David Mark

David Mark (October 7, 1947 – September 24, 2022) was a SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of Geography at the University at Buffalo, USA. He made several contributions to research and education in Geographic Information Science (GIScience), most recently in human spatial cognition and language.

Education and Professional career Mark worked at three universities between 1976 and 1978: Simon Fraser University, the University of Ottawa, and the University of British Columbia. He was an assistant professor of geography at the University of Western Ontario from 1978 to 1981. In 1981, he moved to the Department of Geography at the University at Buffalo as an assistant professor. Mark was promoted to associate professor in 1983 and to the rank of Professor in 1987. In 2007, he was conferred with the title of SUNY Distinguished Professor. In the early 2000s, Mark and Andrew Turk created the area of study called "Ethnophysiography" to study how language and culture are related to people's naïve conceptualizations of the physical landscape.