Special Session in Celebration of Stan Openshaw’s Work
A special session is being arranged at GISRUK 2012 to celebrate the work and career of Stan Openshaw. Sadly Stan was retired from his post as a professor of human geography at the University of Leeds back in the year 2000 following a severe stroke. No event has yet been held in celebration of the brilliant and remarkable contributions Stan made to geography. Stan turned 65 in August and although wheel chair bound and still unable to talk much, he is very keen to come to GISRUK for something of a celebration in the hope of also meeting up with friends. The plan is that Stan will join the conference on the Friday, peruse the posters and enjoy the atmosphere of GISRUK, assist in some of the prize giving, and be present for the special session in his honour. Details of this special session are yet to be worked out, but if you are interested in contributing ideas or something of a presentation, please contact Andy Turner (a.g.d.turner@leeds.ac.uk) at the University of Leeds in the first instance.
Stan spent about 25 years based at Newcastle University before moving to Leeds in 1992. A pioneer of the GIS revolution, Stan pushed the development and application of geo-technology to address problems facing society. He was inspirational to many researchers and students and the legacy of his work continues to inspire newcomers to GIS research related fields. Stan was a brilliant communicator and few would forget his presentation style that was energetic and involved something of a bombardment of visual snapshots that were always thought provoking and questioning. A bibliography of Stan’s work and details of projects he was involved with are being linked from his CCG web page and from his Wikipedia biography page. We hope that some of Stan’s contemporaries and students will join us for the day so that we can reminisce, develop a collection of personal messages for Stan, perhaps clarify some of the history and also consider the work Stan contributed to and its and our future
