Jo Wilkin

Hi! I’m Jo.

You’ve stumbled on my website one way or another. A little about me? Well, I’m a long-term avid Geographer and Spatial Data Scientist who has spent the majority of their career figuring out how to use Geographic Data Science “For Good”. For the last ten years, I’ve been based in the San Francisco Bay Area, enjoying everything California has to offer!

I’m currently a Research Scientist at Tracking California where I use GIS, spatial analysis, and data science to help with a range of community-based issues across public health and environmental justice in California. I spend my days doing everything from dataset curation and creation in Python, to creating new tools in R Shiny. More recently, I’ve spent time learning the ups and downs of vibe coding with Claude Code, and have a forthcoming tutorial book that you can find on my Teaching page.

Current work

  • Statewide road network dataset for Vehicle Miles Traveled in California, with bespoke interpolation methodology in Python
  • R Shiny apps for environmental justice, including the Lithium Valley Data Explorer and a Community Air Quality Monitoring Data Explorer
  • Household-level network Origin-Destination analysis for healthcare accessibility modelling

Previously

Lecturer in Geographic and Social Data Science at UCL, teaching spatial analysis, geocomputation, and the ethics and politics of data science. Developed and led three modules across undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.

PhD at the University of Southampton on creating geospatial datasets from Call Detail Records for humanitarian applications, mapping social networks and community resilience. Research with the WorldPop group and Flowminder Foundation. Presented at NetMob (Oxford) and Geo4Dev (UC Berkeley).

Helped launch The Missing Maps Project in the UK, leading mapathons and developing training material still in use today. Presented at the Royal Geographical Society and Oxford Internet Institute. Creator of an award-winning Geography Programming Bootcamp teaching Python for GIS research.

Experience

Research Scientist (Geospatial) | Tracking California, Public Health Institute | 2021–present

Lecturer in Social & Geographic Data Science | UCL | 2020–2021

Teaching Fellow | UCL | 2020

PhD Researcher | University of Southampton | 2015–2020

Education

PhD, Geographic Information Science | University of Southampton | 2015–2019

MSc, Geographical Information Management | Cranfield University | 2012–2013

BA, Geography (First Class) | University of Oxford | 2008–2011