Michael Goodchild, Foreign Member of the Royal Society, is a professor of geography and Director of UCSB’s Center for Spatial Studies. The Jack and Laura Dangermond Endowed Chair in Geography, the first endowed chair in the history of the geography department, has recently been established through a generous gift from Jack and Laura Dangermond, and Professor Michael Goodchild becomes the first scholar appointed to the prestigious position. The Dangermonds have established this chair because of their interest in geography, geographic education, and the development of advanced spatial-analytic methods and GIS (geographic information system) technology in an academic environment. They have had a long relationship with UC Santa Barbara in supporting student research in the field of GIS and its application to human and environmental problems. READ MORE