Michael Gould is the lead advisor on the Geo-spatial technology and training aspect of the WEMS initiative. Michael Gould received the PhD in Geography/GIS from University at Buffalo (New York), and since 1997 is professor of GIS in the Information Systems department at Universitat Jaume I, Spain. He has published more than 150 refereed journal articles, books and book chapters, on topics including spatial cognition, Spatial Data Infrastructures, web services, and smart cities. He was on the management board, and chair, of the Association of Geographic Information Laboratories in Europe (AGILE). In 2001 he spent a sabbatical year at the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) in Boston. He was co-founder of the Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies https://mastergeotech.info/ under the EU Erasmus+ program, and also two EU Marie Curie doctoral programs.
In 2008 he joined Esri, Inc. (Redlands, California) as director of education (Industry Solutions) and since 2011 has been Global Education Manager. In this latest position he collaborates with Esri’s 85 regional offices, with more than 10,000 universities using Esri software, and with NGOs, Ministries, and other organizations on a variety of Capacity Development projects.