Emeritus Professor Dr George Cho AM
George has held the substantive positions of Deputy Dean, Faculty of Education, Science, Technology and Mathematics (ESTeM), Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Design, a position that he held concurrently in 2015. In 2017 he was appointed Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research & Innovation. He was Executive Dean Faculty of Science and Technology in 2021. On his retirement in 2022 he was appointed an Emeritus Professor of GeoInformatics and the Law at the University of Canberra, Australia.
George’s educational attainments include a BA (Hons) (Malaya), MA (British Columbia), PhD (ANU), LLB (ANU), Barrister and Solicitor (ACT), Barrister (High Court of Australia and Supreme Court of NSW), Graduate Certificate in Higher Education (Canberra). He writes and speaks fluent Bahasa Malaysia / Indonesia and various dialects of Chinese. He was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 2005 for services to Education and Geographic Information and the Law.
George’s special interests are in geographic information systems and it’s legal implications, environmental law, teaching and learning technical subjects, and the pedagogy of how students learn.
Between 2013 and 2015 George was appointed as Associate Dean Research in the Faculty of ESTeM and then as Deputy Dean of the Faculty. In 2019 he was appointed as Executive Dean Faculty of Science & Technology. Previously, he was Chair of Academic Board and a member of University Council between 2008 and 2013. He is a research scientist with the Institute for Applied Ecology and the Faculty of Applied Science. His research focuses on the study of the legal and policy issues affecting geographic information science and the practical problems in the application of technology in the creation, use and impact of digital spatial information.
George’s teaching interests includes teaching and researching geographic information systems, environmental law, electronic law for business and government especially e-business and e-commerce and international trade, intellectual property law and the law of cyberspace. In conjunction with Salzburg University, Austria, George launched an online offering of a Masters and Graduate Diploma in Geographic Information Science in 2010. This activity is part of the UNIGIS consortium -- an international network cooperation framework that offers distance education programs in Geographic Information Science (GIS).
George Cho has held academic teaching and research appointments at various universities including as Research Scholar at the Australian National University, Canberra; Tutor and Lecturer at the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur; Teaching Assistant at the University of British Columbia, and Visiting Lecturer at Liverpool, U.K., Maynooth College, National University of Ireland, University of Hanoi, Keele University, UCL, Oxford U.K.; the University of Canterbury, NZ.; Universitites in Malaysia including Malaya (alma mater), Kebangsaan, Sains Malaysia and Putera Malaysia; Katholiek University Leuven; Silesia University Poland; and University degli Studi di Palermo, Italy.