Dr Adrian Tear is a UK based Geographer and GeoScientist, a Visiting Lecturer in the School of the Environment and Life Sciences at the University of Portsmouth and an Honorary Fellow in the School of GeoSciences at the University of Edinburgh.
His research focuses on [geo]computational social science, including the sampling, storage and analysis of large volumes of emergent data, e.g., online social network posts, other user generated content and/or associated metadata. These data frequently contain, either explicitly or implicitly, geographical references that may be used to map or spatially analyse elements of societal interaction. He has published and presented at academic conferences, nationally and internationally, on a number of topics related to the results contained in his Doctoral thesis, Geotagging matters? The role of space and place in politicised social media discourse.
Adrian completed his BA (Honours) in Geography at Durham University before embarking upon his MSc in Geographical Information Systems at the University of Edinburgh. Graduating with Distinction he then enjoyed a highly varied and successful career in business, founding or co-founding several companies in and around London, developing many database-driven websites and, ultimately, selling two of his ventures in major trade sales.
His return to academia followed the acquisition of his second start-up, by then turning over more than £14 million/year, when he commenced a programme of part-time Doctoral research in the Department of Geography – later the School of the Environment, Geography and Geosciences (SEGG) and now the School of the Environment and Life Sciences (SELS) – at the University of Portsmouth. His PhD was supervised by Professor Richard Healey.
Throughout his PhD research, and subsequently, Adrian has lectured at the Universities of Portsmouth and Edinburgh. His teaching, chiefly in SEGG at Portsmouth, whether as a Course Leader or Contributor, has been aimed at both undergraduate and postgraduate students of Geography, as well as a particularly highly regarded cross-departmental course, incorporating students of Environmental Science and Economics.
Adrian has received a number of prizes for his commercial work, notably the Information Management ’99 Award for the AreaData website and the Association for Geographic Information Award for the Election ’97 website. He has also earned excellent reviews from students and external examiners for the quality of his teaching at the Universities of Portsmouth and Edinburgh.
Between bouts of teaching Adrian has worked as a Research Fellow in the School of the Environment, Geography and Geosciences (SEGG, now SELS) at the University of Portsmouth. Major projects have included:
- A multi-national and multi-lingual analysis of the online and offline naming of contested geographies.
- A review of the University’s capabilities in Big Data storage and computational analysis with input from Oracle and MapR.
- A prototype Natural Language Processing (NLP) system to semi-automate gazetteer based historical railroad research.
Adrian is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a Chartered Geographer (GIS) and maintains his interest in developing and/or assisting high technology start-up businesses.
He is based in West Sussex, within easy reach of London, and also spends some time in Scotland.
He may be contacted via LinkedIn.