The University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS) recently held its 2007 Summer Assembly at Lake Lodge, Yellowstone Park, Wyoming. The meeting attracted delegates from member institutions from across the United States, representing academia, industry, and government to learn about, and participate in setting future directions for, cutting-edge GIScience research and education.

Highlights of the meeting included:

• A research plenary (Wolter: Part A & Part B and  Yarnel) summarizing major global change concepts and issues, with valuable connections made to GIScience. These presentations are wonderful resources for sharing the "meat" of global change science with colleagues and students.

• A workshop on “What’s next for UCGIS Research” that identified research challenges facing GIScientists today. Potential workshop/symposia topics including Extending Geographic Information: Getting Applied GIScience Applied, Geographic Contextual Modeling of Human-Environment Relationships, Cyberinfrastructure and GIScience, GIScience and Health, and GIScience, Hazards and Vulnerability.

• Education plenary panels on:

• Geospatial Literacy Education at community colleges, in University Studies programs (freshman level and math competency), the graduate level, and among social science educators

• Integrating GIScience teaching and research with real life course examples presented from UCGIS delegates.

• Student paper presentations. All six of the student participants received travel support for attending the meeting and two of the six presenters received a $200 award and offers of aid with publication of their research in GIScience journals.

The UCGIS also presented its 2007 Research Award to Dr. J. Ronald Eastman of Clark University (for the innovative and well-recognized research contributions embodied within the IDRISI GIS software), and the 2007 Educator of the Year Award to Dr. Duane Marble of Ohio State University (for his outstanding contribution to geographic education, and as one of the founding fathers of geographic information systems education).

For more information on the Summer Assembly and UCGIS activities, please visit http://www.ucgis.org/e-alerts/2007UCGISSummerAssemblyReport.pdf  and www.ucgis.org.