Sara Irina Fabrikant - Biography#

The nominee is a professor of geography, heading the Geographic Information Visualization and Analysis (GIVA) group at the GIScience Center of the Geography Department at the University of Zurich (UZH), Switzerland. Past international honorary appointments have included research fellowships and visiting professorships at Toyo University, Tokyo, Japan; ERSKINE fellowship at the Universiy of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand, and an Associate Fellowship of the UZH|ETH|ZHdK Collegium Helveticum, Zurich, Switzerland. Her research and teaching lies at the interface of geographic information science, geographic information visualization/geovisual analytics, human-computer interaction, spatial cognition and perception of the environment, including human mobility. Prof. Fabrikant's research is driven by the goal of deepening our understanding of real, mental and virtual worlds to find solutions for pressing societal needs and environmental problems of the mobile digital information society, increasingly living in densely populated urban areas. Various paper and poster awards, including competitive international research funding, accompany her scientific activities together with international advisees and interdisciplinary collaborators, as detailed in her CV.

Sara Irina Fabrikant has served the local, national, and international academic community in various roles: She has been a member of the executive board of the UZH Geography Department (head 2014 - 2016, head teaching 2016 - 2018). She is co-initiator and past co-director of the university-wide UZH Digital Society Initiative (DSI) 2017 - 2021. Other service included an appointed membership of the Swiss Science Council (SCC) 2015-2023, vice-president of the International Cartographic Association (ICA) 2015 - 2019, and program committee co-chairing of the international AGILE 2008, GIScience 2010, and COSIT 2015/2022 conferences. She has been in the steering board of the COSIT and GIScience conference series, and is chair elect of the COSIT steering committee (2024). The nominee is an invited member of SigmaXi, the U.S. scientific research honor society, and a nominated member of AcademiaNet, the European online database of excellent women academics. In 2023, she received the highly prestigious Waldo-Tobler GIScience Prize by the Austrian Academy of Sciences.