# James Williams > James Williams is a geospatial data developer building production ETL, spatial platforms and geocoding infrastructure at national and global scale. Python, SQL, PostGIS, DuckDB, Spark, H3, FastAPI, Docker and AWS. James Williams works as Geospatial Data Developer, Data Engineer and Research Scientist, based in Ontario, Canada. Contact: james@jameswil.com ## Pages - [Home](https://jameswil.com/): overview, selected work and selected publications. - [About](https://jameswil.com/about): background, appointments and education. - [Work](https://jameswil.com/work): geospatial data platforms, pipelines and research systems. - [Publications](https://jameswil.com/publications): full publication list with abstracts and PDFs. - [Teaching](https://jameswil.com/teaching): courses, workshops and supervision. - [Contact](https://jameswil.com/contact): how to get in touch. ## Publications - [Multi-Resolution H3 Walkability Surfaces: A Scalable Framework for Cross-City Pedestrian Environment Assessment](https://jameswil.com/publications/williams2026-hwsframework): Conference paper, 2026, Proceedings of the 1st International Online Conference on Urban Sciences. Authors: James Williams, A. Al-Talabany. - [Macro-Regional Spatial Patterns of Ambient Air Pollution and Avoidable Hospitalizations for Community-Acquired Pneumonia in Mexico (2013–2020)](https://jameswil.com/publications/hernandez-nava2026): Preprint, 2026, Preprints, DOI 10.20944/preprints202603.0145.v1. Authors: Carlos Hernandez-Nava, Miguel-Felix Mata-Rivera, Roberto-Eswart Zagal-Flores, James Williams. - [Geospatial Experience-Oriented Notation (GEON): A Semantic Format for LLM-Native Spatial Intelligence](https://jameswil.com/publications/williams2026-geon): Preprint, 2026, TechRxiv, DOI 10.36227/techrxiv.177160645.54245440/v1. Authors: James Williams. - [AnythingPOI - Australia POI Dataset v0.1](https://jameswil.com/publications/anything-poi-australia2026): Dataset, 2026, Zenodo, DOI 10.5281/ZENODO.20013770. Authors: James Williams. - [AnythingPOI - Canada POI Dataset v0.1](https://jameswil.com/publications/anything-poi-canada2026): Dataset, 2026, Zenodo, DOI 10.5281/ZENODO.20009008. Authors: James Williams. - [AnythingPOI - Germany POI Dataset v0.1](https://jameswil.com/publications/anything-poi-germany2026): Dataset, 2026, Zenodo, DOI 10.5281/ZENODO.20013689. Authors: James Williams. - [AnythingPOI - Netherlands POI Dataset v0.1](https://jameswil.com/publications/anything-poi-netherlands2026): Dataset, 2026, Zenodo, DOI 10.5281/ZENODO.20013826. Authors: James Williams. - [AnythingPOI - Türkiye POI Dataset v0.1](https://jameswil.com/publications/anything-poi-turkiye2026): Dataset, 2026, Zenodo, DOI 10.5281/ZENODO.20013733. Authors: James Williams. - [AnythingPOI - United Kingdom POI Dataset v0.1](https://jameswil.com/publications/anything-poi-uk2026): Dataset, 2026, Zenodo, DOI 10.5281/ZENODO.20009115. Authors: James Williams. - [A Framework for Curating Personalised Leisure Walking Experiences](https://jameswil.com/publications/williams2025-thesis): Thesis, 2025, University of Nottingham. Authors: James Williams. - [Diabetes Disparities in Mexico: A Spatio-Temporal and Marginalization Index Analysis](https://jameswil.com/publications/hernandez-nava2025-diabetes): Conference paper, 2025, Web and Wireless Geographical Information Systems, DOI 10.1007/978-3-032-01723-9_7. Authors: Carlos Hernandez-Nava, James Williams, Sergio Flores-Hernandez, Miguel-Felix Mata-Rivera. - [PlaceAgents: Multi-Stop Pedestrian Itineraries as Platial Flows on Urban Networks](https://jameswil.com/publications/williams2025-place-agents): Conference paper, 2025, The 6th Spatial Data Science Symposium (SDSS 2025), DOI 10.5281/zenodo.17676286. Authors: James Williams. - [PlaceCrafter: Curating Urban Functional Regions through Platial Clustering of OpenStreetMap Points of Interest](https://jameswil.com/publications/williams2025-place-crafter): Conference paper, 2025, Proceedings of OSMScience 2025. Authors: James Williams, Gary Priestnall. - [Towards a Framework for Personalising Leisure Walking Route Recommendations](https://jameswil.com/publications/williams2024): Conference paper, 2024, Web and Wireless Geographical Information Systems, DOI 10.1007/978-3-031-60796-7_16. Authors: James Williams. - [Emerging Platial Narratives and Themes from a Leisure Walking Study](https://jameswil.com/publications/williams2023b): Conference paper, 2023, Fourth International Symposium on Platial Information Science (PLATIAL'23), DOI 10.5281/zenodo.8286259. Authors: James Williams, James Pinchin, Adrian Hazzard, Gary Priestnall, Stefano Cavazzi, Andrea Ballatore. - [Survey of leisure walking behaviours and activity tracking use](https://jameswil.com/publications/williams-coordinates): Journal article, 2023, Coordinates Magazine. Authors: James Williams, James Pinchin, Adrian Hazzard, Gary Priestnall. - [WalkGIS: Exploring Platial Analysis of Leisure Walks via Linked Video Narratives](https://jameswil.com/publications/williams2023): Conference paper, 2023, 31st Annual Geographical Information Science Research UK Conference (GISRUK), DOI 10.5281/zenodo.7825302. Authors: James Williams, James Pinchin, Adrian Hazzard, Gary Priestnall, Stefano Cavazzi, Andrea Ballatore. - [An Emerging Conceptual Model for Curating Engaging Leisure Walking Recommendations](https://jameswil.com/publications/williams2022b): Conference paper, 2022, Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Location Based Services (LBS 2022). Authors: James Williams, James Pinchin, Adrian Hazzard, Gary Priestnall, Stefano Cavazzi, Andrea Ballatore. - [Context for Leisure Walking Routes: A Vision for a Spatial-Platial Approach](https://jameswil.com/publications/williams2022): Conference paper, 2022, Spatial Data Science Symposium 2022 Short Paper Proceedings, DOI 10.25436/E20W2J. Authors: James Williams, Stefano Cavazzi, James Pinchin, Adrian Hazzard, Gary Priestnall, Andrea Ballatore. - [CrowdTracing: Overcrowding Clustering and Detection System for Social Distancing](https://jameswil.com/publications/kanjo2021): Conference paper, 2021, 2021 IEEE International Smart Cities Conference (ISC2), DOI 10.1109/ISC253183.2021.9562914. Authors: Eiman Kanjo, Dario Ortega Anderez, Amna Anwar, Ahmad Al Shami, James Williams. - [Survey of Leisure Walking Behaviours and Activity Tracking Use: Emerging Themes and Design Considerations](https://jameswil.com/publications/williams2021): Conference paper, 2021, Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Location Based Services (LBS 2021), DOI 10.34726/1760. Authors: James Williams, James Pinchin, Adrian Hazzard, Gary Priestnall. - [FinVis: Visualizing the Complex Nature of Financial Markets](https://jameswil.com/publications/williams-thesis2020): Thesis, 2020, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham. Authors: James Williams. ## Work - [AnythingPOI: a fused, confidence-scored points of interest dataset](https://jameswil.com/work/anythingpoi): OpenStreetMap and Overture Maps conflated into one deduplicated, classified, openly licensed dataset. 22.7M points across six countries, every record carrying a confidence score and the evidence behind it. - [CDISAW: a queryable data infrastructure for slavery and armed conflict](https://jameswil.com/work/cdisaw): A research platform that makes 53 incompatible datasets on slavery in war answerable as one corpus. 23.5M linked event records across five ontological layers, queried through a typology-first interface, with every query citable. - [GEON: an LLM-native format for representing places as meaning, not coordinates](https://jameswil.com/work/geon): An open text format that describes what a place is, how it works and how it feels, rather than where its vertices are. Three reference implementations, bidirectional GeoJSON conversion, and measurably fewer tokens than the format it complements. - [Leisure Walking Systems Working Group: making place research buildable](https://jameswil.com/work/lwswg): An EPSRC-funded academic and industry initiative that produced open technical documentation, design frameworks and evaluation tools for place-based walking systems. 25+ documents across 8 research areas, published for practitioners rather than archived for academics. - [PARM-X: projecting live geospatial data onto physical city models](https://jameswil.com/work/parm-x): The interactive software layer for Nottingham's projection augmented relief model. Live council data, crowd simulations and public responses draped onto physical terrain across four synchronised screens, cutting a four-hour preparation process to minutes for executive planning sessions. - [PlaceCrafter: curating urban functional regions from OpenStreetMap points of interest](https://jameswil.com/work/placecrafter): A browser-based platial analysis tool that finds the functional regions a city actually uses, rather than the ones it is administratively divided into. Three clustering algorithms over live Overpass data, every region scored against nearest neighbour index, silhouette and Moran's I before it is believed. - [Topodex: contextual geocoding for conflict and human rights corpora](https://jameswil.com/work/topodex): A Python library that makes geocoders accountable to the document they are reading. 894M+ places resolved across nine open sources, reranked against document context, with a six-category failure taxonomy and a coherence check over everywhere a document names. - [WalkGIS: linking video narratives to maps to capture sense of place](https://jameswil.com/work/walkgis): A contextual GIS that fuses first-person walk video, think-aloud narration and GPS into one synchronised environment, so what a walker said can be queried spatially. Analysis per walk fell from two or three weeks to one. - [WalkGrid: personalising urban walking through environmental similarity](https://jameswil.com/work/walkgrid): A routing platform that curates walks by what makes them worth taking, from greenspace and heritage to air quality and safety, rather than by distance. 51 environmental features scored across a hexagonal grid, with route selection driven by natural language. ## Teaching - [Web Application Development](https://jameswil.com/teaching/cmm721): An intensive masters-level introduction to full-stack web development, taking students from web fundamentals through JavaScript, Python, Django, and React, with a consistent emphasis on professional practice and modern tooling. - [Information Security](https://jameswil.com/teaching/cmm7xx): A technically rigorous Masters-level module covering the full spectrum of information security, from cryptographic foundations through vulnerability analysis and malware detection to firewall design, intrusion detection, and security policy. - [Introduction to Programming](https://jameswil.com/teaching/cmu410): A first-year Python module building the foundational logic, data structures, and algorithmic thinking students need to write functional software, with a focus on habits and mental models that transfer across languages and contexts. - [Fundamentals of Web Design](https://jameswil.com/teaching/cmu422): A first-year introduction to modern web design: HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript taught through building real, responsive, accessible sites for actual clients, grounded in industry-standard practices from the first session. - [Fundamentals of Systems and Networking](https://jameswil.com/teaching/cmu4xx): A first-year grounding in how computers and networks actually work: from hardware architecture and operating systems through network protocols, IP addressing, and routing to cloud infrastructure and emerging trends in SDN and IPv6. - [Advanced Web Development](https://jameswil.com/teaching/cmu529): A full-stack module building on front-end foundations to produce complete web applications with PHP, MySQL, and Bootstrap, culminating in a substantial e-commerce project with authentication, database management, and security hardening. - [Cyber Security](https://jameswil.com/teaching/cmu540): A hands-on second-year module exploring network and web application security through the OWASP Top 10, with practical lab sessions in a dedicated cyber security environment covering threat analysis, defensive strategies, and offensive techniques. - [Industry Project](https://jameswil.com/teaching/cmu597): A team-based module running a full agile project lifecycle from brief to delivery, teaching sprint planning, version control, professional communication, and the ethical and legal context of software development in industry. - [Software Security](https://jameswil.com/teaching/cmu5xx): A systematic approach to building secure software, embedding security across the full development lifecycle through threat modelling, secure design, code-level analysis, and testing against recognised industry standards. - [Information Security for Industry](https://jameswil.com/teaching/cmu5xx-infosec): A governance-focused module on securing critical infrastructure and corporate systems, covering information security policy, the NIST Cyber Security Framework, asset management, risk assessment, and the legal and compliance landscape. - [Dissertation](https://jameswil.com/teaching/cmu601): Final-year project support combining direct teaching on development workflows, GitHub, project management tools, and design documentation with individual supervision of student projects across the full academic year. - [Ethical Hacking](https://jameswil.com/teaching/cmu6xx): A hands-on introduction to penetration testing methodology, teaching students to identify and exploit vulnerabilities in software, networks, and web applications, grounded in professional ethics and real-world assessment practice. - [Cyber Forensics](https://jameswil.com/teaching/cmu6xx-cf): A technical and legal grounding in digital evidence, covering collection, preservation, and analysis of data from networks, file systems, and malware, within a rigorous ethical and procedural framework. - [Applied Electrical and Electronic Engineering: Construction Project](https://jameswil.com/teaching/eeee1002): An immersive, year-long studio developing core engineering attributes through design-and-build challenges, MATLAB labs, data analysis, and professional communication, assessed across reports, vivas, and a final technical demonstration. - [Introduction to Software Engineering and Programming](https://jameswil.com/teaching/eeee1040): Practical software engineering for first-year Electrical and Electronic Engineering students, teaching systematic problem analysis, modular C programming, and multi-platform implementation as a foundation for the full EEE degree. - [HDL for Programmable Logic](https://jameswil.com/teaching/eeee4123): An introduction to VHDL syntax and application for FPGA-based digital system design, using Xilinx and Mentor Graphics toolchains to take designs from specification and simulation through synthesis to implementation on real hardware. ## Optional - [RSS feed](https://jameswil.com/rss.xml) - [Sitemap](https://jameswil.com/sitemap-index.xml)