The UCGIS education committee is proud to present this year’s UCGIS Lifetime Achievement in GIScience Education Award to Professor C. Dana Tomlin. Dr. Tomlin’s long career at Yale as a GIS Educator has been the epitome of excellence in GIScience instruction and pedagogy. For almost five decades, Professor Tomlin has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to GIS education, teaching both undergraduate and graduate courses at the Yale School of Environment. His pedagogical approach, which emphasizes practical demonstration alongside strategic reasoning, has prepared countless students for real-world challenges in the GIS field. Professor Tomlin’s dedication to enhancing his students' learning experience is evident in his creation of innovative teaching materials which supplement his lectures and facilitate student learning. One former student reported, “Dana teaches his students how to think spatially, how to break down complex problems into a series of steps, engaging their creativity at the same time.”

In addition to his remarkable teaching and pedagogical contributions, Professor Tomlin has established a unique and enduring form of mentorship that extends far beyond the conventional classroom setting. He offers each of his students a “lifetime certificate” – an open invitation to seek his guidance on GIS questions throughout their careers, underscoring his commitment to their lifelong learning and professional development. Ultimately, it is Dana’s empathy, generosity, patience and humane approach to life, work and education that merit this award. From his earliest days, he has pushed back against the trends of academia, which have only become more competitive over time. In a culture of 'publish or perish,' trying to bring in the most grant money, striving to reach tenure the fastest, engaging in pseudo-collaboration that does not jointly uplift everyone equally -- Dana has made a career out of altruism. Instead of operating from the scarcity mindset that is so prevalent in academia, he has chosen the higher road -- the road of abundance. His unwavering support to communal benefit and his selfless generosity have been a gift to us all, and have elevated him and his career through a community of practitioners that genuinely respect him and want to honor him in their own reciprocity. In his own way, he has promoted a counter-culture model that amplifies the good and rejects the bad, demonstrating, with clarity, that being a kind and generous academic/person is just as powerful as any other model.

For these reasons and more, we are proud to name Dr. Tomlin the recipient of this year’s UCGIS Lifetime Achievement in GIScience Education Award.