mapper | scientist | human

TL;DR I am deeply involved in different aspects of OSM. I am running for the OSM US board to extend my contributions beyond data creation, community organization and research.

About me

I am Levente, originally from Hungary, now living in sunny South Florida for about a decade. I came across OpenStreetMap in the early 2010s and instantly became fascinated by it. I actually decided to become a scientist because of it, and much of my research career is dedicated to understanding different aspects of the OSM project, data, and its community. Now I am running for a seat on the OSM US Board to continue my long standing commitment to the project in a different role.

During the day I am a Research Assistant Professor and currently I also serve as the Assistant Director of GIScience at Florida International University. I also teach Environmental GIS there. At night, I usually sleep. Prior to FIU, I spent a few years at the University of Florida (where I earned my PhD in Geomatics) and also held short-term visiting appointments at the Carinthia University of Applied Sciences in Villach, Austria, and at the Joint Research Centre in Ispra, Italy. In industry, I spent a few wonderful years at Mapillary (see e.g. here and here) and was also a full-stack GIS Developer at some point. I am an OsGeo Charter Member since 2023. While I am originally trained as a geographer, my background is more on the computational and data intensive side of the discipline and ventures into computer science and data science.

My involvement in OSM

I recognize that contributions are not limited to data creation. Below is a short summary of the different ways I have been involved in OSM over the last 10+ years.

As a contributor

… See full entry