Every year the AAG provides small grants to support research and fieldwork that address questions of major importance to the discipline. Three recipients were chosen this year from among 15 applicants and will each receive $500.

Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern is Assistant Professor of Food Studies in the Department of Public Health, Food Studies and Nutrition at Syracuse University, as well as an Affiliated Faculty in the departments of Geography, and Women’s and Gender Studies. She has received support for a project entitled “The New American Farmer: Immigration, Race, and the Struggle for Sustainability.” This research explores the transition of immigrant Latinos from farmworkers to farm owners, looking at racial discrimination, agrarian identity, and inclusivity in food and farming in America. She is comparing four sites across the United States, each of which has a significant and unique group of Latino farmers who have struggled against multiple levels of inequality to start their own farm businesses. The funds from the grant will be used for travel to her final fieldwork location of Yakima, Washington in spring 2016 to conduct interviews.

Margaret Sugg is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and Planning at Appalachian State University. She has received support for a project entitled “A multiscale approach to assessing heat-health vulnerability.” With a large number of hospitalizations and deaths each year related to heat exposure, this research seeks to identify individual to regional patterns of heat-health vulnerabilities and the thermal environments that control these patterns. The funds from the grant will be used to purchase 12 Maximum Integrated thermocron ibutton Devices which measure the ambient temperatures experienced by wearers both indoors and outdoors. Students from Appalachian State University will test the devices before they are given to heat-vulnerable populations such has outdoor laborers and high school athletes.

Sophie Webber is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Geography at University of California, Los Angeles. She has received support for a project entitled “Climate Service: Commercializing science for urban adaptation and infrastructure planning.” This research explores the relations between states, markets, and science in the context of climate change, particularly the commercialization of climate science through ‘climate services.’ She will be looking at major global climate service governance organizations such as the World Bank and the Climate Services Center, conducting key informant interviews, analyses of policies and documentation, and participant observation at conferences and meetings. The funds from the grant will be used for travel to Washington DC and New York City to study these organizations that produce climate services.

The AAG Research Grants are competitively awarded to scholars to provide direct expenses for research or fieldwork, excluding master’s or doctoral dissertation research.