Dr Roger Beecham
- Position: Associate Professor in Visual Data Science
- Areas of expertise: data visualization; applied data science; usable statistics; open source computing
- Email: R.J.Beecham@leeds.ac.uk
- Location: 10.139 Irene Manton Building
- Website: Personal homepage | Twitter | ORCID
Profile
Roger Beecham is Associate Professor in Visual Data Science and is affiliated with the Leeds Institute for Data Analytics (LIDA). Roger joined Leeds in 2017 after completing a PhD and postdoc at the giCentre. His research develops, applies and evaluates visualization techniques in the analysis of large social science datasets. This spans several disciplinary areas: Information Visualization, Spatial Statistics, Transport, Political Geography and Crime Science. He has published award-winning methodological research in top journals in Data Visualization (IEEE TVCG, CGF), as well as applied studies in leading journals in Transport (TRC) and Geography (E&P A).
Research interests
Roger's PhD research, with Transport for London, developed interactive visualization tools for exploring spatial structure in large-scale transport datasets. His postdoc, with West Midlands Police, developed new visualization techniques to support multivariate spatiotemporal analysis and improve crime monitoring and reporting, as well as innovative empirical work investigating how spatial statistics are perceived in data graphics (see Map LineUps). At Leeds, Roger has applied novel visualization techniques in the analysis of labour market geography, recent electoral outcomes including the 2019 UK General Election and Trump vote and the geographic spread of Covid-19. A more recent interest is in the role of visulization in shaping scientific model-building and communication, particularly in the context of transparent statistics.
Roger is currently co-I on an Alan Turing Institute funded project designing and building web-based systems for exploratory spatial data analysis and SaferActive, a project applying data science techniques to research aspects of road safety.
For the latest updates see Roger’s personal research page.
<h4>Research projects</h4> <p>Any research projects I'm currently working on will be listed below. Our list of all <a href="https://environment.leeds.ac.uk/dir/research-projects">research projects</a> allows you to view and search the full list of projects in the faculty.</p>Qualifications
- PhD GIScience, University of London
- BA Geography, Durham University (Robin Mills Award)
Student education
Roger develops modules for teaching Data Science to Geographers (example here).
Research groups and institutes
- Centre for Spatial Analysis and Policy