AMIT BIRENBOIM - CURRICULUM VITAE
Personal Details
Date and Place of Birth: 21st April 1980,
Citizenship: Israeli and German
Higher Education:
2010-2015* The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, PhD student in Geography. Supervisor: Prof. Noam Shoval. Dissertation title: Sensing the City in the Smartphone Age: The Geography of Urban Experience
2010-2015* The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Master of Business Administration (MBA) student.
2007-2009 The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Geography, Master’s Degree, summa cum laude. Supervisor: Dr Noam Shoval.
2004-2006 The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Sociology and Geography, Bachelor's degree, Magna cum laude.
Appointments (
2015 Teaching the course Implementation of advanced tracking technologies in geographic research
2011-2015 Teaching Assistant (Introduction to Urban geography), Department of Geography
2011-2014 Research Assistant, Department of Geography
2007-2009 Teaching Assistant (Introduction to GIS, Raster GIS Workshop), Department of Geography
2006-2009 Research Assistant, Department of Geography
Awards and Honors
2012 Dov Nir Award for outstanding MA thesis.
2011 The Hebrew University "HaNasi" (President) Scholarship for excellence – four years PhD candidates scholarship
2009 The Arie Shachar Award for excellent work in the field of urban studies (together with Kineret Cohen and Udi Horovitz)
2005, 2006 Faculty of Social Science Dean’s List (Hebrew University)
Research Grants
2013 Municipality of Jerusalem – The Daily Experiences and Sense of Security of City Dwellers, $1500.
Publications
MA Dissertation
Birenboim, A. (2009). Around the World with Shrek and Woody: Time-Space Analysis of Visitor Activity at
Chapters in Collections
Shoval, N., M. Isaacson, and A. Birenboim (2009). Monitoring Impacts of Visitors with Aggregative GPS Data. Proceedings of the 3rd Workshop on Behaviour, Monitoring and Interpretation (BMI’09) Ghent, Belgium. (link)
Articles
Birenboim, A. and N. Shoval (Submitted). Mobility Research in the Age of the Smartphone" Annals of the Association of American Geographers
Birenboim, A., K. H. Reinau, N. Shoval, and H. Harder (Accepted). High Resolution Measurement and Analysis of Visitor Experiences in Time and Space: The Case of Aalborg Zoo in Denmark. The Professional Geographer.
Shoval, N., B. McKercher, A. Birenboim, and E. Ng (2013). The Application of a Sequence Alignment Method to the Creation of Typologies of Tourist Activity in Time and Space. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design. (link)
Birenboim, A., S. Anton Clave, A. P. Russo, and N. Shoval (2013) Temporal Activity Patterns of Theme Park Visitors. Tourism Geographies, 15(4): 601-619. (link)
McKercher, B., N. Shoval, E. Ng, and A. Birenboim (2012). First and Repeat Visitor Behaviour: GPS Tracking and GIS Analysis in Hong Kong. Tourism Geographies, 14(1): 147-161. (link)
Shoval, N., B. McKercher, E. Ng, and A. Birenboim (2011). Hotel Location and Tourist Activity in Cities. Annals of Tourism Research, 38(4): 1594-1612. (link)
Barzilay, Y., N. Shoval, M. Liebergall, G. K. Auslander, A. Birenboim, M. Isaacson, A. R. Vaccaro, and L. Kaplan (2011). Assessing the Outcomes of Spine Surgery Using Global Positioning Systems. Spine, 26(4) 256-262. (link)
Reports
Birenboim, A., K. H. Reinau, N. Shoval, and H. Harder (2013) Evaluation of the ACTUM GPS Data and Advice for Future Research (48 pages).
Shoval, N., A. Birenboim, S. Anton-Clave, M. Isaacson, and P. Russo (2008) Spatial and Temporal Analysis of Visitors to PortAventura Park April 2008. School of Tourism and Leisure (EUTO), University Rovira i Virgili (105 pages).
Presentations in Scientific Conferences
"Big Data and Tracking Technologies: We Know where is Everybody, What are We Going to Do with It Now?". Meeting of the Israeli Regional Science Association, January 2014, Ort Braude college, Karmiel, Israel (Heb).
"HD Zoo Experience: The Spatial Distribution of visitor Experience in the Zoo". Meeting of the Israeli Geographical Society, December 2013. Bar Ilan University, Israel (Heb).
"GeoTagging Emotions: Exploring Experiences in a Spatial Context". The 4th Emotional Geographies Conference, July 2013, Groningen, The Netherlands.
"A Smart(Phone) Exploration of Subjective Attitude Toward the Environment". The Annual Meeting of Association of American Geographers (AAG), April 2013, Los Angeles.
"The Geography of Urban Experiences". The Annual Conference of Urban Affairs Association, April 2013, San Francisco.
"Smart-phones! Smart Surveys?". Mobile Tartu 2012, August 2012, Tartu, Estonia.
"How about Smartphones in Regional Science?". Meeting of the Israeli Regional Science Association, February 2012. Rehovot, Israel (Heb).
"Smartphones on the Street", Meeting of the Israeli Geographical Society, December 2011. Tel Aviv, Israel (Heb).
“GPS in the Service of Human Geography”, Meeting of the Israeli Geographical Society, December 2010. Jerusalem, Israel (Heb).
Presentations in Workshops and Seminars
"Sensing Tourism and Leisure Activity", A workshop for PhD students at Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Vila Seca, Spain, Novenber 2013. [INVITED SPEAKER]
"Smartphones and Social science", A seminar given in Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands, December 2012.
"Ubiquitous Data Collection", ACTUM project workshop, Aalborg, Denmark, December 2012
"Sense of Security in the City", Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) – A workshop organized by METZILA (Ministry of Public Security), Tel Aviv, Israel, 2012 (Heb).
"Smartphones and the City", Urban Planning Workshop (Arie Shachar Memorial Event), Jerusalem, Israel, 2011.
“DESURBS Project: Methodological Tools”, Bezalel Academy Team – Round Table Discussion, Jerusalem, Israel, 2011 (Heb).
“Implementing GPS Information to the research of Human Behavior”, SENTRA project Kickoff meeting, Heidelberg, Germany, 2006.
Academic Visits to Institutions Abroad
Hong Kong Polytechnic University, School of Hotel & Tourism Management, Hong Kong. 2009, 2010 (one month in total).
Universitat Rovira i Virgili, School of Tourism and Leisure (EUTO),
Involvement in Research Projects
DESURBS Designing Safer Urban Spaces (2011-2014)
Tourism HK Spatial aspects of tourists’ activity in
PortAventura Spatial behavior of visitors to PortAventura theme park (
SENTRA The use of advanced tracking technologies for analysis of mobility in Alzheimer’s disease and related cognitive disorders (
Mini-Israel Tourists’ tracking in a miniature park (Israel, 2007)
Other Research Activities
Advisor in Research Projects
Livable Auckland A master's thesis projects of students from Aalborg University in Denmark. The project utilizes smartphone devices to track people in Auckland (2014-2015)
Referee:
Tourism geographies (2), Tourism Management (1)