Prof Josef Strobl is Professor at the University of Salzburg, leading its Department of Geoinformatics. He holds degrees in Geography from Vienna University and has been teaching GIScience and related subjects at universities worldwide. He is a full member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and head of its Commission for Geographic Information Science. As a founding director of the iSPACE Research Studio and the ÖAW Department for GIScience he has established academic research beyond university environments. Serving as a board member for international academic organizations in the geospatial domain and on the editorial boards of leading journals in Geoinformatics and GIScience, he is promoting and spearheading various educational, organizational and research initiatives.

Josef Strobl works with researchers focusing on geospatial modeling and simulation, spatial analysis and distributed architectures for Spatial Knowledge Infrastructures. Current interests aim at real time and mobile services, terrain analysis and dynamic process modeling, facilitating applications in planning, citizen science and public participation as well as resource management. Prof. Strobl has been instrumental in developing and implementing the worldwide UNIGIS postgraduate distance learning programme, and is working with a global network of partner institutions towards education, curriculum development, basic and applied research in Geographic Information Science. Geographic and Geospatial education on multiple levels and within various communities is at the top of his agenda, reaching from initiating major GIS Day events to the establishment of the iDEAS:lab outreach facility at the Science City Salzburg, and fostering excellence through the design of international graduate programmes.

Having founded the annual AGIT and GI_Forum symposia in Salzburg decades ago, communicating the progress, practice and perspectives of geospatial technologies and methods is at the core of Josef Strobl’s agenda. He looks forward to meeting alumni, project partners, friends and colleagues at these and other opportunities to re-connect!