UCGIS Awards its 2016 Education Prize to Diana Sinton

Ithaca, New York

March 31, 2016

UCGIS is pleased to announce that Diana S. Sinton will receive its 2016 Education Award.

Dr. Sinton has made extraordinary contributions to GIScience education in three key areas: connecting GIScience, cognitive science, and the learning sciences; promoting GIS across multiple curricula and disciplines; and developing GIS as an integrating technology linking curricula, infrastructure, and administration.

As the GIS program director for the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education (NITLE) and subsequently as director of Spatial Curriculum and Research at the University of Redlands, Diana has made substantial contributions to national efforts to promote the use of GIS&T across the university curriculum. Throughout her career she has published widely about GIScience education at multiple levels. Importantly, Diana's writings provide key arguments for the ways in which spatial and geographical thinking contribute to both GIScience in higher education as well as learning overall. Her publication The People’s Guide to Spatial Thinking (NCGE, 2013) exemplifies these perspectives. She has also worked both here and in Europe on numerous curricular and professional development projects including the Spatial Citizenship Project (SPACIT) and as the creative lead for TeachGIS.org.

Dr. Sinton's impressive catalog of educational accomplishments is only half the story. Diana’s contributions to GIScience education also come through her qualities as an enabler as well as an advocate. Her persistence, clarity of vision, and collegiality have been instrumental in moving GIS&T forward in both K-12 and higher education.

Currently, Diana Sinton is an adjunct associate professor at Cornell University and also serves as UCGIS’s very own Executive Director.

UCGIS is a non-profit scientific and educational organization comprised of 60+ member and affiliate institutions. It was established in 1995 for the purposes of advancing research in the field of Geographic Information Science, expanding and strengthening multidisciplinary Geographic Information Science education, and advocating policies for the promotion of the ethical use of and access to geographic information and technologies, by building and supporting scholarly communities and networks. UCGIS is a hub for the GIS research and education community in higher education and serves as a national and international voice to advocate for its members’ interests.