Stan Openshaw

rdf:langString Stan Openshaw

rdf:langString Stan Openshaw (10 August, 1946 – 19 May, 2022) was a British geographer. His last post was professor of human geography based in the School of Geography at the University of Leeds. After eighteen years at Newcastle University, including three years as professor of quantitative geography, he moved to work in Leeds in 1992. Openshaw was a researcher in computer-based geography and his work aimed to automate aspects of geographical research and reduce subjectivity in geographical analyses. He worked on geographical information systems, analysis technology and models. He debated the direction geography should take putting forward a view that the subject needed an applied and scientific edge that harnessed the growing power of computers to make positive impacts to help us avoid and mitigate risk and cope better with disasters. In 1992 he set up the Centre for Computational Geography (CCG) as an inter-disciplinary unit at the University of Leeds, an organisation dedicated to bringing computers to bear on complex social and physical problems. Openshaw directed the CCG for seven years until suffering a severely disabling stroke in 1999 after which he was retired. Openshaw became a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a Chartered Statistician in 1993, a Fellow of the Institute of Statisticians in 1983 and was a Member of the British Computer Society from 1983. In 2012 at the GISRUK conference in Lancaster a special session was arranged to celebrate his work and geographical career. Since his major, disabling stroke in 1999 Openshaw struggled to communicate verbally and get around.