Stan Openshaw

Who is Stan Openshaw?

Stan Openshaw is a retired British geographer. His last post was professor of human geography based in the School of Geography at the University of Leeds. After eighteen years at Newcastle University, including three years as professor of quantitative geography, he moved to work in Leeds in 1992. Stan was a leading researcher in computer-based geography and his work aimed to automate aspects of geographical research and reduce subjectivity in geographical analyses. He worked hard and was not just enthusiastic, but inspirational and catalysed research, developed researchers, projects and collaborations, and helped to evolve geographical information systems, analysis technology and models that in their day were state-of-the-art. Stan is still passionate about geography and keen to learn about the employment of geographical approaches that attempt to make the world a better place. In the past, he debated the direction geography should take putting forward a view that the subject needed an applied and scientific edge that harnessed the growing power of computers to make positive impacts to help us avoid and mitigate risk and cope better with disasters.

In 1992 Stan set up the Centre for Computational Geography as an inter-disciplinary unit at the University of Leeds, an organisation dedicated to bringing computers to bear on complex social and physical problems. Stan directed the CCG for seven years until suffering a severely disabling stroke in 1999 after which he was retired.