CV

Executive Summary

Tim Sutton is a highly motivated, self employed GIS professional and cross platform software developer. International experience in building spatial information systems. Strong proponent of open source software and the democratisation of technology, with a track record in the development of open source geospatial tools.

Key Skills

Open Source:
Developer, Project Steering Committee member and project co-administrator of Quantum GIS Open Source GIS (http://qgis.org). Developer of openModeller Desktop and project co-administrator of  openModeller  http://openmodeller.sf.net) project. Extensive experience with open source technologies and development enviroments including: C++ with Qt, Java, PHP / HTML / CSS / GeoDjango, Gnu/Linux system administration, Mapserver, PostgreSQL/PostGIS, MySQL, SQLite, Subversion / CVS Version control and many others.

Proprietry Technology:
Geographical Information Systems (including ESRI products, MapInfo, IDRISI, and others). Microsoft Windows, Mac OSX, Visual Basic, MS Visual Studio C++, ESRI Avenue, Microsoft SQL Server, MS Access. MCSE (certification no longer maintained since I switched over to working on predominantly FOSS environment).

Project Management:
Developer team management, release management, project planning, mentoring developers, publicity, community development.

Conservation:
Applied Nature Conservation Management, Building GIS Solutions for Conservation Management, Conservation Education, Building Systems for Biodiversity Informatics, Species Distribution Modelling

Linguistic Skills:
Fluent English and Afrikaans. Conversant in Dutch / Flemish and have basic Portuguese skills.

Recent & Current Projects

SAC Catalogue (under development): A web GIS application based on Geoserver, Mapserver, PostGIS/Postgresql, GeoDjango and OpenLayers for the South African Satellite Application Center.

CANAM Atlas: A customised edition of QGIS for Windows that includes ~4.5GB Satellite Imagery and GIS data produced for the Conservancy Association of Namibia.

IGD SITA: Provided technical advisory services for the planning and tender process for the developerment of an ntegrated Geospatial Database for the South African IT Agency (SITA).

Gentle Introduction to GIS (co-authored, edited): A GIS tutorial worksheet series (based on QGIS) accompanied with video screencasts targeted to teachers and learners in the Eastern Cape Province, SA.

Alaska Atlas in Maps (co-authored): A simplified GIS browser (based on QGIS libraries) with accompanying dataset to be deployed for use in Alaskan Schools.

openModeller Desktop (authored): A user friendly ecological niche modelling application with embedded GIS using QGIS libraries) capability.

Quantum GIS (dev team member): User friendly GIS. Key areas of involvement: Raster implementation, wrote various plugins, ‘on the fly’ projection support, project documentation, patch evaluation and application, GUI
design, artwork and led or participated in many other areas of this project. Project Steering Committee member.

LandUse Analyst (not yet released, co-authored): A tool for modelling land use requirements of ancient civilisations in Mesopotamia. Written in C++ / Qt and using GRASS libraries for parts of the spatial analysis.

Work Experience

2008 – present

Linfiniti Consulting, South Africa
Started my own business catering to the growing market around open source GIS. Contracts include the CSIR Satellite Applications Center, Department of Land Affairs and various clients in the U.K. and U.S.A.

2006 – 2008

Guest Researcher
CRIA (on Fellowship from FAPESP) – openModeller Project, Brazil
Developer of the openModeller Desktop application. openModeller Desktop is a cross platform (Windows / Mac / Linux) graphical user interface ‘front end’ for the openModeller library (http://openmodeller.sf.net). openModeller provides a computational environment for carrying out ecological niche modelling using a variety of algorithms including GARP, Support Vector Machines, Bioclim and many others.

2003 – 2005

Middleware Programmer
The University of Reading – Biodiversity World Project , UK
Design and implementation of Java ‘wrappers’ for numerous tools used within the BDWorld ‘virtual laboratory’. MapServer based web mapping application for visualisation of results. C++ and Java tools for data processing and biodiversity analysis. Developed databases for storing spatial and attribute data (PostgreSQL + PostGIS).

2001 – 2002

GIS Applications Developer
Water Research Center (WRc plc), UK
Developed a range of desktop and web based systems for the water industry.

1998 – 2001

GIS Research Assistant
Western Cape Nature Conservation Board (WCNCB), South AfricaDeveloped a range of desktop and Intranet based GIS and database applications for monitoring, recording and modelling species distribution.

1996 – 1998

Environmental Education Officer
Western Cape Nature Conservation Board (WCNCB), South Africa
Designed and conducted environmental education programmes. Developed an MS Access Booking System for Potberg Environmental  Education Center.

1993 – 1995

Reserve Manager,  Applications Developer
Hermanus Municipality, South Africa
Managed the Fernkloof Nature Reserve and attending staff. Developed a works order system for Town Engineer’s department using dBase IV.

1989

Computer Operator
Norwich Life, South Africa
Mainframe Computer Operator on JES/CISC based system.

Education

2004 MA Geography and Environmental Studies (GIS). With Distinction / Cum Laud. University of Stellenbosch, South Africa.
1996 B.Tech Nature Conservation, Cape Technikon, South Africa.
1993 National Diploma Nature Conservation, Cape Technikon, South Africa. Top in class in practical year.

Recent Publications

M.E.S. Muñoz, R. Giovanni, M.F. Siqueira, T. Sutton, P. Brewer, R.S. Pereira, D.A.L. Canhos, & V.P. Canhos, openModeller: a generic approach to species’ potential distribution modelling. GeoInformatica. DOI: 10.1007/s10707-009-0090-7. August 2009

O. Dassau, G. Sherman, T. Sutton, M. Hugentobler & P. Cavallini. A Testimony to the Power of Open Source  Quantum GIS 1.0. GeoInformatics Volume 12. March 2009.

G. Flemming & T. Sutton. Answers for the FOSS4G sceptics. PositionIT. Jan/Feb 2009.

C. Yesson, P.W. Brewer, T. Sutton, N. Caithness, J.S. Pahwa, M. Burgess, W.A. Gray, R.J. White, A.C. Jones, F.A. Bisby and A. Culham. How Global is the Global Biodiversity Information Facility? Plosone, November 2007. Available at [http://www.plosone.org/doi/pone.0001124]

Tim Sutton, Renato de Giovanni, Marinez Ferreira de Siqueira. Introducing openModeller – A fundamental niche modelling framework. OSGeo Journal Volume 1.  ISSN 1994-1897. 2007.  Available at [http://www.osgeo.org/files/journal/final_pdfs/OSGeo_vol1_openModeller.pdf]

Ari Jolma, Daniel P. Ames, Ned Horning, Helena Mitasova, Markus Neteler, Aaron Racicot, and Tim Sutton, “Environmental Modeling And Management Using Free And Open Source Geospatial Tools”, in Encyclopedia of GIS. Springer. 2008

Tim Sutton, Renato De Giovanni. A Web Services API for Fundamental Niche Modelling. Proceedings of TDWG, 2006. Available at [http://www.tdwg.org/proceedings/article/view/11]

J. S. Pahwa, R. J. White, A. C. Jones, M. Burgess, W. A. Gray, N. J. Fiddian, T. Sutton, P. Brewer, C. Yesson, N. Caithness, A. Culham, F. A. Bisby, M. Scoble, P. Williams, and S. Bhagwat, “Accessing Biodiversity Resources in Computational Environments from Workflow Applications“, Workshop on Workflows in Support of Large-Scale Science (in conjunction with the 15th IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Distributed Computing), Paris, France, June 20, 2006.

J. S. Pahwa, P. Brewer, T. Sutton, C. Yesson, M. Burgess, X. Xu, A. C. Jones, R. J. White, W. A. Gray, N. J. Fiddian, F. A. Bisby, A. Culham, N. Caithness, M. Scoble, P. Williams and S. Bhagwat, “Biodiversity World: A Problem-Solving Environment for Analysing Biodiversity Patterns“, in Proc. 6th IEEE International Symposium on Cluster Computing and the Grid (CCGRID 2006), Singapore, May 16–19, 2006.