UC Santa Barbara Geography / About / Awards and Rankings

UCSB Geography is internationally recognized as one of the largest and highest ranked Departments of Geography in the world, and our faculty routinely win the most prestigious awards in their fields. Diamond-Graham ranked Geography number one for the number of citations/awards for a given department or program divided by the number of program faculty in 1995; in its last rankings, the National Research Council placed us number four in the nation, based upon reputation by peer review—the highest NRC ranking of any department at UCSB; in 2008, the Chronicle of Higher Education ranked us number two in the nation on its “Top Research Universities Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index”; and phds.org currently ranks us the number one “large, prestigious program” among Departments of Geography in the USA.

Geography faculty hold a dazzling array of academic awards and honors, including Michael Goodchild’s 2007 “Nobel Prize” for Geography. “The First Law of Geography” is named after our Emeritus Professor Waldo Tobler; Reginald Golledge is famous for pioneering the field of Behavioral Geography and, more recently, the field of Disabilities Geography; and Michael Goodchild is considered the father of Geographic Information Science. Over the past 10 years, our faculty have received the following national and international recognition:

1999

• Helen Couclelis received Honorary Doctorate, Utrecht University, the Netherlands
• Michael Goodchild received Honorary Doctor of Science, Laval University (Canada)
• Kostas Goulias elected President, Intelligent Transportation Society of Pennsylvania (State Chapter of ITS America), December 1999-2002
• Phaedon Kyriakidis invited as Keynote Speaker at International Statistical Institute (ISI) Cutting Edge Conference on Spatial Statistics for Production Ecology, GIS, Remote Sensing in Wageningen, The Netherlands
• Dar Roberts won the Int. Journal Remote Sens. Society's Best Letter Award, 1999 (Verdin et al., 1999)
• Terry Smith elected a Member of the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the NAS/NRC
• Stuart Sweeney given the Springer-Verlag Award for Best Paper at the Western Regional Science Meeting

2000

• Reginald Golledge elected President of AAG
• Reginald Golledge awarded International Geography Gold Medal, Institute of Australian Geographers
• Christopher Still awarded DOE Alexander Hollaender Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship
• Libe Washburn elected Member, Scientific Steering Committee, California Coastal Ocean Observing System (CALCOOS) Board

2001

• Keith Clarke elected President of CaGIS
• Frank W. Davis made an Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellow
• Jack Estes received NASA Public Service Medal posthumously
• Reginald Golledge received Honorary LLD from Simon Fraser University (Canada)
• Reginald Golledge received an Honorary PhD from Göteborg University (Sweden)
• Reginald Golledge elected to the NRC “Committee on Thinking Spatially”
• Reginald Golledge received the Distinguished Academic Alumni Award, College of Liberal Arts, The University of Iowa
• Michael Goodchild received an Honorary Doctor of Science, Keele University (Canada)
• John Melack awarded a Gleddon Fellowship by the University of Western Australia

2002

• Jeff Dozier made a Fellow, National Institute for Environmental eScience, University of Cambridge (UK)
• UCSB Geography faculty averaged $487,000 in extramural funds per faculty member for the year 2002. This amount leads the whole Science Division at UCSB, $150,000 over the nearest rival (Physics)
• Reginald Golledge received University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS) 2002 Research Award
• Reginald Golledge awarded the Grosvenor Medal for Geographic Education
• Michael Goodchild elected to National Academy of Sciences
• Michael Goodchild selected for membership in the Royal Society of Canada
• Michael Goodchild chosen for University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS) Educator of the Year Award
• Hugo Loaiciga received the 2002 Service to the Profession Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Environmental and Water Resources Institute for his “longstanding contributions to research and technical activities”
• Dar Roberts nominated for UCSB Distinguished Teaching Award
• Ray Smith received the Jerlov Award in recognition of his contribution made to the advancement of knowledge of the nature and consequences of light in the ocean

2003

• Keith Clarke selected as UCGIS Educator of the Year
• Thomas Dunne awarded the Easterbrook Distinguished Scientist Award by the Geological Society of America
• Catherine Gautier awarded Goddard Space Flight Center's annual Teamwork Award for her work on the AIRS science team that is part of the Aqua Project
• Michael Goodchild chosen for Royal Geographical Society's Founder's Medal
• Michael Goodchild selected by peers to give UCSB Faculty Research Lecture
• Libe Washburn elected Member, Steering Committee, Oceans. US High Frequency Radar Working Group; Member, Marine Reserves Science Advisory Panel, Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary; and Member, Research Advisory Panel, Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary

2004

• Bodo Bookhagen received the Bernd-Rendel Award from the German Science Foundation and the 2005 Publication Award of the Leibniz College at the University of Potsdam (Germany)
• David Carr won first place for best paper based on a dissertation at the AAG Annual Meeting
• Richard Church was Keynote Speaker on Towards Sustainability, conference on sustainability, Zurich, Switzerland, 2004
• Keith Clarke selected to status of American Congress on Surveying and Mapping (ACSM) Fellow for his contributions to ACSM and the professions of Cartography and GIS
• Hallie Eakin awarded the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research Fellowship (University of East Anglia and Oxford University, UK)
• Reginald Golledge elected to serve on the Decade of Behavior's National Advisory Committee
• Michael Goodchild received an Honorary Doctor of Science, McMaster University (Canada)
• Michael Goodchild received an Honorary Doctor of Laws, Ryerson University (Canada)
• Ed Keller received the Geological Society of America’s Don J. Easterbrook Distinguished Scientist Award
• Christopher Still awarded University of California Regents’ Junior Faculty Fellowship
• Christopher Still awarded NASA New Investigator Award
• Waldo Tobler cited in Key Thinkers on Space and Place, pages 301-305 of P. Hubbard, et al, 2004, Sage: London

2005

• Bodo Bookhagen received 2005 Publication Award of the Leibniz College at the University of Potsdam (Germany)
• Richard Church was Plenary Speaker of the AAG Statistics and Applied Modeling Session of the Denver AAG Annual Meeting
• Keith Clarke received the U.S. Geological Survey’s John Wesley Powell Award
• Tommy Dickey was co-author of Journal of Geophysical Research paper which received the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory’s award for Outstanding Research Paper in an Externally Refereed Publication
• Jeff Dozier received the William T. Pecora Award
• Reginald Golledge elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• Martin Raubal won the Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions Award for the most innovative research paper at the Association of Geographic Information Laboratories for Europe
• David Siegel selected as Plenary Speaker, ASLO Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Salt Lake City

2006

• Keith Clarke appointed Chair of NAS Mapping Sciences Committee
• Keith Clarke received a UK Leverhulme Trust award
• Keith Clarke received a Fulbright Distinguished Scholarship
• Keith Clarke appointed to the National Geographic Committee on Research and Exploration
• Frank W. Davis selected as Edward J. Taaffe Distinguished Lecturer, Ohio State University Department of Geography
• Tommy Dickey elected AGU Fellow
• Reginald Golledge selected as UCSB Outstanding Graduate Mentor
• Mike Goodchild received Robert T. Aangeenbrug Distinguished Career Award
• Mike Goodchild Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• Joel Michaelsen Elected Chair of the UCSB Academic Senate
• Ray Smith received the R.J. Russell Award

2007

• David Carr received the Harold C. Pillsbury Research Award for Best Health Presentation (North Carolina School of Medicine)
• Oliver Chadwick selected as Fellow of the Soil Science Society of America
• Reginald Golledge received the Lifetime Achievement Honors of the Association of American Geographers
• Mike Goodchild received the Geospatial Information and Technology Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award
• Mike Goodchild received the Prix Vautrin Lud, the Nobel Prize of Geography
• Hugo Loaiciga elected a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers

2008

• David Carr invited to the ATHGO International 5th Annual Global Forum on Global Warming and Climate Change 2007 as a Nobel Peace Prize VIP honoree member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
• Michael Goodchild became director of spatial@ucsb, a multimillion dollar, interdisciplinary research center devoted to spatial thinking
• Kostas Goulias became joint Editor-in-Chief of the journal Transportation Letters: The International Journal of Transportation Research
• Hugo Loaiciga selected by the Water Resources Planning and Management Division of the American Society of Civil Engineers as the recipient of the Julian Hinds Award
• Martin Raubal won the Best Paper of 2007 award for an article written for the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing Journal
• Martin Raubal won the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing Journal's U.V. Helava Award for best paper in 4 years
• Dar Roberts received the UCSB Outstanding Graduate Mentor Award