Few Ph.D. theses have ever changed the world in the same world that Roger Tomlinson’s thesis has. Roger Tomlinson, widely considered as the “Father of GIS,” completed his Ph.D. entitled “Geographical Information Systems, Spatial Data Analysis and Decision Making in Government” in 1974 at the Department of Geography, University College London.
Read the entire article on Geoawesomeness where you also can find a link to the thesis: http://geoawesomeness.com/the-phd-thesis-that-paved-the-way-for-gis