January 19, 2011 - The Board of Directors of the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA) proudly announces the appointment of Dr. Piyushimita (Vonu) Thakuriah to a three-year term as Editor-in-Chief of the URISA Journal.

Dr. Thakuriah is Associate Professor in the Department of Urban Planning and Policy in the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her research specializes in transportation planning and its relationship to society and the economy, and Intelligent Transportation Systems and Location‐Based Services. Prior to her appointment as Editor-in-Chief she served as a member of the Journal’s Article Review Board.

According to Dr. Thakuriah, the URISA Journal has the potential to be “the world’s most influential and widely read journal relating to urban and regional geospatial information, among academia, government, industry and non‐profit organizations.”

To this end, goals for her three-year term include seeking indexing by leading open‐access journal repositories and citation services, and expanding the community of researchers and practitioners who submit manuscripts to the Journal.

Dr. Thakuriah succeeds Dr. Jochen Albrecht, whose term as Editor-in-Chief from 2007 to 2009 strengthened the Journal’s standing as the premiere open access journal in the geospatial field.

Over 200 peer-reviewed articles in 43 issues of the URISA Journal are freely available at http://www.urisa.org/journal_archives.