The Marble-Boyle Undergraduate Achievement Awards in Geographic Science Grant

The Marble-Boyle Undergraduate Achievement Awards in Geographic Science Grant

Status: ACTIVE
Funder: American Association of Geographers
Amount: US $1,000
Last Updated: July 20, 2025

Summary

The Marble-Boyle Undergraduate Achievement Awards in Geographic Science recognize outstanding academic performance by undergraduate students in the U.S. and Canada, particularly those bridging geographic and computer sciences. Supported by the American Association of Geographers and the Marble Fund, these awards encourage students to pursue careers in these fields. Eligible candidates must be nearing graduation and demonstrate intent to leverage their skills in geography and computer science. Awardees can also compete for additional research fellowships.

Overview

The Association of American Geographer’s Marble Fund for Geographic Science is pleased to announce the new Marble-Boyle Undergraduate Achievement Awards. These awards aim to recognize excellence in academic performance by undergraduate students from the United States and Canada who are putting forth a strong effort to bridge geographic science and computer science as well as to encourage other students to embark upon similar programs. These awards, together with the William L. Garrison Award for Best Dissertation in Computational Geography, are activities of the Marble Fund and are supported by donations to the Fund.  In the case of the current awards, the support of Mr. Jack Dangermond is gratefully acknowledged. The award is named for Dr. Duane Marble, creator of the Marble Fund, and for the late Dr. A. R. (Ray) Boyle who was a major contributor to the early development of both computer cartography and geographic information systems.  Ray Boyle was born in England in 1920 and served with the British Admiralty during World War II.  After the war, he developed and patented many graphic systems for plotting and digitizing and was the inventor of the “free cursor” digitizing system that was the basis for the digital entry of much early spatial data. After moving to Canada in 1965 he was appointed Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan where, among many other achievements, he developed the first digital system for nautical chart production for the Canadian Hydrographic Service. He worked for many years with Dr. Roger Tomlinson on the technical evaluation of GIS software and was also an active member of the IGU Commission on Geographical Data Sensing & Processing for many years.

Eligibility

You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website. Applicants must be enrolled in a full–time program of undergraduate study at an accredited United States or Canadian college or university.At the time of the application, the applicant must be no more than twelve months from graduation.Applicants must demonstrate a reasonable intent to embark upon a career or further education that will make use of their joint geographic science and computer science knowledge.There is no limit with respect to the number of students who can apply from a single institution. There will be, however, only one student per year from a single institution who may receive an award.All Marble-Boyle awardees will be eligible to compete for an additional research fellowship award that is being offered every two years by the MicroGIS Foundation for Spatial Analysis (MFSA). The MFSA fellowship will cover all transportation and housing costs for up to four months of work with MFSA in Lausanne, Switzerland.