Blake Walker

Blake Walker serves as Professor for Digital Geography/Cultural Geography at the Institute of Geography, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg since September 2019. His academic journey includes previous positions as Visiting Researcher and Visiting Lecturer at the Geographical Institute, Humboldt University of Berlin, and extensive research and teaching experience at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, where he earned his PhD in Geography.

Dr. Walker's research spans diverse areas at the intersection of digital and cultural geography, with particular emphasis on health geography, environmental medicine, interpersonal violence, and the digitalization of space-related cultural narratives in media such as video games. His methodological expertise combines critical geoinformatics, remote sensing, and spatial statistics with qualitative approaches to create nuanced understandings of complex spatial phenomena.

His scholarly work demonstrates consistent engagement with pressing contemporary issues including neighborhood resilience during public health emergencies, urban green spaces and mental wellbeing, video game geography, and spatial epidemiology of violence. Dr. Walker employs innovative methodologies ranging from mobile app-based data collection (SpaceLog) to exploratory spatial data analysis of volunteered geographic information and virtual environments.

Dr. Walker leads or contributes to significant research projects including REKKE (Resilience through Cultural Landscape in Climate Change), VIBRANCE (Violence in Brazil), STAGE (Spatial Transcoding of Artificial Geographical Environments), and PURE SPACE (Prospective Urban and Rural Epidemiology).

His teaching portfolio encompasses GIS in Cultural Geography, Digital Geographies, cultural geography seminars on globalization and socioeconomics, quantitative and qualitative methodology including spatial statistics, and field seminars on space and identities.