Dr. Sergio Rey is Professor in the School of Public Policy and Founding Director of the Center for Geospatial Sciences at UCR. Rey’s research interests focus on the development, implementation, and application of advanced methods of spatial and space-time data analysis.

His substantive foci include regional inequality, convergence and growth dynamics as well as neighborhood change, segregation dynamics, spatial criminology and industrial networks. Recent and current research projects include geodemographic approaches to neighborhoods in space-time contexts (NSF), new methods for spatial distribution dynamics (NSF), an analysis of the relationships between spatial linkages and urban economic dynamics (EDA), flexible geospatial visual analytics and simulation technologies to enhance criminal justice decision support systems (NIJ), spatial analytical framework for examining community sex offender residency issues over space and time (NSF), and cyberGIS software integration for sustained geospatial innovation (NSF). Rey is the creator and lead developer of the open-source package STARS: Space-Time Analysis of Regional Systems as well as co-founder and lead developer of PySAL: A Python Library for Spatial Analysis. He is an elected fellow of the Regional Science Association International, a fellow of the Spatial Econometrics Association, and has served as the Editor of the International Regional Science Review from 1999-2014, editor of Geographical Analysis 2014-2017, and the president of the Western Regional Science Association.