ANNOUNCEMENT
3 June, 2003
GSD The Committee of the Howard T. Fisher Prize in Geographical
Information Science, Harvard University, is pleased to announce the recipients
of the award for the academic year 2002-2003:
In the graduate category, one prize to Michael P. Sweeney and Daniel M. Minkoff
of the GSD, for their entry entitled "Territorialization in Romagna."
In the undergraduate category, two prizes are awarded:
Leah Hutchison, an MIT junior majoring in geo-sciences, cross-registered at
Harvard from MIT, for her entry entitled "A GIS Analysis of Desertification
in China,"
and
Katherine Ann McEnaney, a Harvard senior in Archaeology, for her submission
of a portion of her Senior Honors Thesis, entitled " Updating the Past:
GIS and Cemetery Analysis at Gammai, Sudan."
Mr. Sweeney and Mr. Minkoff will share a cash prize of $2000; Ms. Hutchison and Ms. McEnaney will each receive a $1000 prize, in June.
Sweeney and Minkoff's study was conducted under the direction of Dean
Peter Rowe, of the Harvard Graduate School of Design, in conjunction with Professor
Roberto Pasini of the University of Bologna and the Regione Emilia-Romagna,
Italy.
The judges' comments included: " Spatial data from disparate sources
are brought together and analyzed. .. it is genuine spatial analysis, probably
to a greater degree than any other submission. Graphical presentation is excellent....
"Great work. Excellent data integration ... great visualization and spatial
analysis. Use of several software packages having in mind the theoretical framework
and goals that they want to pursue. ... the presentation is excellent.... I
look forward to a book or to read the thesis about this project."
Leah Hutchison's study was performed as a final project in
the course GSD6322 at the Graduate School of Design. The judges' comments included:
"this paper fills the requirement of being an excellent application
of GIS which is adequately/critically described."
and "This research in China is perfect - in scale, in clarity, and in relevance.
Excellent."
Katherine McEnaney's senior thesis was supervised by Professor
C.C. Lamberg-Karlovsky. Judges' comments included:
"The report was very well structured...a thorough job in addressing
both questions with spatial statistical tools and excellent visualization."
and "A well-written and nicely composed statement; use of GIS technology
useful and productive; findings on power transitions in ancient Sudan are important
and interesting."
Professor Stephen Ervin
Chairman, HTFisher Prize Committe
Members of the Committee
Mr. Paul Cote, Design School
Professor Ed Glaeser, Economics
Ms. Lucia Lovison-Golob, Earth and Planetary Sciences
Professor Peter P. Rogers, Division of Applied Sciences
Professor Louise Ryan, School of Public Health
Professor Jennifer Smith, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
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.
See http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/prizes/gisprize for more information.
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.
For questions or commments , please contact Stephen Ervin ( servin@gsd.harvard.edu) or Lucia Lovison-Golob (lovison@eps.harvard.edu )