The Engineering II Pavilion was packed: a hundred people in chairs, an SRO crowd two deep against all the walls, and the doorway clogged with people craning their necks from the courtyard. Some latecomers left in discouragement, muttering “Why didn’t they schedule this lecture in a larger hall?!”
Chancellor Henry Yang introduced the man who was giving the prestigious annual Faculty Research Lecture: Geography’s Michael Goodchild. The Chancellor spent a good ten minutes regaling Mike’s accomplishments and added in compliments for Mike’s wife, Fiona, who also is a recipient of campus honors this year. Yang teased the Goodchilds, calling them UCSB’s “dynamic duo.”
Mike came to the United States and UCSB in 1988. He completed his BA in Physics at Cambridge University in 1965, and his PhD in Geography at McMaster University in 1969. He plays leading roles in the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA), the Center for Spatially Integrated Social Science (CSISS), and the Alexandria Digital Library. This past year he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
The lecture focused on recent developments in digital mapping, the Global Positioning System, satellite remote sensing, the other technologies for representing the Earth in digital form, and their uses in scientific research, public administration, defense, commerce, and everyday life. After a review of the fundamental principles of geographic information science, the lecture included a discussion of the grand challenge of GIs, the creation of a comprehensive Digital Earth.
