University Consortium for
Geographic Information Science
www.ucgis.org

The Research Committee of the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science announced that Professor Max J. Egenhofer, a faculty member in the Department of Spatial Information Science and Engineering at the University of Maine, has been selected the recipient of the 2003 UCGIS Research Award.

Professor Egenhofer was nominated for his long-standing and original contributions to the theory and practice of geographic information science. In 1991, he was the lead author for a paper entitled "Point Set Topological Relations" in the International Journal of Geographic Information Systems that has had a fundamental and long-lasting impact on the field of GIScience. This mathematical theory, which was designed to categorize binary spatial relations, has provided a basis for the development of software and spatial database systems that enable the implementation of non-contradictory topological relations that a user can exploit in developing Spatial Query Language (SQL), undertaking data mining, extending spatial databases with meaningful operators, further developing abstract models of spatial relations, and enabling the retrieval of meaningful spatial configurations. This model has provided the basis for further innovative work on spatial reasoning, and capturing the semantics of natural-language spatial predicates. The model has had widespread international adoption and has stimulated scores of theses, dissertations, and other scholarly works. Evidence is provided by high numbers in a variety of citation indices, including those in the ISI Web of Science and Citeseer, and the fact that this particular paper is the most widely referenced paper published to date in the International Journal of Geographic Information Science. This paper is also the most widely cited GIScience article in computer science, and further evidence of the significance of Egenhofer's contribution is its incorporation into international standards such as SAFE, OGC’s Simple Feature Specification, and SQL multimedia. Further, ISO/DIS 19107 specifies the method as "The Egenhofer Operator".

In summary, the original 1991 paper and its consequent derivatives can be regarded as some of the most significant breakthroughs in GIScience. Egenhofer’s contributions came at a time when researchers were beginning to define a new body of theory and reasoning processes that provided a basis for the emerging field of GIScience, and they can be truly recognized as a key contribution to providing a fundamental basis for exploring spatial relationships.

By combining an innovative and productive intellectual contribution that has impacted the theory and practice of GIScience, and by simultaneously providing a major contribution to the standards employed by the software industry, Professor Egenhofer’s contributions are decidedly of the import and quality that this award was designed to honor.

UCGIS 2003 Educator Award

The Education Committee of UCGIS is pleased to announce that the recipient of the UCGIS Educator Award for 2003 is Professor Keith Clarke. Keith is currently the Department Chair of the Department of  Geography at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Keith strongly meets the four criteria for this award: Excellence in teaching GIScience courses, supervision of graduate students, authorship of Giscience textbooks, and leadership in the development of education policy.

Keith is an outstanding teacher of GIScience, and he regularly teaches 150 undergraduate students, drawn from all majors, in the large, introductory GIScience course at UCSB. He has obtained a high level of success in the introductory courses and may be said to have defined the GIScience service course. Keith has also advised a steady stream of graduate students over the past 20 years, and he is known as a motivating advisor who supports his students and encourages them to maximize their capabilities and interests. He is the author of an important introductory textbook, now in its 4th edition, that is one of  the most popular undergraduate texts in the field. It is an excellent text, combining human interest and technical information, in a book that gives students the motivation to learn more about the field.

Keith also contributed to the development of education policy during his recent term as President of the ACSM cartographic association where he undertook a number of GIScience education initiatives, including addressing issues of accreditation and certification.

Keith Clarke is a research cartographer and professor. He holds the B.A. degree with honors from Middlesex Polytechnic, London, England, and the M.A. and Ph. D. from the University of Michigan, specializing in Analytical Cartography. He joined the faculty at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1996. Dr. Clarke's most recent research has been on environmental simulation modeling, on modeling urban growth using cellular automata, on terrain mapping and analysis, and on the history of the CORONA remote sensing program. Dr. Clarke is the former North American Editor of the International Journal of Geographical Information Systems, and is series editor for the Prentice Hall Series in Geographic Information Science. He is the author of the textbooks, Analytical and Computer Cartography (Prentice Hall, 1995), Getting Started with GIS (1997) and about eighty book chapters, journal articles, and papers in the fields of cartography, remote sensing, and geographic information systems. In 1990 and 1991 Dr. Clarke was a NASA /American Society for Engineering Education Fellow at Stanford University, and in 1992 served as Science Advisor to the Office of Research, National Mapping Division of the U.S. Geological Survey in Reston, Virginia. Since 1997, he has been the Santa Barbara Director of  the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis.

GI Science Students Selected for
UCGIS Summer Assembly

by Suzy Jampoler

Students from each UCGIS member institution were invited to submit abstracts to the Summer Assembly student program for consideration by the Research Committee. Twenty-eight students have been selected to present papers or posters.

Each student receives a complimentary registration to the meeting, room and board at the conference center, and a travel stipend. They are also eligible to compete for the Transactions in GIS prize. For more information on the prize, see http://www.ucgis.org/summer03/news/TGISprize050803.htm. Additionally, workshops with senior GI Scientists are scheduled throughout the meeting. Students can attend all of these workshops.

Student participation is an important part of the Assembly. Student paper presentations will be given Tuesday and Wednesday, followed by a dinner and poster session on Wednesday evening. Details on the topics presented can be found at http://www.ucgis.org/summer03/studentpapers.htm.

The selected students are:
 

TRANSACTIONS IN GIS ANNOUNCES UCGIS 2003 STUDENT PAPER PRIZE

by Judy Cornish, Transactions in GIS

Transactions in GIS recently announced a new award to be made at the Summer Assembly of the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science. The award will be made for the best single authored student poster or paper presented at the conference.

This award is open to all students who were selected to present either a paper or poster at the UCGIS Summer Assembly. Twenty-eight students will be presenting their research at the meeting. The journal editors expect this prize to be awarded each year.

To be eligible for consideration the author must be either engaged in full or part time postgraduate research; or within 1 year of starting the first research or teaching appointment; or within one year of completion of the research degree. The winning manuscript will be published in an upcoming issue of Transactions in GIS. A cash prize of $200 plus a complimentary subscription to the journal for one year will be awarded. The editors of Transactions in GIS will select the winning entry.

Transactions in GIS is edited by:
John P. Wilson, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA
A. Stewart Fotheringham, University of Newcastle, UK
Gary J. Hunter, University of Melbourne, Australia

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