Michael Peterson

I have been a professor since 1982, teaching courses in geography, cartography, and geographic information systems. I grew up in a small town in Wisconsin near the border with Minnesota. For parts of 4th, 7th, and 10th grades, I lived and attended school in southern Germany near the city of Augsburg. After graduating from college, I earned my masters degree at Boston University and my doctorate from the State University of New York at Buffalo at the age of 27. My first position was as post-doctoral assistant at the University of Zurich in Switzerland from 1981-1982. I have been on the faculty of the University of Nebraska at Omaha since 1982.

Sabbaticals and leaves have provided the opportunity to teach in other universities for periods of up to a year. I served as Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Washington, Seattle in 1985, a Fulbright Fellow at the Free University Berlin, Germany (1990-91), Visiting Professor at the University of Hawaii-Manoa (1995), Visiting Fellow at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University in Australia (1998), Fulbright Fellow at the Technical University of Vienna in Austria (1999), visiting Professor at the University of Applied Technology in Munich, Germany in 1999, 2000, and 2001, and visiting research professor at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, in 2004.

I have also been involved in service activities. I was President of the North American Cartographic Information Society (NACIS) and editor of Cartographic Perspectives. At different times, I have been on the editorial boards of Cartographic Perspectives, The Professional Geographer, and Cartography and Geographic Information Systems. I currently chair the Maps and the Internet Commission of the International Cartographic Association.

Articles published include: An Evaluation of Unclassed Choropleth Mapping, Evaluating a Map's Image, Mentale Bilder in der Kartographischen Kommunikation (in German), The Mental Image in Cartographic Communication, Interactive Cartographic Animation, Cognitive Issues in Cartographic Visualization, and Active Legends for Interactive Cartographic Animation.