Question: What the current role of the person who defined spatial intelligence in humans?

Context paragraphs:
Howard Gardner: Howard Earl Gardner (born July 11, 1943) is an American developmental psychologist and the John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education at Harvard University.  He is currently the senior director of Harvard Project Zero, and since 1995, he has been the co-director of The Good Project.

UCSB Center for Spatial Studies: The UCSB Center for Spatial Studies (spatial@ucsb) is a research center at the University of California, Santa Barbara.  The center was founded in 2008 by Michael Goodchild, and focuses on spatial thinking, spatial intelligence, geoinformatics, geographic information science, and geographic information systems.  The center is currently directed by Werner Kuhn and Mary Hegarty.  With its multidisciplinary focus, the center hosts speakers, workshops, visiting researchers, and offers an academic Minor in Spatial Studies.  The center's mission is to engage in interdisciplinary research and education in how people and technology solve spatial problems.

Spatial intelligence (psychology): Spatial Intelligence is an area in the theory of multiple intelligences that deals with spatial judgment and the ability to visualize with the mind's eye.  It is defined by Howard Gardner as a human computational capacity that provides the ability or mental skill to solve spatial problems of navigation, visualization of objects from different angles and space, faces or scenes recognition or to notice fine details.  Gardner further explains that Spatial Intelligence could be more effective to solve problems in areas related to realistic, thing-oriented, and investigative occupations.  This capability is a brain skill that is also found in people with visual impairment.  As researched by Gardner, a blind person can recognize shapes in a non-visual way.  The spatial reasoning of the blind person allows them to translate tactile sensations into mental calculation of length and visualisation of form.

Spatial planning: Spatial planning systems refer to the methods and approaches used by the public and private sector to influence the distribution of people and activities in spaces of various scales.  Spatial planning can be defined as the coordination of practices and policies affecting spatial organization.  Spatial planning is synonymous with the practices of urban planning in the United States but at larger scales and the term is often used in reference to planning efforts in European countries.  Discrete professional disciplines which involve spatial planning include land use, urban, regional, transport and environmental planning.  Other related areas are also important, including economic and community planning.  Spatial planning takes place on local, regional, national and inter-national levels and often results in the creation of a spatial plan.

Spatial memory: In cognitive psychology and neuroscience, spatial memory is the part of memory responsible for recording information about one's environment and spatial orientation.  For example, a person's spatial memory is required in order to navigate around a familiar city, just as a rat's spatial memory is needed to learn the location of food at the end of a maze.  It is often argued that in both humans and animals, spatial memories are summarized as a cognitive map.  Spatial memory has representations within working, short-term memory and long-term memory.  Research indicates that there are specific areas of the brain associated with spatial memory.  Many methods are used for measuring spatial memory in children, adults, and animals.

Spatial icon: The concept of the spatial icon, introduced by Alexei Lidov, plays a central role in hierotopy and is used to describe the perception of sacred spaces.  Spatial icons are image-visions, that are evoked, for example, in the space of a temple or sanctuary.  The spatial icon encompasses a broad range of components involved in the formation and definition of sacred spaces.  It is a consciously created spatial image that transcends the material objects involved in its formation.  A variety of plastic elements, including everything from buildings to decoration, and from murals to liturgical artifacts, work together to form a spatial icon.  Sacred relics and iconic images often play an integral role in the creation of a comprehensive spatial image.  Various dynamic and performative media also play a significant role, such as rituals and song, as well as the artistic manipulation of natural light, lighting and sounds, and also elements dealing with odor and touch.  From this point of view, Medieval churches can be seen as spatial icons in which divine image-visions, such as Paradise or Heavenly Jerusalem, were incarnated in the sacred space by means of the various media employed without being directly depicted.  The temples and sanctuaries of various religions were originally conceived, designed and created as spatial icons.  In the Christian tradition in particular, impressive examples of spatial icons are to be found in re-creations of the Holy Land, or "New Jerusalems".  In many cases, spatial icons were the work of specific authors; their art could be compared with that of contemporary film directors, for in both cases, there is the coordinated effort of various artists and specialists in shaping a single, comprehensive vision.

Spatial reference system: A spatial reference system (SRS) or coordinate reference system (CRS) is a coordinate-based local, regional or global system used to locate geographical entities.  A spatial reference system defines a specific map projection, as well as transformations between different spatial reference systems.  Spatial reference systems are defined by the OGC's Simple feature access using well-known text, and support has been implemented by several standards-based geographic information systems. Spatial reference systems can be referred to using a SRID integer, including EPSG codes defined by the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers.

Nora Newcombe: Nora S. Newcombe is the James H. Glackin Distinguished Faculty Fellow at Temple University.  She is a Canadian-American researcher in cognitive development, cognitive psychology and cognitive science, working on the development of spatial thinking and reasoning and on the development of episodic memory.  She is the principal investigator of the Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center, one of six NSF-funded Science of Learning Centers.

Spatial dependence: Spatial dependence is the spatial relationship of variable values (for themes defined over space, such as rainfall) or locations (for themes defined as objects, such as cities).  Spatial dependence is measured as the existence of statistical dependence in a collection of random variables, each of which is associated with a different geographical location.  Spatial dependence is of importance in applications where it is reasonable to postulate the existence of corresponding set of random variables at locations that have not been included in a sample.  Thus rainfall may be measured at a set of rain gauge locations, and such measurements can be considered as outcomes of random variables, but rainfall clearly occurs at other locations and would again be random.  Because rainfall exhibits properties of autocorrelation, spatial interpolation techniques can be used to estimate rainfall amounts at locations near measured locations.

Spatial cognition: Spatial cognition is concerned with the acquisition, organization, utilization, and revision of knowledge about spatial environments.  These capabilities enable humans to manage basic and high-level cognitive tasks in everyday life.  Numerous disciplines (such as Psychology, Geographic Information Science, Artificial Intelligence, Cartography, etc.) work together to understand spatial cognition in humans and in technical systems.  Spatial cognition studies have helped to link cognitive psychology and neuroscience together.  Scientists in both fields work together to figure out what role spatial cognition plays in the brain as well as the neurobiological infrastructure that surrounds it.  It has been found that neurological and neuropsychological problems are linked to a difference in spatial behavior.

Supporting paragraphs: Spatial intelligence (psychology) Howard Gardner
Answer: director of Harvard Project Zero