fulltime and 2 out of 3 second-year parttime students have defended their major research papers and are working on their final revisions. Best of luck with your future endeavours!

 


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