Fisher, Peter (1955-)

Peter F. (Pete) Fisher is professor of geographical information in the department of geography at the University of Leicester, United Kingdom. He is a prominent geographer and geographic information scientist best known for his long tenure as editor (1998–2007) of the International Journal of Geographic Information Science (IJGIS). His faculty appointments have been at Kingston [Page 1119]Polytechnic, Kent State University, the University of Leicester, and City University London. He holds a PhD in geography from Kingston Polytechnic University, MSc in pedology and soil survey from Reading University, and BSc in environmental science from the University of Lancaster.

After an early specialization in physical geography (mid-Quaternary history, soils studies, and archaeological investigations), Fisher turned permanently to computer applications in geography and in geographic information science in particular. His research interests include uncertainty in geographic information, visibility analysis, and the social impacts of geographic information technology. His publications address uncertainties associated with algorithm design and implementation, databaseerrors, and misunderstandings associated with the actual questions being asked. He has studied probabilistic models of uncertainty in soil maps and elevation models and fuzzy models of uncertainty. Most recently, he examined Type 2 and Type n fuzzy sets in the context of recognizing topographic features.

From 2003 onward, Fisher expressed a strong professional interest in the societal impacts of geographic technologies. In particular, he has focused on privacy, human tracking, and geoslavery. His writings on these topics have led the field in attempting to foster national and international debates on benefits and risks.

As editor of IJGIS, Fisher had a notable impact on the emerging field of geographic information science. In the 1980s, geographic information systems (GIS) operated primarily in the domain of specialists in universities, government offices, and corporations. As he took the helm at IJGIS in 1994, GIS was in the early stages of its transformation to the popular status that it enjoys today. Global positioning systems (GPS) and Google Earth became household words, while IJGIS advanced the science on which they were based. More than 600 articles were published during his tenure at IJGIS.

Fisher has published more than 80 refereed journal articles and 50 book chapters and edited six books: Innovations in GIS 2 (1995), Virtual Reality in Geography (2002, with David Unwin), Spatial Data Quality (2002, with John Shi and Michael Goodchild), Developments in Spatial Data Handling (2004), Re-Presenting GIS (2005, with David Unwin), and Classics From IJGIS

(2007).