Professor James Cheshire is Deputy Director of our Geographic Data Service. He is Professor of Geographic Information and Cartography in the UCL Department of Geography. He is also the Director of the UCL Social Data Institute. 

James co-authored the critically acclaimed books London: The Information Capital, Where the Animals Go and Atlas of the Invisible.

He is the recipient of a number of major awards from the Royal Geographical Society, The American Association of Geographers, The North American Cartographic Information Society and British Cartographic Society. He was President of the Society of Cartographers between 2017 and 2019.

James’ research focuses on the use of new forms of data for the study of social science. He has published in a range of journals. Topics include the use of cycle hire schemes, the spatial analysis of surnames and new ways to visualise population data.

James completed a BSc (1st Class Hons.) in Physical Geography at the University of Southampton before undertaking a PhD in GIScience at UCL. His topic was the spatial analysis and visualisation of large surname databases. After completing his PhD he was appointed Lecturer in Advanced Spatial Analysis and Visualisation at the Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis at UCL. Later he moved to the UCL Department of Geography where he became Associate Professor of Quantitative Human Geography before promotion to full professor in 2019.

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