Rob Harrap Email & Phone Number

It has been a wandering path, let's just say that.From 1986 to about 1994 my focus was on geological mapping, first in the Canadian Cordillera but then in Archean Greenstone Belts. All the while I was musing about whether CAD or similar tools could aid in map preparation. And so I started studying and using CAD automation tools and Geographic Information Systems.By 1994 I was consulting in GIS, eventually worldwide, and almost exclusively for explorationists, and this continued (along with many short courses on GIS) until about 2000, when I got increasingly interested in 3d applications. I'd been dabbling with GoCAD and related tools but seeing Mark Jessel's Noddy tool and seeing actual 3d viz applications made me begin the process of transferring my main focus. In 2000 I started teaching a course at Queen's - on the side - and they gradually asked me to teach more, such that by 2012 I was a tenured Adjunct teaching a lot of courses and not doing much consulting. In that transition time I was honoured to work with the Canadian Armed Forces on peacekeeping operations, with Terrapoint on applications of the Titan Lidar truck, and on many GEOIDE projects related to intelligent systems, GIS, and Augmented Reality.My interests in 3d gradually focused on game engine work and procedural systems, ideas and approaches that continue to this day.Though research is not my primary focus at Queen's - I'm a teaching professor with a research problem (distraction) - I've had a number of great graduate students over the years and still mentor grads and undergrads given the chance.Perhaps the biggest underlying thread under all of this is that, starting in the late 1990's, I started using User Experience, Design Thinking etc. approaches to how I did what I did. And do. We are building systems / tools / solutions for people, and if we don't understand their context we are doomed to miss the mark. Since about 2018 a real focus of my work - outside of geology - has been building systems to educate kids about climate change in the late medieval in England. This has, or course, really stretched my brain in new ways. I know more about medieval gardens and villages than I knew existed. And am still on a long path to learning. Right now I'm obsessed with Maya, Houdini, 3d asset capture, and the history of the English landscape.

Listed skills include University Teaching, Geology, Structural Geology, Gis, and 13 others.