Biography
I was born in Ottawa, Ontario and moved around the country as my father
was in the RCAF. I entered Queen's in electrical engineering but left
for teacher training at Toronto Teacher's College where I graduated in
1962 and taught grades 6-8 in North York from 1962-65. During that period
I took university extension courses at Queen's. I then enrolled full-time
at Queen's in 1965 graduating with a B.A.(Hons) in 1967. I went to the
University of Bristol in England for my Ph.D. (1973) under a Commwealth
Scholarship. I returned to Queen's in 1970 as a lecturer in Geography
and in 1990 I became the Director of the GIS Lab.
Teaching and Research Interests
I arrived in Bristol just as the massive 1967-8 Foot and Mouth Disease
epizootic in livestock in the UK began. Early reports about the spread
of this disease suggested that traditional views about its spread were
flawed and that new knowledge was essential to developing effective control
programs. Furthermore, geography appeared to be an excellent vehicle for
undertaking research to determine the factors affecting the spread of
the disease. That initial research focus has lead me to work in developing
Geographic Information Systems, simulation models of disease and management
informations systems for solving issues in the epidemiology and control
of animal and human infectious and chronic diseases. For some twenty years,
I have been active in helping agencies in Canada and the United States
to understand the spread of rabies in North America . That work has lead
to the development of control programs in Canada and the United States
that use millions of air-dropped baits containing vaccine to immunize
wildlife populations. As well, my current work includes the development
of disease surveillance systems, workload management algorithms for the
provision of home care, community information systems for social service
planning, emergency response systems, assessment of the location and allocation
of cancer care clinics and radio and sonar telemetry for monitoring the
location of terrestrial and underwater species. Key tenets of our work
is that properly designed and implemented information systems and an understanding
of spatial dynamics of the process under study are essential for efficient
decision making.
Currently Funded Research Projects:
Principal Investigator
The Spread and Control of Rabies (Grants from the Ontario Ministry of
Natural Resources and the United States Department of Agricuture)
Assessing the location of Cancer Care Clinics in Ontario (Cancer Care
Ontario Grant)
Home Care Workload Management (Community Care Access Center Contract)
Early Years On-Line Resources for Everyone (EYORE) (Ontario Ministry of
Community & Social Services Contract)
Co-Investigator
Underwater Ecological Observatory (Industrial Development Grant from Lotek
Engineering)
Publications
Publications to follow. |
Dr.
Rowland Tinline
Biography