During ICC 2015, David Fairbairn received the ICA Honorary Fellowship. Below you can read Bill Cartwright‘s laudation:
Dear colleagues,
It gives me great pleasure to give the Laudation on the occasion of the awarding of the ICA Honorary Fellowship to Dr David Fairbairn.
I have known my colleague and friend, David Fairbairn for many years, having first met at British and ICA conferences. As well, David spent a sabbatical at my university whilst undertaking research in Australia.
David and I worked as colleagues for ICA, firstly when we were both Vice-Presidents of ICA, being elected at the Durban, South Africa General Assembly. In the next term we again served ICA, David as Secretary-General & Treasurer, and me as President. So, I know David very well and I am most aware of his dedicated work on behalf of ICA.
So some information about David: David’s ‘day’ job is at the Newcastle University in the United Kingdom. Here he is the Degree Programme Director and undertakes research in the areas of accuracy of crowdsourced data and geovisualization and querying of spatial databases.
In ICA he has held a number of positions, namely:
- Vice‐President of ICA in the term 2003–2007
- Secretary-General & Treasurer in the term 2007–2011
- He is currently the Chair of the Commission on Education and Training
David has also represented ICA, as one of the ICA representatives (with me) on the Joint Board of Geospatial Information Societies. The Joint Board of Geospatial Information Societies (JBGIS) is a coalition of leading international geospatial societies that speaks on behalf of the geospatial profession at international level, especially to the United Nations and other global stakeholders.
He also supports the ICA agenda, by being the editor of the ICA column in the GIM magazine. He has also written many reference works.
In the United Kingdom, David contributes to the activities of the British Cartographic Society, the British member of ICA. He is a Fellow of this Society and he has been editor of The Cartographic Journal, the journal of the British Cartographic Society.
David has contributed to ICA over many years. He has worked tirelessly as Vice-President, Secretary General & Treasurer and Commission Chair of the Education and Training Commission.
I applaud his devoted work for ICA. I consider that this award to David recognises his devotion to activities that support and grow our Associaton.
Dr David Fairbairn – a most deserved awardee of the International Cartographic Association’s Honorary Fellowship.
Congratulations David.
