Getis, Arthur (1934-)

Arthur Getis is Distinguished Professor of Geography, Emeritus, at San Diego State University. He received his BS and MS degrees at the Pennsylvania State University and completed his PhD in geography at the University of Washington in 1961. Getis was a student of William Garrison and, together with his fellow graduate students, took part in the “quantitative revolution” in geography. He is widely known across disciplines for his research in spatial statistics and has made significant contributions in all aspects of academic geography.

Getis's early work analyzed the patterns of economic activity using map transformations and pattern analysis techniques borrowed from ecology. His manuscript titled “Temporal Land Use Pattern Analysis With the Use of Nearest Neighbor and Quadrat Methods” appeared as the first discussion paper in ...