Dr. Timothy D. James

I am originally from southern Ontario, but I spent much of my early years in Haliburton’s cottage country, where I acquired a love of nature and its landscapes, which later developed into an interest in the mechanisms of their formation and how they change over time. After graduating with a B.Sc.H. from Queen’s University, specializing in GIS and remote sensing, I headed overseas to undertake a Master's at the University of Cambridge where I developed expertise in terrain modelling and applied my new-found skills to forest ecology research. I then headed north to the University of Leeds where my Ph.D. research investigated terrain modelling for high-precision applications (e.g., flood plain modelling), developing approaches for managing quality issues of large topographic data sets derived from aerial photography and laser altimetry. As I finished my Ph.D., I was invited to join the Glaciology Group at Leeds after which point I began working with stunning satellite and aerial imagery of glaciers and ice caps in Svalbard and Greenland. After completing two postdoctoral research fellowships (and 14 Arctic field expeditions), I took on the project management responsibilities of the Climate Change Consortium of Wales (C3W); a consortium of Welsh Universities whose aim was to establish a global centre of excellence for climate research. With my time split between project management, field logistics, research, and teaching, I was able to develop skills for managing large, multi-stakeholder projects and logistically demanding field work while maintaining my academic responsibilities. When C3W wrapped up, I finally returned to Canada (after nearly 20 years) and set my sights on the NGO sector, becoming a scientific advisor and consultant for WWF-Canada and WWF’s Arctic Programme while simultaneously establishing my communications business, High Impact Communications, which specializes in crafting and editing projects that target high impact journals and other outlets.

Last but not least, I have taught at all levels of undergraduate and graduate education, and my teaching interests are broad. However, I remember vividly during my early years at Queen’s being enthralled by my first-year physical geography module where I learned about all the processes behind the landforms I knew so well from several childhood cross country road trips and drives through Ontario’s cottage country. For this reason, I really enjoy introducing new students to the wonderful world of geomorphology and quantitative methods for change detection monitoring.
 

Credentials:

• B.Sc.H. (Queen's) 1996
• M.Phil. (Cambridge) 1997
• Ph.D. (Leeds) 2004

Curriculum Vitae (pdf, 213kB)