Spatial Computing, SCIS, University of Maine

03/17/2026

Congratulations to Nimesha Ranasinghe on receiving tenure!

This is a milestone achievement and a tremendous recognition of your research, teaching, and service to the university.

12/15/2025

Our retiree, Harlan Onsrud, very active for the community and winning awards.

A walking group in Orono named “Geezers in sneakers getting coffee" meets twice a week for a walk followed by a cup of coffee.

11/07/2025

https://mcec.umaine.edu/home/faculty222/zhangyu-wang/

Assistant Professor of Spatial & Information Science

11/07/2025

We welcome our new tenure-track faculty members in Spatial Computing, Dr. Zhangyu Wang and Dr. Zihan Wu.

Dr. Wang's research interests and teaching are in GeoAI. Dr. Wu focuses on HCI, especially Human AI Collaboration.

Welcome!

https://mcec.umaine.edu/home/faculty222/zihan-wu/

https://mcec.umaine.edu/home/faculty222/zhangyu-wang/

Assistant Professor of Human Centered Technology Design, Spatial & Information Science

11/07/2025

Talk Invitation:

Wednesday, November 12, 2025
Hill Auditorium, Barrows Hall
Refreshments at 3:00pm, Talk 3:15-4:05pm

Speaker: Bob Franzosa, Professor Emeritus, University of Maine

Title: Topological Spatial Relations in Geographic Information Systems: A Story about a Collaboration between Mathematics and Survey Engineering at UM a Few Decades Ago

Abstract: In this talk I will tell the story about the collaboration, introduce the idea behind topological spatial relations in geographic information systems, and present some basic foundational definitions and results. Following that, I will present some related and further results in topology.

05/09/2025

Congratulations Nick Giudice, Professor of Spatial Computing and VEMI Lab founder and chief research scientist, to receiving the 2025 Umaine Presidential Research and Creative Achievement Award.

01/30/2025

We are happy to announce we're searching to fill a tenure-track position (Assistant Professor) in Spatial Computing at the University of Maine:

https://spatial.umaine.edu/2025/01/30/tenure-track-spatial-2025/

Review of application starts March 1st.

Tenure track Assistant Professor Position School of Computing Information Science University of Maine Spatial

07/30/2024

Yesterday, Kingsley Wiafe-Kwakye successfully defended his dissertation titled "DEVELOPMENT OF AN ONTOLOGY-BASED APPROACH TO SPATIO-TEMPORAL DATA ANALYSIS FOR FOREST-ENVIRONMENT INTERACTIONS". His advisors are Torsten Hahmann and Kate Beard.

Congratulations, Kingsley!

05/29/2024

https://umaine.edu/news/blog/2024/05/20/giudice-co-authors-award-winning-guidance-on-robot-guide-dogs/

Nicholas Giudice, professor of spatial computing at the University of Maine, co-authored an award winning paper about developing robot guide dogs to assist people with visual impairments. In an effort led by researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Giudice helped outline the first u...

05/21/2024

05/14/2024

Dr. John R. Herring, external graduate faculty at the University of Maine and former Architect for Spatial Products and Standards at Oracle, recently passed away at the age of 72.

John was a mentor and committee member of several PhDs in Spatial Information Science and Engineering and a collaborator with faculty in the Spatial Computing group. He is co-author with UMaine faculty of some of the most frequently cited papers in the domain of geographic information science. While at Oracle he was an integral part of the development of Oracle Spatial with Dr. Jayant Sharma, Dr. Javier Lopez, and Dr. Joao Paiva, who all got the Phd in Spatial Information Science and Engineering from UMaine.

Representative for those PhD students on whose committees Dr. Herring served, Dr. Joshua Lewis wrote: “John was an invaluable part of my committee, and it was good to have his perspective to ensure that I did not completely sidestep the more formal foundations of the work, which I appreciate now perhaps more than I did then.”

The Spatial Computing faculty will miss Dr. Herring dearly.