Luc Zwartjes

Luc Zwartjes (°1964) is researcher at the CartoGIS cluster, currently working on the IPEN and GEOLOGIS project.

In 1986 he obtained his Master degree in Geography at the Catholic University of Louvain, together with the Aggregation Higher Secondary Education.

He has been teaching geography since 1986. As one of his schools was a pioneer school on the integration of ICT in education subjects (i.a. geography) he has been following since then courses on the use of ICT in education. His knowledge lead to period of 12 years being in-service teacher trainer (1999-2011, vzw Nascholing in het Katholiek Onderwijs), specialized in using ICT in geography, e-learning and digital video.

Presently he is chair of the Flemish Association of Geography teachers (VLA) and member of the board of EUROGEO, European Association of Geographers. Via these associations he is involved in several European research projects. One of them – iGuess, Integrating the Use of GIS in Education in Several Subjects – lead to the creation of a one week Comenius training course on GIS for educators. This course is organized on a yearly base.

Since 1996 he is also involved in the IGU – Commission on Geographical Education (IGU-CGE), where he is now member of the taskforce for the international geo-olympiad (iGeo).

He has been involved in projects for various organisations (like ESA) and governments (Province West-Vlaanderen, Flemish Government) and is editor/author of editor De Boeck. Also with the University Ghent he was involved in different projects (most recently Planeet Aarde with the geology department – www.planeetaarde.be).

In 2010 the Catholic University of Louvain nominated him Fellow of Geography.

He is married with Gisèle Van Damme and has two daughters: Margaux and Claudia.