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David Mark, PhD was one of the first graduates of the SFU Geography Department’s PhD program in the 1970s. He had a distinguished academic career as Professor at Western University and later at the State University of New York in Buffalo where he served for 32 years. David Mark was an original thinker who understood that the ways in which we view reality has an effect on our observations. He focused on how culture and linguistic traditions affected ontologies. Indeed he was one of the early GIScience researchers to demonstrate that ontologies (or what we can discern through a map or map legend) are artifacts of epistemology (or how we view reality). David was also an avid birder and his passion was to catch sight of birds all around the world. He was much loved in the GIScience community and will be missed by many at conferences and by many in BC.

In 2015 David Mark was a winner of SFU’s outstanding alumni award – you can find an overview of this achievement below.