Dr Jonny Huck

Biography

Dr Jonny Huck is a Senior Lecturer in Geographical Information Science in the Department of Geography at the University of Manchester, and an Honorary Professor of Geographical Information Science at Gulu University, Uganda. He has a BSc with First Class Honours in Geography from the Lancaster University, a MSc with Distinction in Geographical Information Systems from the University of Leeds, and a PhD in Geographical Information Science from Lancaster University.

Jonny is a specialist in geospatial software development. His research focuses upon the application of GIS technologies to humanitarian applications in the Global South, with a particular focus upon healthcare and resource allocation. He also has a long standing interest in the representation of vague geographical entities in Participatory GIS, and in understanding behavioural patterns through geospatial modelling, usually in the Global South and in post-conflict societies. He maintains the freely available Map-Me PGIS platform and the Shed Earth web tool for dating granite exposure.

Prior to moving to academia, Jonny was the Technical Manager of a UK Wind Farm developer. He continues to operate his GIS consultancy Lune Geographic and software development company Flying Turtle Ltd. Jonny was honoured with a fellowship of Furness College at Lancaster University in 2016 and an honorary Chair in Geographical Information Science at Gulu University, Uganda in 2019.

Jonny is Chair of the Mapping: Culture and GIScience Research Group and GIS Lead for the interdisciplinary Digital Humanities group at the University of Manchester. He is the Chair of the GIS Research UK (GISRUK) National Steering Committee, having previously chaired the 25th GISRUK Conference, held in 2017 at The University of Manchester. In 2018 he was awarded the University of Manchester Social Responsibility Award for Outstanding Contribution to Social Innovation for his Community Mapping Uganda project (formerly #Huckathon).