The second annual Geography & GIS Alumni Achievement Award is presented to Dr. Marc P. Armstrong (PhD, ’88), a geographer who specializes in GIS and has done pioneering work in computational geography. Marc has made seminal contributions to the development of high-performance computing methods for geographic problem solving; including new representations, methods and algorithms, benchmark evaluations of solution qualities, and a variety of geographic applications. He reflected on the history of GIS innovations at Illinois during his presentation at our Fall 2013 iGIScience Symposium.

Marc returned to campus this spring to officially accept his Geography & GIS Distinguished Alumnus Award and present his research during our Friday afternoon colloquium series. His talk was entitled The Multiple Dimensions of Extensive (Big) Geospatial Data: Retrospect and Prospect.

Marc has led a distinguished scholarly career, publishing over 100 academic papers, and coauthoring/coediting several monographs. He was North American Editor of the International Journal of Geographical Information Science, and has served on the editorial board of several prominent GIS journals. Marc’s current research examines the mobile computing revolution, privacy concerns related to the collection and use of geospatial data, and how mobile geographic information technologies can improve geographic education.

Along with his scholarship, Marc has proven himself a gifted (and flexible) administrator.  He is currently Professor in the Department of Geographical and Sustainability Sciences at The University of Iowa, as well as Associate Dean for Research and Infrastructure. He was Chair of Iowa’s Department of Geography from 2000-2012, after which he served as Interim Chair of the Departments of Asian and Slavic Languages and Literatures, Communication Studies, and Cinema and Comparative Literature, to name a few! Marc was also named a University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Collegiate Fellow in 2005.