Isabelle Thomas

Isabelle Thomas is Research Director at the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research (F.R.S-FNRS) and since 2013 Professor (extraordinary) in the Department of Geography at Université catholique de Louvain (UCL), Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. She is also the former scientific director (2016-2019) of the multidisciplinary research centre C.O.R.E. at UCL.

Education

• Bachelor in Geography, University of Namur, Belgium
• Master in Geography, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve
• PhD in Geography, UCL (1984) – awarded the Philippe Aydalot Prize 1989
• Thèse d’Agrégation (second doctoral thesis), UCL (2000) – awarded the BMW Scientific Prize 2001

Research Interests

Prof. Thomas’s work lies at the intersection of quantitative geography, economic geography, transport geography and cartography. She models the location of human activities and the sensitivity of such models to inputs, scrutinises transportation fluxes and the spatial structure of socio-economic phenomena, and develops advanced quantitative methods for urban spatial data. Current emphases include scale effects, MAUP, spatial autocorrelation, big-data analytics, multivariate modelling and innovative mapping procedures. Applications span peri-urbanisation, road-accident analysis, housing, employment, health, accessibility and socio-economic data, all within European urban and peri-urban contexts.

Scientific Awards & Distinctions

• RSAI Fellow (2019)
• Edward L. Ullman Award, AAG Transportation Geography Specialty Group (2017)
• Belgian Francqui Chair, University of Antwerp (2015)
• Compagnie du Bois Sauvage Award for best multidisciplinary scientific project (2012)
• BMW Scientific Prize – “Innovations for a Mobile Future” (2001)
• SAS Best Graph and Cartography Award (1990)
• Philippe Aydalot Prize in Regional Science (1989)

Research Leadership & Networks

She leads or participates in numerous national and international projects and networks (S4, ECTQG, ERSA, NARSC, NECTAR, …) and serves on editorial boards and as referee for leading journals in geography, spatial economics and regional science. Her research has yielded more than 250 publications and over 300 conference presentations.