colinr23 [at] gmail [dot] com

latest update: sept 2010 | possibly out of date pdf version | WLU page | WLU lab

| research interests |
My main interests are in the development and application of spatial-temporal analysis in ecology and spatial epidemiology.

My current research is focussed on novel surveillance for emerging and re-emerging zoonotic diseases. As the emergence of novel pathogens are commonly of animal origin (i.e. zoonotic), there is increasing recognition of the link between human and animal health. Linkages between human and animal health take place in a shared environment. GIS and spatial anaylsis offer a way to integrate and analyze data from disparate sources in space and time, and provide insights into changes in disease risk in the context of surveillance. My research considers the development of a surveillance system for emerging infectious disease risk, based on this idea, and will focus on technical implementation, analytical challenges, and system evaluation. A prototype surveillance database is being developed as part of a broader project for developing veterinary public health in Sri Lanka.

| academic background |

• PhD Candidate, SPAR Lab. Department of Geography. University of Victoria. Victoria, BC. February 2007 - present.
  
  
• MSc, SPAR Lab. Department of Geography. University of Victoria. Victoria, BC. September, 2005 - June, 2007.
  
  
• Advanced Diploma (Hons) in Geographic Information Systems. British Columbia Institute of Technology. Vancouver, BC September, 2003 - May, 2004.
  
  
• B.A. (Hons), Geography. Simon Fraser University. Vancouver, BC. September, 1998 - May, 2002.
  
  
• Certificate in Spatial Information Systems. Simon Fraser University. Vancouver, BC. September 2000 - May 2002.

| publications |

• Robertson, C., Sawford, K., Daniel, S.L.A., Nelson, T.A., Stephen, C. (2010). Mobile Phone-based Infectious Disease Surveillance System, Sri Lanka. Emerging Infectious Dieases. 15(10):1524
  
  
• Robertson, C., Nelson, T.A., MacNab, Y.C., Lawson, A.B. (2010). Review of methods for space-time disease surveillance. Spatial and Spatio-temporal Epidemiology. 1:105-116.
  
  
• Robertson, C., Nelson, T.A. (2010). Review of software for space-time disease surveillance. International Journal of Health Geographics. 9:16.
  
  
• Nelson, T.A., Duffus, D., Robertson, C., Laberee, K. and Feyrer, L.J. (2009). Spatial-temporal analysis of marine wildlife. Journal of Coastal Research. Special Issue 56: 1537-1541.
  
  
• Robertson, C., Nelson, T.A., Jelinski, D.E., Wulder, M.A. and Boots, B. (2009). Spatial-temporal analysis of species' range expansion: the case of the mountain pine beetle, Dendroctonus ponderosae. Journal of Biogeography. 36(8):1446-1458.
  
  
• Robertson, C., Farmer, C.J.Q., Nelson, T.A., Mackenzie, I.K., Wulder, M.A. and White, J.C. (2009). Determination of the compositional change (1999-2006) in the pine forests of British Columbia due to mountain pine beetle infestation. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment. 158:593-608.
  
  
• Robertson, C. and Farmer, C.J. (2008) Developing an open-source framework for surveillance and analysis of emerging zoonotic diseases. Proceedings of the Fifth National Symposium on Geo-Informatics of the Geo-Informatics Society of Sri Lanka. p. 123-134, July 25, 2008, Colombo, Sri Lanka.
  
  
• Robertson, C., Wulder, M.A., Nelson, T.A., and White, J.C. 2008. Risk rating for mountain pine beetle infestation of lodgepole pine forests over large areas with ordinal regression modelling. Forest Ecology and Management. 256(5):900-912.
  
  
• Nelson, T.A., Duffus, D. Robertson, C. and Feyrer, L-J (2008) Spatial-temporal patterns in intra-annual gray whale foraging: characterizing interactions between predators and prey in Clayquot Sound, British Columbia, Canada. Marine Mammal Science. 24(2): 356-370.
  
  
• Robertson, C., Nelson, T.A., Boots, B. and Wulder, M.A. (2007) STAMP : Spatial - temporal analysis of moving polygons. Journal of Geographical Systems. 9: 207-227.
  
  
• Robertson, C., Nelson, T.A., and Boots, B. (2007) Mountain pine beetle dispersal: the spatial-temporal interactions of infestation. Forest Science. 53(2):395-405.

| conference presentations |

• Robertson, C. (2010). Statistical modelling of spatial and temporal patterns in frontline veterinary surveillance data. Teasdale-Corti Global Health Research Project Workshop. July 27, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka.
  
  
• Robertson, C., Nelson, T.A., MacNab, Y.C., Lawson, A.B. (2010). Review of methods for space-time disease surveillance. NICDS Workshop on Statistical Methods for Geographic and Spatial Data in the Management of Natural Resources. March 3-5, Montreal, QC.
  
  
• Robertson, C., Sawford, K., Stephen, C., Daniel, S.L.A., and Nelson, T.A. (2009) Infectious Disease Surveillance and Analysis - Sri Lanka.[POSTER] GEOMED 2009. November 14-16, Charleston, SC.
  
  
• Robertson, C., Farmer, C.J.Q., Nelson, T.A., Mackenzie, I.K., Wulder, M.A., and White, J.C. (2009) Assessing compositional change in pine forests of British Columbia during a mountain pine beetle epidemic. Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers. March 22-27, Las Vegas, ND.
  
  
• Robertson, C. Wulder, M.A., Nelson, T.A. and White, J.C. (2009) The effects of landscape pattern on mountain pine beetle spread. Spatial Knowledge and Information Conference. Feb 20-21, Fernie, BC
  
  
• Robertson, C. and Farmer, C.J. (2008) Developing an open-source framework for surveillance and analysis of emerging zoonotic diseases. Fifth National Symposium on Geo-Informatics of the Geo-Informatics Society of Sri Lanka. July 25, 2008, Colombo, Sri Lanka.
  
  
• Robertson, C., Wulder, M.A., Nelson, T.A. and White, J.C. (2008) Augmenting an existing rating system for mountain pine beetle infestation of lodgepole pine forests. Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers. April 15-19, Boston, MA.
  
  
• Robertson, C. and Nelson, T.A. (2008) A comparison of methods for computing cardinal directional relations between polygons. Spatial Knowledge and Information Conference. Feb 15-17, Fernie, BC
  
  
• Robertson, C., Nelson, T.A., Wulder, M.A., and Boots, B. (2007) Mountain pine beetle movement patterns during range expansion. Best paper, Environment Category. Annual General Meeting of the Canadian Association of Geographers. May 29 - June 2, Saskatoon, Sask.
  
  
• Robertson, C., Nelson, T.A., Boots, B. and Wulder, M.A. (2007) STAMP: Spatial-temporal analysis of moving polygons. Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers. April 17 -21, San Francisco, CA.
  
  
• Robertson, C. Nelson, T., Boots, B. and Wulder, M.A. (2007) Spatial-temporal analysis of moving polygons. Annual Meeting of the Western Division, Canadian Association of Geographers. March 9-10, Abbotsford.
  
  
• Robertson, C. and Nelson, T. (2006) An exploratory analysis into mountain pine beetle dispersal. Annual Meeting of the Western Division, Canadian Association of Geographers. March 10-11, Kamloops.

| teaching and lectures |

• October 2010: Overview of scan statistics for disease surveillance. British Columbia Ministry of Healthy Living and Sport. Victoria, B.C., Canada. - Guest Lecture
  
  
• August 2010: Frontline animal health surveillance: Development and analysis in Sri Lanka. National Centre for Geocomputation. National University of Ireland, Maynooth Ireland. - Guest Lecture
  
  
• July 2010: Teasdale-Corti Global Public Health Research Partnership Workshop: Spatial Analysis of Disease Data. University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka.
  
  
• May 2010: Spatial analysis of emerging, expanding, and epidemic processes. Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
  
  
• November 2009: Geography Department Colloquium - Bumbling Down the Long and Winding Road: A dispatch from the PhD frontlines. University of Victoria, Victoria, B.C., Canada. - Guest Lecture
  
  
• October 2009: GEOG 439 - Frontline Infectious Disease Surveillance in Sri Lanka: Progress, challenges & opportunities University of Victoria, Victoria, B.C., Canada. - Guest Lecture
  
  
• August 2009: Introduction to Space-Time Disease Surveillance, Population Data BC Summer Workshop. University of Victoria, Victoria, B.C., Canada. - Instructor.
  
  
• June 2009: GeoDa Workshop. BC Centre for Disease Control, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. - Instructor
  
  
• June, 2009: Teasdale-Corti Global Public Health Research Partnership Workshop: GIS and Spatial Analysis for Veterinary Applications. University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. - Instructor
  
  
• March 2009: GEOG 428 - Disease Surveillance. University of Victoria, Victoria, B.C., Canada. - Guest Lecture
  
  
• January - April, 2009: GEOG 418/518 - Advanced Spatial Analysis and Geostatistics. University of Victoria, Victoria, B.C., Canada. - Course Instructor
  
  
• July 2008: GIS/RS MSc Students - Introduction to GIS and Spatial Analysis University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. - Guest Lecture
  
  
• September - December, 2005: GEOG 329 - GIS for Social Sciences. University of Victoria, Victoria, B.C., Canada. - Teaching assistant
  
  
• September - December, 2006: GEOG 328 - GIS for Natural Sciences. University of Victoria, Victoria, B.C., Canada. - Teaching assistant
  
  

| awards |

• 2009 Ajaib Singh Sangha Memorial Scholarship
  
  
• 2008 UVIC President's Research Award
  
  
• 2008 NSERC Post-Graduate Scholarship
  
  
• 2008 Spatial Knowledge and Information Conference Paper 2nd Place Prize
  
  
• 2007 Ajaib Singh Sangha Memorial Scholarship
  
  
• 2007 CAG Annual Meeting Best Paper Prize, GIS Category
  
  
• 2007 CAG Annual Meeting Best Paper Prize, Environment Category
  
  
• 2007 Pacific Century Graduate Scholarship
  
  
• 2006 ESRI UC Student Assistantship
  
  
• 2006 Pacific Forestry Centre Graduate Student Award
  
  
• 2006 Derrick Sewell Graduate Scholarship
  
  
• 2005 Pacific Forestry Centre Graduate Student Award