Robert Spence (engineer)

Robert Spence
Born	(1933-07-11)11 July 1933 Hull,England
Died	20 September 2024(2024-09-20)(aged 91)
Occupation	Professor emeritus
Known for	Work in the field of information visualization
Academic background
Education	BSc, DIC, PhD, DSc, DrRCA
Alma mater	University of London
Academic work
Discipline	Information engineering
Sub-discipline	Information visualization
Institutions	Imperial College London
Website	http:// ee.ic.ac.uk/r.spence/

Robert Spence(11 July 1933 – 20 September 2024) was a British engineer who was a professor emeritus and senior research investigator at theImperial College London,known for his work in the field ofinformation visualization.

Biography

Born inHull,England, Spence received hisBScin engineer in 1954 from theUniversity of London,hisDiploma of Imperial Collegefrom Imperial College, London in 1955, and in 1959 hisPhDin engineering from the University of London. In 1983, he obtained aDScin engineering from the University of London, and in 1997 a higher doctorate from theRoyal College of Art.He was awarded a second DSc from Imperial College London in 2018 for his work in Interactive Visual Artefacts.

Spence spent his academic career at the Department of Electrical Engineering of the Imperial College London, where he had started in 1958 as research assistant. In 1962, he became lecturer, in 1968 reader, and in 1984 professor ofinformation engineering.From 2000 he was a professor emeritus and senior research investigator. He has been visiting professor at theUniversity of Ljubljana,Yugoslavia; at theNanjing Institute of Technology,China; at theUniversity of Canterbury,New Zealand since 2002; and since 2003 at the Business School,University of Manchester.From 2007 he was also an honorary professor at theUniversity of Waikato,New Zealand.

Notable contributions in the field of engineering included the generalized form ofTellegen's theoremand algorithms for improving the manufacturing yield of mass-produced circuits. In the field ofhuman–computer interaction,Spence created the first focus+context technique called the Bifocal Displaywhich later led to fisheye viewsused ininformation visualization.Spence's innovations include many novel tools for design. One example is the Influence Explorerwhich proposed and demonstrated an interactive way for designers to select parameters and evaluate hundreds of variant designs in a matter of minutes.

Interactive computer graphics contributions from the late 1960s include ways forelectronic circuitdesigners to sketch acircuit diagramon a computer display. Another key research direction was the topic ofrapid serial visual presentation,in which a collection of images is presented sequentially and rapidly to help users find an image of interest.

Spence died on 20 September 2024, at the age of 91.

Awards

Spence was elected fellow of theInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers(IEEE) in 1976; fellow of theCity and Guilds of London Institutein 1989; andfellow of the Royal Academy of Engineeringin 1990. In 1995, he was awarded Officier dans l’Ordre des Palmes académiquesbestowed by the French President, and in 1999 he received the Golden Jubilee Award from the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society.In 2020, he was elected to the IEEE Visualization Academy.

Selected publications

• Penfield, Paul, Robert Spence, and Simon Duinker.Tellegen's theorem and electrical networks.Vol. 58. MIT Press (MA), 1970.
• Spence, Robert, and Randeep Singh Soin.Tolerance design of electronic circuits.Vol. 16. New York: Addison-Wesley, 1988.
• Spence, Robert, and A. Press. "Information visualization." (2000).

Articles, a selection:

• Spence, Robert, and Mark Apperley. "Data base navigation: an office environment for the professional."Behaviour & Information Technology1.1 (1982): 43-54.
• Tweedie, L., Spence, R., Dawkes, H., & Su, H. (1996, April). "Externalising abstract mathematical models."InProceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems(pp. 406-ff). ACM.
• Spence, Robert. "A framework for navigation."International Journal of Human-Computer Studies51.5 (1999): 919-945.

External links

• Robert Spenceat the Imperial College London