Mikhail Kanevski

The 2022 Ian McHarg Medal is awarded to Mikhail Kanevski in recognition of outstanding pioneering innovative research in the field of environmental data mining, in integrating geostatistics and machine learning algorithms and other digital transformations.

The 2022 Ian McHarg Medal is awarded to Mikhail Kanevski for his outstanding pioneering work in the field of environmental data mining, geostatistics and machine learning algorithms.

He was a pioneer on the application of machine learning techniques to spatial environmental data, which is now a consolidated field of study with practical applications for environmental study and monitoring. He studied spatial-temporal environmental phenomena and environmental data mining using a mix of methods from different fields, such as integrating elements of chaos theory, fractals, and statistical learning. It is a valuable example of the power of integration of computer science and technologies within the fields Earth and Space Sciences.

Mikhail Kanevski has an impressive record of scientific productivity, publishing more than 200 peer-reviewed papers and conference proceedings. His contribution has always followed the principles of open science. Most of his recent papers are published in open access, and together with his co-authors, he has released several open source software packages and R/Python packages enabling scholars from all around the world to apply a variety of spatial and spatial-temporal analysis methods. When combined, his high research productivity makes him a worthy candidate for the McHarg Medal.

Mikhail Kanevski has significantly contributed to the growth of the Earth and Space Science Informatics international community in the last decade or so. He has also made noteworthy contributions to EGU: a significant example is the extremely successful EGU course on “Machine learning for geosciences: data exploration and modelling”. He has certainly contributed to bring the Digital Transformation processes and technologies into the Earth and Space sciences and in growing the Earth and Space Science Informatics Division within EGU.

As he approaches the twilight of a long and distinguished career, the awarding of the Ian McHarg Medal to Mikhail Kanevski would be a deserved recognition for a life-time of research in contributing to the expansion of new knowledge and techniques withing the Earth and Space Science Informatics community.