Senior Lecturer
Shawn Laffan
ACADEMIC CAREER
Shawn graduated with a BSc (Hons) from ANU in 1994. After working at the CSIRO, Division of Water Resources, he worked on his PhD in the Geography and Human Ecology Department at ANU. He then spent fours years (1999-2002) as a lecturer in the Department of Geography & Human Ecology and in SRES at the ANU, teaching GIS and geomorphology.
The 10th International Conference on GeoComputation was held at UNSW between 31 Nov - 02 Dec 2009. Web Site
My broad research area is in spatial data analysis using GIS and geocomputational tools to understand and address geographic problems and issues. My current research focus is on biodiversity, disease modelling and terrain analysis.
Spatial data analysis can be applied across the biophysical-social spectrum, and recent applications include investigating the spatio-temporal spread of disease in animal populations, the spatial variation in genetic and taxonomic diversity at continental scales, identifying potential language groupings from historical word lists, environmental correlation analysis and predictions, the effect of error on spatial analyses, the spatial variation of weed infestations, and non-geometric models of spatial sampling for use in geostatistical modelling.
The 10th International Conference on GeoComputation was held at UNSW between 30 Nov - 02 Dec 2009. Web Site
SOFTWARE
-- Biodiverse --
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All of the biodiversity assessment analyses in my publications can be run using the Biodiverse software. This can be downloaded from www.purl.org/biodiverse (this will redirect you to the Google Code project page).
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SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
SELECTED RESEARCH STUDENTS
-- PhD --
Mayra Amboni (in progress) 'Assessing Australia's land mammal diversity in relation to conservation areas'
Giovanni Di Virgilio (in progress)
Olivia Mottram (in progress) 'Spatial distribution of primates in southern Africa' (joint supervision with Dr Darren Curnoe).
Jason Mumbulla (in progress) 'Reintroduction of the New Holland Mouse'
Dan Rosauer (2011) 'Techniques for spatial analysis of phylogenetic diversity' Publication
Erin Roger (2009) 'The persistence of common wombats in road impacted environments' (joint supervision with Dr Dan Ramp) Publication 1, Publication 2, Publication 3.
Sugianto (2006) 'Multi-angular hyperspectral data and its influences on soil and plant property measurements: spectral mapping and functional data analysis approach'.
-- MPhil --
Alex Gold (2009) 'Predicting and preventing the spread of lantana into the Blue Mountains' Publication
Wang Daming (2008) 'Morphometric characterisation of landform from DEMs' Publication 1 Publication 2
-- Honours --
Hugh Burley (2011) 'Distance and direction: compositional turnover in Myrtaceae species across eastern Australia' (joint supervision with Dr Kristen Williams)
Jason Mumbulla (2010) 'Factors which influence the persistence of the New Holland mouse (Pseudomys novahollandiae) at the landscape scale' (joint supervision with Dr Fred Ford)
Melissa Head (2008) 'Effectiveness of the GBMWHA reserve system over time' (joint supervision with Dr Dan Ramp)
Hunsamon Jumrieng (2007) 'Preliminary regolith classification of Cyprus using Functional Data Analysis of soil spectra'
Michael Galloway (2005) 'Stormwater pollutant concentrations and the success of current treatment trains in three urban sub-catchments in Sydney, Australia'.
Ruth Doran (2002) 'Simulating an outbreak of foot and mouth disease via feral pigs, Sus Scrofa, in Queensland using Cellular Automata' (Elspeth Crawford Medal). Publication
Dan Wilkins (2002) 'The timing and Rate of Channel Change in the Numeralla River: Implications for Synchronicity of Fluvial Response to Internal System Thresholds' (joint supervision with Dr Jon Olley).
Tanya Whiteway (2000) 'Fine sediment and pathogen budgets for the Googong catchment'. (joint supervision with Prof Bob Wasson). Publication
Staff Profile
Shawn Laffan
Contact Details
| Room: | 641A |
| Phone: | 9385 8093 |
| Fax: | 9385 1558 |
| Email: | shawn.laffan@unsw.edu.au |
