Dr. Duane F. Marble is honored as UCGIS Fellow. 

Duane F. Marble 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. Marble is Professor Emeritus of Geography at The Ohio State University. In addition, he holds a courtesy appointment as Professor of Geosciences at Oregon State University. He earned three degrees from the University of Washington, having been awarded the Ph.D. in 1959. He has served on the faculties of the University of Pennsylvania, Northwestern University, the State University of New York at Buffalo, and The Ohio State University. At Buffalo, he established the first formal research unit dealing with GIS and the first graduate program in geography providing a specialization in GIS.

Dr. Marble established the International Symposia on Spatial Data Handling which became one of the premier scientific meetings in the GIS area. Subsequently, he served as Chair of the IGU Commission on Geographical Data Sensing and Processing. Instructional GIS software that he created over two decades ago with colleagues Jay Sandhu and Sherry Amundson was in use by over 300 universities worldwide.

During the course of his academic appointments, over seventy-five graduate students completed their degrees under his supervision and many of these now hold senior positions in academia, government, and industry. What separates Duane from many professors is his interest and involvement with his graduate students. He takes an enthusiastic and supportive role as an advisor, a mentor, and a friend. His contribution to GIS education continues by means of the establishment of the Marble Fund for Geographic Science (active in 2005). The Fund supports the William L. Garrison Award for Best Dissertation in Computational Geography and the Marble-Boyle Undergraduate Achievement Awards administered by the AAG.

He has been instrumental in developing GIS as a strong, scientific academic endeavor and in 1993 he received an AAG Honors award for “seminal work in quantitative techniques, transportation geography, computer modeling and simulation, and for pioneering research in geographic information systems.” He is responsible for the theoretical development of the most used curriculum in GIS science and technology. His leadership as Chair of UCGIS’ Model Curriculum Task Force led to the widely accepted AAG publication GI Science and Technology Body of Knowledge. This grand effort is one of the hallmarks of the UCGIS organization. His contributions to GIS education continue to this day. He is developing efficient, structured design methodologies for the implementation of GIS.