The Center for Spatial Studies promotes excellence in interdisciplinary research, supporting spatial thinking in a variety of ways. We organize research-oriented events, such as the ongoing ThinkSpatial Brown Bag presentations for the local community and our annual Specialist Meetings. Learn more about our Research Resources.
Our current research projects are described below.
Introduction
The Core Concepts of Spatial Information are designed to facilitate spatial computing and reduce its complexity. They also serve as conceptual lenses on environments, allowing for different perspectives on them, fed by data with any sort of spatial reference. We specify the Core Concepts as Abstract Data
Types (ADT), defining a set of core computations for each concept, through which users can ask spatial questions (Kuhn & Ballatore, 2015). The ultimate goal is a generic Application Programming Interface
(API) for spatial computing. Read more…
Period: 2015–2020
Co-PI’s: UCSB Library and Werner Kuhn (Center for Spatial Studies)
Researchers: Sara Lafia
This research is studied the challenges and strategies that libraries and researchers face in trying to discover linked spatial data via metadata on diverse platforms and in a variety of environments. The research was carried out in a collaboration between the UCSB Library and the Center for Spatial Studies.
Contact: Werner Kuhn
Tags: spatial discovery, library, metadata, spatial search
PI: Javiera Barandiaran (Global & International Studies)
Co-PI’s: Werner Kuhn (Center for Spatial Studies), Lisa Parks (Film & Media Studies), Paul Amar (Global & International Studies), Stephan Miescher (History), Corey Byrnes (East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies).
What are developing countries doing to switch to cleaner energies and with what effects? How are they participating in the rise of new energy challenges? Can they benefit from new energy sources, such as lithium used in electric cars? Or are fossil fuels still black gold, as Brazil’s recent oil discoveries suggest? Orfalea Research Cluster funds are creating a cluster around humanities approaches to energy issues, focused on the intersecting challenges of development and climate change. Participating faculty bring expertise from around the world, with on-going or planned research projects in Ghana, Brazil, Bolivia, and China, and from a range of energy technologies: oil, lithium, hydroelectric, and mobile energy sources. We create cross-departmental collaborations that will inform our research and teaching efforts. The result will be the improved academic capacity to discuss energy choices in environmental, social, and political contexts, as well as in economic and engineering concerns. We will learn about and explore ways in which mapping technologies and spatial data can support humanities-based research on energy issues, and vice versa. These efforts are carried out at a series of cluster meetings in various educational and research settings and will culminate in a conference showcasing a leading researcher in this field that will attract students and faculty from across campus.
Contact: Werner Kuhn
Tags: clean energy, sustainability, humanities

Aspects of the project include simulation and uncertainty quantification, developing methods of visualizing uncertainty, and evaluating these visualizations by examining perception, cognition, and decision making in the presence of visualizations of uncertainty. This project is supported by the National Science Foundation.
Contact: Mary Hegarty
Home page: http://visunc.sci.utah.edu
Tags: uncertainty, visualization, perception, decision making

Contact: Keith Clarke
Home pages: http://stcenter.net/stc, http://spatial.ucsb.edu/stc
Tags: Spatiotemporal analysis, spatial thinking, spatial computing
Contact: Werner Kuhn
Tags: geographic information, API
Home page: http://labs.psych.ucsb.edu…
Contact: Mary Hegarty
Tags: sense of direction, spatial cognition

Home page: http://lodum.de/life
Contact: Werner Kuhn
Tags: linked data, eScience, semantic web
Contact: Andrea Ballatore
Tags: sentiment analysis, opinion mining, place, natural language processing
See also the archive of our former research projects.