Mike Worboys

Professor Mike Worboys BSc, MSc, PhD

Professor

Mike Worboys is Professor of Spatial Informatics at the University of Greenwich. He is a distinguished scientist of the ACM, life member of the London Mathematical Society, and was selected as member of Mapping Science Committee of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Mike has held Honorary Professorships at the Universities of Edinburgh and Melbourne, Australia. Previous positions include Director of the School of Computing and Information Science, University of Maine, USA and Professor of Computer Science at Keele University.

Mike has been a researcher in geographic information science for more than 30 years. His textbook, Geographic Information Systems: A Computing Perspective co-authored by Matt Duckham, has more than 2000 citations (Google Scholar, 2021). He is the author of more than 80 fully refereed research papers and is a founding editor of the Journal of Spatial Information Science. He has served on the editorial boards of most of the major international research journals and has been programme chair of several national and international geographic information science conferences. He has received substantial research funding from the UK, USA, and European funding agencies. He has given keynote addresses to many international conferences.

Mike’s recent publications can be found at https://gala.gre.ac.uk/cgi/facet/simple2?q=worboys&_action_search=

Mike has worked for many years at the boundary between computer science, mathematics, and geographic information science. His current research interests include:

  • Ontologies and data models for dynamic geographic phenomena, including those sensed by wireless sensor networks;
  • Formal models of the topology of spatial scenes;
  • Unified models of indoor and outdoor spaces;
  • Qualitative approaches to spatial reasoning under uncertainty;
  • Geospatial technology in the emergency management domain.

Computer science and informatics

Responsibilities within the university

Greenwich GIScience Group Leader

Awards
  • 2009 Selected as member of Mapping Science Committee (MSC) of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council.
  • 2008 University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS) 2008 Research Award
  • 2006 Association of Computing Machinery, Distinguished Scientist
  • 2004 University of Maine, School of Engineering, Dean's Award of Excellence
  • 2001 (joint with Matt Duckham) Best paper award for "Computational structure in three-valued nearness relations", International Conference on Spatial Information Theory, Morro Bay, CA, USA

Recognition
  • Distinguished Scientist of the ACM
  • Life Member of the London Mathematical Society
  • Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Spatial Information Science
  • Member of the Mapping Sciences Committee of the US U.S. National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council

Research / Scholarly interests

The boundary between computer science, mathematics, and geographic information science. Current research interests include:

  • Ontologies and data models for dynamic geographic phenomena, including those sensed by wireless sensor networks;
  • Formal models of the topology of spatial scenes;
  • Unified models of indoor and outdoor spaces;
  • Qualitative approaches to spatial reasoning under uncertainty;
  • Geospatial technology in the emergency management domain.

Key funded projects

A Galton (PI) (visitor M. Worboys), UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Council, Research Grant, Spatio-Temporal Knowledge Representation for Emergency Management, UKPounds 12, 900, 2010-11.

M. Worboys (PI), K. Beard, S. Nittel, A. Abedi, Global Relief Technologies, Critical Infrastructure and Logistical Assets, $490,000, 2009-2010.

M. Worboys (PI), N. Giudice, National Science Foundation, Research Grant, Proposal No: 0916219, III:RI:Small:Information integration and human interaction for indoor and outdoor spaces, $478,715, 2009-2012.

M. Worboys (PI), Government of South Korea, Indoor Spatial Awareness, $270,000, 2008-2011.

M. Worboys (PI), S. Nittel, National Science Foundation, Research Grant IIS-0534429, Monitoring dynamic spatial fields using responsive geosensor networks, $309,000, 2006-2009.

Recent publications

Article

Worboys, Michael and , Duckham, Matt (2021), Qualitative-geometric ‘surrounds’ relations between disjoint regions. Taylor and Francis. In: , , , . Taylor and Francis, International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 35 (5) . pp. 1032-1063 ISSN: 1365-8816 (Print), 1365-8824 (Online) (doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13658816.2020.1859513).

Both, Alan , Duckham, Matt, Worboys, Michael (2018), Identifying surrounds and engulfs relations in mobile and coordinate-free geosensor networks. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). In: , , , . Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), ACM Transactions on Spatial Algorithms and Systems, 4: 6 (2) ISSN: 2374-0353 (Print), 2374-0361 (Online) (doi: https://doi.org/10.1145/3234505).

Wang, Jia and , Worboys, Michael (2017), Ontologies and representation spaces for sketch map interpretation. Taylor & Francis. In: , , , . Taylor & Francis, International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 31 (9) . pp. 1697-1721 ISSN: 1365-8816 (Print), 1365-8824 (Online) (doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13658816.2017.1309043).

Wang, Jia , Duckham, Matt, Worboys, Michael, School of Mathematical and Geospatial Sciences, RMIT University (2016), A framework for models of movement in geographic space. Taylor and Francis Ltd.. In: , , , . Taylor and Francis Ltd., International Journal of Geographical Information Science (Special Issue: Analysis of Movement Data), 30 (5) . pp. 970-992 ISSN: 1365-8816 (Print), 1365-8824 (Online) (doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13658816.2015.1078466).

Conference item

Wang, Jia and , Worboys, Michael (2016), Pedestrian navigation aids, spatial knowledge and walkability. In: The 9th International Conference on Geographic Information Science, Tuesday, 27 September - Friday, 30 September 2016, Montreal, Canada , . , (doi: ).

Conference proceedings

Preston, William , Benford, Steve, Thorn, Emily-Clare, Koleva, Boriana , Rennick-Egglestone, Stefan , Mortier, Richard , Quinn, Anthony , Stell, John , Worboys, Michael (2017), Enabling hand-crafted visual markers at scale. ACM Press. In: , , , DIS '17 Proceedings of the 2017 Conference on Designing Interactive Systems. ACM Press, NY, USA . pp. 1227-1237 . ISBN: 9781450349222 (doi: https://doi.org/10.1145/3064663.3064746).

Klochkova, Olena , Wang, Jia, Wood, Zena Marie, Worboys, Michael (2017), Pedestrian route planning based on an enhanced representation of pedestrian network and probabilistic estimate of signal delays. GISRUK. In: GISRUK2017, 18th - 21st April 2017, Manchester, UK , GISRUK 2017 e-Proceedings. GISRUK, (63) . pp. 1-6 (doi: http://huckg.is/gisruk2017/GISRUK_2017_paper_63.pdf).

Wang, Jia , Wood, Zena Marie, Worboys, Mike (2016), Conflict in pedestrian networks. Springer International Publishing. In: , , , Geospatial Data in a Changing World. Springer International Publishing, , 4 . pp. 261-278 . ISBN: 9783319337838ISSN: 1863-2246 (Print), (doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33783-8_15).

Working paper

Worboys, Michael and , (2019), Qualitative geometric spatial relations between disjoint regions. Taylor and Francis Ltd.. In: , , , . Taylor and Francis Ltd., International Journal of Geographical Information Science ISSN: 1365-8816 (Print), (doi: ) NB Item availability restricted.

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