Bill Loy Award for Excellence in Cartography

Bill Loy taught cartography from 1967 to 1997 in the UO Geography Department, sharing his love for and expertise in map design with many students over the course of three decades of classes. He was well-known for his work on the first Atlas of Oregon (1970), and in 1988, he and Jim Meacham co-founded the InfoGraphics Lab. Together, they produced the second edition of the Atlas of Oregon (2001), which received numerous awards and is still considered a gold-standard in atlas making today. The Atlas of Oregon defined the process on how to work with topic experts on dozens if not hundreds of topics, and how to bring those stories and cartographic works together into a beautiful cohesive whole. That foundational work, and the great attention and passion that Bill brought to cartographic design, created the strong foundation of excellence in cartography that the lab is still known for today.

Bill established the Loy Award for Excellence in Cartography at the end of his life to continue to recognize the work of UO Geography students. The award is given each year to outstanding cartographic products designed by graduate or undergraduate students majoring in Geography or Spatial Data Science.

The first Loy Awards presented were in 2005, and were given to Alethea Steingisser (who still works in the InfoGraphics Lab today) and Geography graduate student Erik Strandhagen. Since then, 61 students have been recognized for their creativity and execution of cartographic products. Bill continues to inspire excellence, far beyond his time at the University of Oregon.