MacEachren, Alan (1952–)

Alan MacEachren is an American cartographer, an author, and a professor of geography at Pennsylvania State University. He is a pioneer in cartography and geographic information science (GIScience) research, known particularly for popularizing the term geographic visualization and setting its research agenda and more recently for establishing and directing the GeoVISTA Center at Penn State and launching the research initiative of geovisual analytics.

MacEachren argues that geovisualization (as it has come to be known) is more than the introduction of computing technology in the creation of dynamic maps and visual representations; it also considers the complex cognitive processes of representation users and the development of tools and theories that enable problem solving and knowledge construction. MacEachren presented the process of geovisualization as a complement to cartographic communication, which had long been the dominant paradigm for understanding map use. His landmark (Cartography)3 diagram, first published in 1994, categorized maps by three dimensions: (1) the level of interactivity, (2) the primary purpose/use, and (3) the degree to which the map is designed for individual or multiple users. Maps for geovisualization, for example, are typically highly interactive, reveal unknown characteristics of the data, and are designed for a single or small number of users. This contrasts in each of these dimensions with the more traditional use of maps for communication. MacEachren is the author of the influential 1995 book How Maps Work, which links maps to cognitive linguistics, spatial cognition, and philosophy.

More recently, MacEachren has focused on the theory and practice of geovisual analytics, which extends geovisualization to modeling, reasoning, analyzing, and representing the large-volume heterogeneous databases that are encountered by those working in health, environment, national security, and other fields using georefer-enced data. The geovisual-analytic approach, part of a larger interdisciplinary “visual analytics” research initiative, integrates statistical, psychological, and decision-science concepts, with an explicit focus on facilitating time-sensitive analytical reasoning to solve problems related to spatial data. Geovisual analytics is a major research theme at the GeoVISTA Center, which MacEachren and his colleagues in geography and information sciences at Penn State founded in 1998. The center has become an interdisciplinary research hub, focusing on spatial representation, multivariate spatial analysis, collaborative decision making, human factors, and many other GIScience issues. The expansion of geographic information technology to support its use by multiple individuals, groups, and institutions [Page 1812]simultaneously is of particular interest to MacEachren and his colleagues.