University of Michigan,
School of Natural Resources and Environment
The interdisciplinarity of UM is truly amazing. I have been able to take courses in Political Science, Center for Studying Complex Systems (CSCS), Planning, and the School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE). I became a Ph.D. candidate on Sept. 9, 2005 and will finish in the winter term of 2009. If you're interested in the areas in which I have focused during my Ph.D. have a look at my course of study document. Also take a look at my research page.
Here is a picture of my committee. They definitely are a tough bunch to satisfy! From left to right: William Currie (Ecosystem Modeller), Dan Brown (Environmental Modeller), Derek T. Robinson (Geographer), Rick Riolo (Computer Scientist), and Scott Page (Political Scientist/Economist).
NIH Roadmap Initiative "Population, Land Use Change, &
Health Frontier Regions."
In May - 2006 - I attended the final of 3 NIH Roadmap workshops that were designed to "bring together representatives of [several] each case study site[s] and a small group of spatial modelers to examine ABM and CA approaches (and plans) of each of the case study groups (where appropriate), mechanisms for synthesizing across sites, and the challenges for moving beyond case studies." The workshop was held for 3 days from May 17-19, 2006 at the East-West Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. The workshops were organized by Ronald R. Rindfuss, Barbara Entwisle, and Stephen J. Walsh of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
From left to right. Back Row: Derek Robinson, Peter Deadman, Daniel Brown, Tom Evans. Middle Row: Emilio Moran, Stephen Walsh, Marc Linderman, Peter Verburg, William Parton, Carlos Mena, Nathan Badenoch, Maggi Kelly, Joe Messina, Jianguo Liu. Front Row: Pramote Prasartkul, Myron Gutmann, Yothin Sawangdee, An Li, Dawn Parker, Barbara Entwisle, Pornwilai Saipothong, Gang Zhong, and George Malanson. Missing: Jefferson Fox, Ronal Rindfuss.
Multi-Agent Modelling and Collaborative Planning
Method2Method Workshop.
The M2M workshop was coorganized by Thomas Berger, Franz Gatzweiler, Marco Huigen, Dawn Parker, Derek T. Robinson, and Heidi Wittmer. It took place in Bonn - Germany, at the Center for Development Research (ZEF) Oct. 8-9, 2005. The workshop had two goals 1) improve our understanding of what are the uses and limitations of combining empirical data from different data collection techniques with agent-based models, and 2) critically discuss the possbility, uses, and types of land-use modelling primitives and model sharing techniques to increase model building efficiency, understanding, and sharing. I delivered a presentation on land-use modelling primitives with the following slides. The workshop was problem-based and used a case study focused on coffee farmers in Ethiopia a frame of reference for uniting our discussions. The data collection techniques that were discussed were spatial inference, household surveys, participatory observations, companion modelling, and field experiments. The outline of the workshop with further details is provided.
From left to right. Back row: Nicolas Becu, Dan Brown, Oliver Jungklaus, Richard Aspinall, Thomas Berger, Nick Gotts, Pieter Van Oel, Kathrin Happe, Franz Gatzweiler. Middle row: Warong Naivinit, Panomsak Promburom, Ole Benjamin Schroeder, Dawn Parker, Marco Janssen, Pepijn Schreinemachers, Heidi Wittmer. Front row: Maction Komwa, Marco Huigen, Derek Robinson, and Koen Ovenmars. Attendents missing from photo are listed in the workshop outline.
Summer Institute on Agent-based Modeling and Natural Resources
This summer program was focused on agent-based modeling techniques in the field of environmental and natural resource management. Held at Indiana University by CIPEC and instructed by Marco Janssen and Francois Bousquet, the attendents participated in lectures, discussions, and worked collaboratively on ABM techniques related to environmental and natural resource management topics. Participants also presented and discussed their research as a forum to obtain critiques and advice from peers in their related fields. After the institute I also had the priviledge to attend the workshop on Empirical techniques for testing agent based models also held by CIPEC at IU.
From Left to Right. Back Row: Heather Leslie, Marco Huigen, Marco Janssen, Francois Bousquet, Moira Zellner, Shade Shutters, Tei Laine, Alessio Sebastiano. Front Row: Daniel Castillo, Andrew Kliskey, Alex Smajgl, Panomsak Probronum, and Derek Robinson.
Santa Fe Institute Complex Systems Summer School Program
I was very fortunate to have the chance to attend the Santa Fe Institute Complex Systems Summer School Program. I find it fascinating that everyone that I have talked to who has attended the summer school program describes their time at the school as magical. I guess when you are blessed with amazing lecturers and cutting edge topics, 50 of the brightest and most open graduate students, 20 of the nicest and most knowledgable people private industry has to offer, amazing geography, and one good mountain bike to take serious punishment.... Its hard not to find Santa Fe magical...
Aside from the "magic", I worked on a project, with Britton Shepardson - an anthropologist at the University of Hawaii, to create a simple model of the commons dilemma. Exploration of the model space demonstrated that it is possible for private individuals to outlast the commons when heterogeneity is accounted for in both the population and the environment. I also worked on a project that attempted to define and model the influence and feedback effects that local area land use and land cover change have on local area climate and vice versa. Todd Bendor, Brian Powell, Jeff Belicki, and myself were able to merely scratch the surface of this magnanimous topic; however, that one scratch may grow deeper and larger with time.
Master's of Environmental Studies, University of Waterloo,
Faculty of Environmental Studies
During my Master's I continued specialising in geomatics and majoring in geography; however, it was at this time that I moved on from GIS and Remote Sensing to Agent-Based Modeling (ABM) under Dr. Peter Deadman (advisor). My thesis "Modelling Farmer Household Decision Making and its Effects on Land Use/Cover Change in the Altamira Region, Para, Brazil" involved the creation of an ABM to explore the effects that the changing household structure and size of Brazilian subsistence farmers had on deforestation trends and farmer decision making. The model was built to complement a conceptual model developed from survey research by Brondizio et al. (2002) and McCracken et al. (2002). Results from comparing model outcomes with remotely sensed data showed significant similarities in deforestation trends and therefore further strengthened the conceptual model and idea that a direct link exists between household structure and size, and rates of deforestation.
Bachelor of Environmental Studies, University of Waterloo,
Faculty of Environmental Studies
I was very fortunate to have been accepted into (and completed!) the Bachelor of Environmental Studies Honours Co-operative Degree, major in geography. The co-operative degree is unique in that students alternate between school and work every four months. This amazing opportunity created much of my work experience, and I was still able to obtain the Certificate of Excellence in GIS, a minor in economics, specialisation in information technologies, and play regularly in two rock bands. My senior honours thesis "Campground Management Facilitated by Geographical Information Systems and Visual Basic" combined remotely sensed images, GIS, and Visual Basic programming with MapObjects to create a software product that could be used to manage both spatial and nonspatial characteristics of a campground owned by my family.