Garfield Giff, PhD

July 9, 2024

Dr. Garfield Giff is Climate Change Research Chair at Aurora College and a Geospatial Information Management (GIM) consultant. Garfield has extensive experience in: developing climate change (CC) adaptation and mitigation strategies; CC indicators, models, mapping, and monitoring; CC models; geospatial business analysis; research, GIS, and spatial data infrastructure (SDI) program management; project management; CC, GIs and SDI program evaluation; policy development and analysis; stakeholders’ engagement; engagement with Indigenous peoples; elicitation; life cycle management; strategic analysis; requirements analysis; GIS management; GIS solution, evaluation, and design; GIS integration with business processes; geomatics education; and research.

Garfield’s career spans both the sociopolitical and technical aspects of GIM and climate change adaptation. He has developed and advised institutions on numerous policy documents that govern and support the discovery, accessibility, and sharing/reuse of information to support decision-making. On the technical side Garfield has managed and consulted on the implementation and reengineering of a number of enterprise GIS and SDI projects in a variety of cultural settings. He has carried out extensive research into the application of geomatics tools and services to support climate change adaptation at the community level.

Garfield was instrumental in the development of the multi-view framework for assessing GIS and SDI programs. He has gone on to use the framework to assess the performance and implementation status of GISs and SDIs in Europe, Canada, the Caribbean and the Middle East. Currently, Garfield is actively performing applied research on the effects of climate-driven changes on Arctic communities and has developed applications and tools to support Arctic communities in mitigating and minimizing the effects of those changes on communities and ways of life.

On the academic front, Garfield has developed courses and lectured on GIS and geomatics at universities in North America, Europe, the Middle East, and the Caribbean. He is an experienced mentor and supervisor of students’ research, and is actively involved in geomatics and climate change capacity bridging among Indigenous peoples. An accomplished author, Garfield has published book chapters, peer reviewed journal articles, white papers, manuals, and conference papers on CC, GIS, and SDI related topics. He is the holder of a PhD in Geodesy and Geomatics Engineering, an MS degree in GIS, and an honours degree in Surveying and Mapping Sciences.

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