Michael Goodchild (1944–), a British- American geographer, and his associates and counterparts from around the world worked over a period of 30 years to develop the science of GIS. Goodchild founded the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA) in 1988 and served as its director for 20 years. NCGIA became the breeding ground for research and the development of educational materials supporting the science of GIS.
Goodchild, along with David Maguire and David Rind, wrote Geographical Information Systems: Principles and Applications (Goodchild 1991), which at the time of its publication was consider by many to be the bible of geographic information science. They later wrote, with the addition of Paul Longley, Geography Information Systems and Science (Longley 2001), which today serves as one of the standard textbooks on geographic information science.