Keiron Bailey

Professor, Geography & Regional Development

PhD 2002 Department of Geography University of Kentucky
MA 1996 Department of Geography University of Hawai'i at Manoa
BSc 1991 Department of Geography University of Birmingham
BEng 1988 Department of Mechanical Engineering University of Birmingham

Phone: (520) 626-4096
FAX: (520) 621-2889
E-mail: kbailey@email.arizona.edu

445A Harvill Building, Box #2
Tucson, AZ 85721-0076
USA

Research

My first research program is directed at understanding how geospatial and geovisual technologies can improve public satisfaction with infrastructure and policy decision making. I have developed a protocol called Structured Public Involvement (SPI) that integrates geovisual and geospatial technologies into multi-stakeholder problem domains. Theoretically SPI research is situated at the intersection of decision theory, cultural geography, geographic information science and planning. In practice SPI is aimed at understanding how groups make sense of information using specific geospatial and geovisual media. Key questions include how do groups use and deploy GIS and urban 3D and Virtual Reality visualizations; which aspects of these technologies are useful and to whom; and how the sociotechnical system, comprised of many actors with sometimes competing interests and differing understandings of the tools, creates knowledge from these tools. Since the work deals primarily with real planning or design questions it requires intensive collaboration with a wide range of stakeholder groups.

SPI methodologies include Casewise Visual Evaluation, or CAVE, and the Analytic Minimum Impedance Surface, or AMIS. CAVE is a non-linear fuzzy logic modeling system that enables designers to predict group preference for designs based on evaluations of a small set of possible image samples. CAVE reduces data requirements and enhances non-linear model response, enabling useful predictive models to be built with minimal input data i.e. fewer public meetings. AMIS is a multistakeholder GIS/multicriteria decision methodology for integrating social, economic, cultural, engineering and geological considerations into routing of linear features including highways and powerlines. It combines a hybrid Analytic Hierarchy Process decision engine with a raster-based GIS platform to allow commensuration, integration and spatial analysis of dissimilar landscape features such as slope and geology and thematic factors such as economic development. It features structured solicitation and integration of group decision criteria using interactive electronic polling.

My second research program focuses on economic geographies of internationalization in East Asia and the Western Pacific with special reference to English language learning. This research seeks to understand how specific economic and cultural transformations are wrought by the interaction of complex global flows of money, power and cultural meaning with local practices, customs and economies.

Project Involvement

• SPI using CAVE employed in design of the Ohio River Bridges
• Context sensitive noisewall design in Maricopa County in collaboration with ADoT
• Participatory electric power transmission line routing using EP-AMIS
• California Dreaming: Development and of an Occidentalist geographic imaginary in Japan
• Economic and cultural dimensions of English language learning in East Asia outside of Japan
• Critical cultural geography of Talofofo Falls, Guam
• The Urban Resort of Honolulu