The Howard T. Fisher Prize for excellence in Geographic Information Science was established (read press release ) in 1999 to promote and reward student work in this broad and potentially interdisciplinary area, from both undergraduate and graduate students at Harvard University.
Howard Fisher, a geographer and mathematical cartographer, founded the Laboratory for Computer Graphics and Spatial Analysis at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design in 1965. His work and others' from that laboratory led directly to the computer-based technology that subsequently became widely known as GIS (Geographic Information Systems.) Fisher valued the communicative and explanatory power of maps, and developed techniques from computer and information science to expand the capabilities for producing and analyzing maps, and managing spatial data in general.