Jochen Albrecht, PhD

Dr. Jochen Albrecht is a Professor of Geography and Geographic Information Science (GIS) and the Coordinator of the Geography Graduate Program at Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY). He is a Research Associate with the Mineta Transportation Institute and adjunct professor in the Transportation Management Program, both affiliated with San José State University’s Lucas College of Business. Dr. Albrecht’s research bridges theory with practice to solve complex urban problems in different application domains: he has worked in partnership with subject matter experts in diverse fields including housing, land use, environmental studies, transportation, public health, criminology, and public policy to use geographic theories and spatial-analytical methods to solve complex problems. His commitment to understanding spatial reasoning pushes the boundaries for conventional GIS software as he investigates qualitative relationships, indeterminate boundaries, dynamic phenomena, and Big Data. He has an extensive publication record, including three academic books to his credit.

His strong belief that theoretical GIS research should help solve real-world problems has led Dr. Albrecht to explicitly link his academic research and his teaching pedagogy. Dr. Albrecht is highly regarded as a GIS educator, having received national recognition from the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS) in 2019. He has taught legions of undergraduate and graduate students to think critically about how to integrate GIS as a part of decision-support systems, encouraging them to use GIS software systems to reason through complex socio-spatial problems like aging communities, hate crime, homelessness, neighborhood safety. Another line of Dr. Albrecht’s research focuses on identifying best practices of GIS workflows and their integration into formalized reusable models that can be deployed in different organizational contexts. These formalizations are essential to design GIS web services, as well as to streamline business processes. He partners with industry professionals and the government sector to advance these priorities.

Dr. Albrecht has been actively engaged in academic service activities through the University Consortium for Geographic, Information Science (UCGIS), the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA), and served on the editorial board of Transactions in GIS. He is the current President of the GIS Certification Institute whose mission it is to promote the advancement of GIS professionals through its international GISP certification® program, fostering rigorous professional and ethical standards, community engagement, and professional mentoring within the GIS industry.