Brian Lees (born Scotland, 1944; Educated

Royal High School, Edinburgh The Royal High School (RHS) of Edinburgh is a co-educational school administered by the City of Edinburgh Council. The school was founded in 1128 and is one of the oldest schools in Scotland. It serves 1,200 pupils drawn from four feeder primar ...

) is an Australian

geographer A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society, including how society and nature interacts. The Greek prefix "geo" means "earth" a ...

and was the

editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The highest-ranking editor of a publication may also be titled editor, managing ...

of the ''

International Journal of Geographical Information Science ''International Journal of Geographical Information Science'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Taylor & Francis. The editor-in-chief is May Yuan (University of Texas at Dallas), who succeeded Brian Lees (University of Ne ...

''. Lees started off as Regional Editor for the Western Pacific in 1997 and took over as Editor-in-Chief in 2007. He handed over to Professor May Yuan in January 2017. He is an

emeritus professor ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

at the

University of New South Wales The University of New South Wales (UNSW), also known as UNSW Sydney, is a public research university based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is one of the founding members of Group of Eight, a coalition of Australian research-intensive ...

, School of Physical, Environmental & Mathematical Sciences, where he was appointed professor of

geography Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and ...

in February 2006.

Career

Lees has been an

RAF officer The officer ranks of the Royal Air Force, as they are today, were introduced in 1919. Prior to that Army ranks were used. Ranks Notes Origins Lieutenant General David Henderson (British Army officer), David Henderson originally proposed t ...

(Flight Navigator) and served in the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

No. 60 Squadron RAF, (Operation Hallmark: a sensitive intelligence operation in which Pembrokes were fitted with high-powered reconnaissance cameras to acquire imagery of Soviet and East German military installations and airfields below tightly controlled air corridors ), and Africa. After his military service, he obtained a commercial pilot license and a Air navigation, flight navigator license. His career in geography began with flying as a navigator for ADASTRA AERIAL SURVEYS, engaged in

mineral exploration Mining in the engineering discipline is the extraction of minerals from underneath, open pit, above or on the ground. Mining engineering is associated with many other disciplines, such as mineral processing, exploration, excavation, geology, and ...

and mapping projects. Beginning in 1977 he co-partnered in joint ventures and became a director of two small companies engaged in exploration and exploration manager of a third company. He received his

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

in 1984 from the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's si ...

and then joined the

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and ...

in 1985. Currently, his main research interests are

global change Global change in broad sense refers to planetary-scale changes in the Earth system. It is most commonly use to encompass the variety of changes connected to the rapid increase in human activities which started around mid-20th century, i.e. the ...

, predictive mapping of land cover, and

land degradation Land degradation is a process in which the value of the biophysical environment is affected by a combination of human-induced processes acting upon the land. It is viewed as any change or disturbance to the land perceived to be deleterious ...

. Lees is also a special invited professor at the Institute of Soil and Water Conservation (

Chinese Academy of Sciences The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); ), known by Academia Sinica in English until the 1980s, is the national academy of the People's Republic of China for natural sciences. It has historical origins in the Academia Sinica during the Republ ...

). Additionally, he is a commissioner and past chairman of the ''International Geographical Union Commission on Geographical Information Science''.

Awards

* The Australasian Institute of Spatial Information Science and Technology (AISIST) Prize in recognition of a “substantial contribution to the study of the science of Urban and Regional Information Systems”, 1997. * The Land Victoria Fellowship, University of Melbourne, 1999. * The Eminent Individual Award; Australasian Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (AURISA) 1999. * Fellow of the Australasian Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (AURISA) 2003. * Fellow of the Spatial Sciences Institute (SSI) 2004. * Fellow of the Institute of Australian Geographers 2009.

Published works

Lees is a co-author of ''Advances in Digital Terrain Analysis: Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography'', published in 2008 by

Springer Science+Business Media Springer Science+Business Media, commonly known as Springer, is a German multinational publishing company of books, e-books and peer-reviewed journals in science, humanities, technical and medical (STM) publishing. Originally founded in 1842 in ...

, and has authored and co-authored a number of papers and book chapters in

peer-reviewed Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...

scientific journal In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. Content Articles in scientific journals are mostly written by active scientists such as s ...

s. And with Shawn Laffan, "The lande of Java on the Jean Rotze Mappa Mundi", ''The Globe,'' no. 85, 2019.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lees, Brian University of Sydney alumni Academic staff of the University of New South Wales Academic staff of the Australian National University Australian geographers Living people 1944 births People educated at the Royal High School, Edinburgh Commercial aviators