According to the University Consortium of Geographical Information Science web site, “since 2010, UCGIS has acknowledged those individuals who have contributed to the advancement of geographic information science and technology. The grade of Fellow is bestowed on the recipient who has had an extraordinary record of accomplishments in any of the spatial disciplines and communities of practice that use spatial information to complement and support their business operations or personal activities.” Know anyone who fits that description? You guessed it, and, accordingly, the following is the UCGIS Fellow statement for the award to Mike Goodchild which was developed by Art Getis, read by Tim Nyerges, and accepted on Mike’s behalf by Don Janelle, Karen Kemp, Nina Lam, and Tom Cova at the UCGIS Winter Meeting in Washington, DC (3-4 February):
“Michael F. Goodchild is awarded University Consortium of Geographical Information Science (UCGIS) Fellow status in recognition of his leadership, contributions to UCGIS, and his remarkable impact on the field of GIScience. Goodchild is the Jack and Laura Dangermond Chair of Geography and Professor of Geography at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). He is a graduate of the University of Cambridge in physics (1965) and earned a Ph. D. in geography at McMaster University in 1969. He is recognized as the leading academic GIS practitioner in the world. He was elected member of the United States National Academy of Sciences and Foreign Member of the Royal Society of Canada and of the Royal Society of the British Academy. He has been awarded four honorary doctorates and France’s Prix Vautrin Lud. He serves on the editorial boards of ten journals and has had published 15 books and 400 articles. He was editor of the journal Geographical Analysis and of the “Methods, Models, and Geographic Information Sciences” section of the Annals of the Association of American Geographers. He was Chair of the National Research Council’s Mapping Science Committee. Currently, he is Director of UCSB’s Center for Spatial Studies which he helped establish. He is also the Director of the Center for Spatially Integrated Social Science at UCSB. In addition, he currently chairs the Advisory Committee on Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences of the National Science Foundation. He is a member of the International Expert Committee for Strategic Development of the Center for Earth Observation and Digital Earth of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He has directed the Ph.D. work of over 50 students, many of whom have gone on to responsible positions in academic, industrial, and government GIS.
Dr. Goodchild participated in the founding meeting of UCGIS. He played an active role in the summer assemblies in which UCGIS’ research and educational priorities were developed. He was a leading presenter at the UCGIS 1998 Congressional Breakfast at which Senators Sue Collins and Pete Domenici in 1998 were in attendance. He has won the UCGIS Education Award in 2002 and the UCGIS Research Award in 2009.
Michael Goodchild has contributed a great deal to the way in which the GIS field has evolved and developed. As Director and active participant of several important NSF projects, he helped to make the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis a focus for scientific and leading edge approaches to the careful analysis of spatial data, to innovative mapping programs, and to the intelligent management of geographic information. His writings are universally admired for their relevancy to current thinking in GIS and for their insightful suggestions for future emphases for the field. For all that he has accomplished UCGIS is pleased to honor Michael F. Goodchild with Fellows grade, and induct him among Fellows of the 2011 class.”
