Dr. Vincent Lecours is an Assistant Professor of Marine Remote Sensing and Geospatial Analysis appointed jointly between the Fisheries & Aquatic Sciences Program and the Geomatics Program of the School of Forest, Fisheries, and Geomatics Sciences, at the University of Florida. His research focuses on developing best practices in the application of geomatics-based marine habitat mapping to answer ecological and management questions. Habitat maps are often used in decision-making but are highly sensitive to how and with which data they were produced. His research aims to quantify that sensitivity to different data characteristics and mapping approaches and to make recommendations for best practices so that decisions can be based on sound mapping outcomes that accurately represent ecological patterns and processes. In short, he adopts a multidisciplinary approach to improve marine habitat mapping methods through better integration of spatial concepts into the mapping workflow. His main areas of specialization are (i) marine habitat mapping – the interdisciplinary, spatially-explicit characterization of the marine environment in terms of its physical, chemical, biological, and ecological components, (ii) geomorphometry (i.e., the science of quantitative terrain characterization from digital terrain models), and (iii) the spatial sciences, particularly remote sensing, spatial data quality, and geostatistics.