Goodchild, Michael (1944-)

Michael Frank Goodchild is a well-known British-American geographer and educator and an influential theorist and pioneer in geographic information science (GIScience). As a professor of geography at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) since 1989, and codirector (1991–1997) and executive committee chair (1997-) of the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA), Goodchild has led the development of GIScience from its origins within the technical specialty of geographic information systems (GIS) to the status of a full-fledged academic field. GIScience studies the fundamental principles underlying the acquisition, handling, analysis, and dissemination of geographic information, addressing issues of representation, computation, visualization, and societal impact.

Apart from the vision that helped shape a nascent discipline, Goodchild's notable contributions to geography include his persistent attention to the quality of geospatial data, uncertainty in their representation and interpretation, and resultant impacts on geospatial analyses. He has played a significant role in the global Digital Earth [Page 1350]initiative begun in 1998 and has led discussion and research on a succession of related efforts, including the digital geolibrary (codirecting the Alexandria Digital Library since 1994), applications of virtual-globe technology, and the emerging field of volunteered geographic information. An increasing focus of interest has been spatial literacy and applications of spatial thinking in all knowledge domains.

Goodchild's appointment at UCSB, followed 20 years as a professor of geography at the University of Western Ontario (UWO; 1969–1989). He served as department chair at both institutions (UWO, 1982–1985; UCSB, 1998–2000). He earned his BA in physics from Cambridge University in 1965 and his PhD in geography from McMaster University in 1969.

Goodchild has published more than 400 scholarly articles and coauthored or coedited 11 books, including Geospatial Analysis: A Comprehensive Guide to Principles, Techniques and Software Tools (2007), Geographic Information Systems and Science (2005), and Uncertainty in Geographical Information (2002). He was the editor of Geographical Analysis (1987–1990) and the “Methods, Models, and Geographic Information Sciences” section of the Annals of the Association of American Geographers (2000–2006) and has served on the editorial boards of several other journals. As of 2008, he had supervised 21 doctoral and 25 master's theses.

Goodchild has been a member of the National Academy of Sciences since 2002, a Foreign Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada since 2002, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 2006. He was the 2007 recipient of the Prix Vautrin Lud, widely regarded as the highest award in the field of geography, and has received honorary doctorates from Université Laval (1999), Keele University (2001), McMaster University (2004), and Ryerson University (2004). His numerous awards include Royal Geographical Society Founder's Medal (2003); Educator of the Year, University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (2002); Canadian Cartographic Association's Award of Distinction for Exceptional Contributions to Cartography (1999); Association of American Geographers’ Award for Outstanding Scholarship (1996); and the Canadian Association of Geographers’ Award for Scholarly Distinction (1990). He received Lifetime Achievement awards from the Geospatial Information and Technology Association (2007) and the Environmental Systems Research Institute (2001) and was inducted into the GIS Hall of Fame of the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (2007).

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