KU researcher elected president of American Geographical Society

LAWRENCE -- A University of Kansas research professor recently was elected president of America's oldest geographic society.

Jerry Dobson, a researcher in the Kansas Applied Remote Sensing Program at KU and courtesy professor in the geography department, was elected president of the American Geographical Society late last month.

As president, Dobson leads a council of 27 scholars and executives from business, government, and academia and more than 1,000 fellows. The society publishes the Geographical Review, a prominent scholarly journal, and Focus on Geography, a popular magazine for educators and the public.

The AGS, a learned society founded in 1851, has advised government and industry on geographic issues from foreign policy to exploration to technology.

Dobson is known among his peers as a pioneer of geographic information science, the electronic version of geography that most people know as geographic information systems, or GIS. GIS combines computer mapping, satellite remote sensing and the Global Positioning System, or GPS. Dobson helped found the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science -- an alliance of more than 60 leading universities, research institutions and professional associations -- and served as its president.

Before arriving at KU, Dobson was a member of the Distinguished Research & Development Staff at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where he led the team of researchers that created the LandScan Global Population Database. LandScan now is the world standard for estimating populations at risk during natural disasters, wars and terrorist threats.

Dobson said he was honored to lead an organization with such a remarkable heritage. In the late 1800s, the AGS sponsored a survey of one route for the Transcontinental Railway and assembled the information for all proposed routes to help the government pick the best alternative.

Other notable contributions by the AGS include moderating the national debate over where to place the Panama Canal. The AGS also assisted President Woodrow Wilson by leading "The Inquiry," an investigation that employed 150 scholars at society headquarters in New York and delivered three truckloads of maps, charts and reports that ultimately aided the Paris Peace Conference, which ended World War I.

The society was a principal sponsor of Arctic and Antarctic exploration during the era of grand expeditions by ship and sled and later by air. The AGS sponsored the last privately funded expedition to Antarctica in 1947-48 and led glacial research into the 1970s.

"Today, our highest priority is the war on terrorism, but we still have strong interests in promoting research and exploration," Dobson said. "We expect to advise the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in its new Ocean Exploration Program. The oceans remain unexplored, and we're especially interested in Aquaterra, the shallow continental shelf that was exposed repeatedly during the ice ages."

Dobson said the AGS also plans to address social issues raised by new technologies. "We firmly believe in the benefits of GIS, but there are serious risks as well," he said. "GIS can be a threat to privacy and personal freedom. Human tracking systems currently being sold offer total surveillance. That's just one step away from the ability to control every step a person takes and how long he or she can stay at any location along the way -- I call that geoslavery."

Robert McColl, chair and professor of geography, said Dobson's new office reflects highly on the researcher, as well as on the geography department at KU.

"It gives us global recognition," said McColl, himself an AGS fellow.

To learn more about the AGS, visit www.amergeog.org.