The UCSB Department of Geography celebrated the career of Professor Helen Couclelis on June 11, 2015, in recognition of her retirement this year after 33 years as a professor in the Department. A dinner in her honor was held at Olio Pizzeria in downtown Santa Barbara (in the same building as the late, lamented Video Schmideo), and a fine time and good food (maybe the city’s best pizza) was had by all. Chair Dan Montello recognized Helen’s long career in Geography, noting especially her contributions to academic life as an intellectual and philosophical pursuit. The Department awarded Helen with a beautiful inscribed desk plaque and a gift card at her favorite bicycle shop, along with a card signed by staff and faculty.
Professor Emerita Couclelis received her PhD from Cambridge University (Urban Modeling) in 1977 and joined the UCSB Department of Geography in 1982. Prior to that, Dr. Couclelis spent several years as a professional planner and policy advisor in Greece. She has held visiting appointments at the Department of Civil Engineering of the University of Waterloo, the Institute of Urban and Regional Development of the University of California at Berkeley, and the Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton University. Her research interests are in the areas of geographic information science, urban and regional modeling and planning, integrated urban and environmental modeling, planning support systems, and spatial cognition.
Helen received an Honorary Doctorate from Utrecht University in the Netherlands in 1999. She was a co-editor of the journal Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, and she co-edited A Ground for Common Search (with P. Gould and R.G. Golledge) in 1988, Geographic Information Research: Bridging the Atlantic (with M. Craglia) in 1997, and The SAGE Handbook of GIS and Society (with T. Nyerges and R. McMaster) in 2011. Helen also served as Associate Director of the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA) and as a member of the executive committee of the NSF-funded Center for Spatially Integrated Social Science (CSISS).
As Helen’s plaque indicates, she was, and remains, a philosophical geographer, a visionary in geographical information science, and a kind and encouraging mentor. She also happens to be a charming person who is much-admired by all Geography personnel, and we hope that she will keep well in retirement and, most of all, keep in touch!
Editor’s note: Helen sent the following message of thanks to those who participated in her retirement celebration: “Email is a poor medium for expressing my thanks, but there are so many of you who in one way or another touched me with your kind words and deeds, that I didn’t know how else to do this. Thank you all so much for the warmth of your good wishes, and for your generosity. I’m overwhelmed. To those of you who made my special night the magical thing it was – one of the best moments of my 33 years in the Department: thank you for your presence, for your friendship, and for the memories. Dan, you were wonderful: I could never thank you enough. And to those who couldn’t join us: we missed you.”
