David R. Butler. Credit: Texas State University.

Our flagship journal, the Annals of the American Association of Geographers, begins the new year with a change of editorship for the newly named Physical Geography and Environmental Sciences section.

Mark A. Fonstad has completed two terms as editor of the Environmental Sciences section and is succeeded by David R. Butler, who assumes editorship of the Physical Geography and Environmental Sciences section.

David Butler is a Texas State University System Regents’ Professor in the Department of Geography at Texas State University. His accomplishments and experience spanning the discipline of geography are impressive, with research interests centering around geomorphology, biogeography, natural hazards, mountain environments and environmental change.

David has considerable editorial experience, including: serving as Section Editor for Geomorphology for the forthcoming AAG International Encyclopedia of Geography, as a section editor for the international journal Progress in Physical Geography, and as long-time book review editor for the journal Geomorphology. He has also guest edited/co-edited nine special issues of the journals Physical Geography, and Geomorphology. David is looking forward to leading the Physical Geography and Environmental Sciences section of the Annals: “It’s a tremendous honor to be selected to be editor of this section of the Annals, and I hope my many friends in physical geography will help out by submitting their best work for possible publication in the journal. Please put me to work!”

The AAG, the Publications Committee, and the rest of the Annals editorial team would like to express their heartfelt thanks to Mark Fonstad for his hard work over the last seven years. He has presided over a busy section, managing a heavy workload of manuscripts while ensuring that high quality and rigor were maintained.

The Annals of the AAG publishes six times a year (January, March, May, July, September and November) with one issue per year being a special themed issue. The upcoming March 2017 Special Issue is on the topic of Mountains. See the contents of the latest issue or browse all past issues. If you are interested in submitting a paper to the Annals, please refer to the information for authors.