Unwin, David (1943–)

Born in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, United Kingdom, David J. Unwin was among the first generation of students trained in quantitative geography. With the recognition of geographical information science (GIScience) as a research domain, he became a leading member of that community, having published his landmark text Introductory Spatial Analysis, which formed the precursor for Geographic Information Analysis, which he coauthored with David O'Sullivan.

Unwin graduated in geography from University College London in 1965 and received his MPhil degree in 1970. By then, he was a lecturer of geography at the University College of Wales at Aberystwyth. In 1973, he moved to the University of Leicester, where he worked until he moved to Birkbeck College, London, in 1992 as professor of geography. He was pro-vice master of the college (2000–2002), before moving to serve as director for learning programmes at UK eUniversities Worldwide Limited. He retired in 2004.

Two principal themes characterized Unwin's research: (1) teaching and (2) computing/geographical information. He was concerned with improving the quality of teaching in British higher education, especially computer-assisted education, and he served on various geography curriculum committees in both British schools (A levels) and universities. His contributions to research on teaching are also illustrated by his work on the Journal of Geography in Higher Education; he was a member of its founding editorial board from 1977 to 1986, and he served as coeditor from 1986 to 1989.

Unwin's research in the area of computing led to the writing of key books, titled Computing for Geographers in 1976 and Computer Programming for Geographers, in 1985 and leadership of a number of research grants for computer-based thematic mapping. In GIScience, his principal research contributions have been in cross-area estimation (with Mitchel Lang-ford, University of Glamorgan) and in visualization and virtual reality, which led to coedited books.

The two interests came together in a string of grants such as the Leicester Image Processing [Page 2916]Suite, Computers in Teaching Initiative Centre for Geography (codirected with David Magu-ire), Visualisation for the Social Sciences (a Leicester-Birkbeck collaboration), and the Virtual Field Course Project (a Leicester-Birkbeck collaboration). Outside geography, his administrative responsibilities at Birkbeck and UK eUni-versities were related to both teaching and technology.

Unwin's most notable service to the research community was for the Quantitative Methods Study Group of the Institute of British Geographers as the secretary/treasurer (1974–1976), as chair (1976–1979), and as editor of the CATMOG series (Concepts and Techniques of Modern Geography, 1979–1982). He also participated in establishing the first European Colloquium on Theoretical and Quantitative Geography in 1978.

Unwin's MPhil research was in climatology, and he maintained interest in this area throughout his career. Merging this with a lifelong interest in fell running and mountaineering, in 1978, Unwin authored Mountain Weather for Climbers.