Research Associate and Contract Instructor

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Meet Christopher Macdonald Hewitt, who is currently working with an international team on the Smart Citizens Enabling Resilient Neighbourhoods (SCERN) project developing a participatory mapping web and smartphone application to collect data from participants around a study location. Christopher has also explored the socio-economic impacts of late-fall extreme weather events such as the 2011 October snowstorm in the northeastern United States. In 2022, Christopher was awarded a Mitacs Postdoctoral Fellowship with the Esri Canada Higher Education group to visualize historical Canadian census data back to 1951. As a contract instructor, Christopher has taught a number of courses at Western and Brock Universities including introductory human geography, GIS, cartography, statistics and advanced remote sensing.

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1. What motivated you to pursue a career in geography?

I was inspired to study geography because of the analytical capabilities of GIS, cartography as well as the ability to explore both the human and natural environment.

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2. Could you share a significant moment or project from your early career that had a lasting impact on your research?

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My doctoral project on the Battle of Hastings (1066) explored