Peter is the head of the Spatial Data Science group and a senior scientist at the Department of Geography at the University of Zurich. Peter holds a PhD in Applied Geoinformatics from the University of Salzburg. During his PhD, Peter analysed floating car data and set out to fix traffic. Having to accept that traffic in Salzburg is beyond repair, Peter soon focused on more theoretical aspects of movement analysis, instead. He found that there is a systematic error in GPS data: every GPS overestimates distances traveled (and, apparently, that is why your mobile phone is rubbish. In  the Spatial Data Science group, Peter is responsible for everything geo: he knows the capitals of more than ten countries.

Nico is the heart of the Spatial Data Science group and a PhD student at the Department of Geography, University of Zurich. He holds an MSc in Computer Science at ETH Zurich, where he specialized in machine learning and probabilistic modelling. In his PhD he applies such models to the spatial and temporal evolution of languages. In his first study, Nico demonstrated that we have to be careful when using phylogeography to infer the homeland of a language family, especially when the speakers left this homeland in a migration. Now Nico is working on geographically informed models of language contact in the form of linguistic areas (sBayes) and in the form of contact events in a phylogenetic tree (contacTrees). In the Spatial Data Science group, Nico is responsible for everything computer: he can write on the black screen and set up a printer (sometimes).

Nour is the soul of the Spatial Data Science Group. Nour has been the beta tester for sBayes, and she has personally met every single bug in the program. We are surprised that she keeps bringing us delicious homemade pie rather than attempting to poison us.