Email: portico-services@ucl.ac.uk
Help Desk: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ras/portico/helpdesk
- Reader in Geographical Information Science
- Dept of Civil, Environ &Geomatic Eng
- Faculty of Engineering Science
After graduating as an Electrical and Electronics Engineer from the Univesity of Malta, I immediately moved into the world of Geographical Information Systems, working internationally as a consultant, programmer and systems and data integrator for 10 years. I returned to academia temporarily in 1997 to complete an MSc in GIS at UCL, and commenced my PhD at UCL in 2003.
Following the PhD (which focussed on improving performance of 3D GIS analysis), I worked on two part-time post-docs, looking at developing systems for Community Engagement using Web Mapping and also at creating maps of fear of crime to support research into social excusion. I stated work as a lecturer at UCL in January 2010.


My research interests include 3D GIS, spatial databases, big data performance optimization and approaches for handling large quantities of spatial data. . I am also involved in a number of Spatial Data Infrastructures projects (http:// projectsecoa.eu), seeking to identify the most suitable mechanisms curate data and to share data amongst academic staff in an interdisciplinary, multi-national context. As part of this, I am investigating approaches to building usable systems to facilitate data discovery and evaluation, as well as to ensure metadata capture and maintenance processes are integrated into data manipulation tasks.
I am currently the Course Tutor on UCL's MSc in Geographical Information Science (GIS) and the Module Coordinator for two courses on the MSc - Web and Mobile GIS, which teaches students the skills required to develop spatially enabled mobile Apps, and Spatial Data Management, which covers the basics of spatial database and data management using traditional and NoSQL approaches. Additionally, I contribute to teaching on other undergraduate and postgraduate modules (Mapping Science, BASc, Civil/Enviromental Engineering, BIM), as well as tutoring second year Environmental Engineering students. I also organise a series of industry seminars to introduce GIS students to the various careers they can persue once they complete their MSc degree.
1998 | Master of Science | University College London | |
1992 | Bachelor of Engineering | University of Malta |