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AAG Announces Recipients of 2017 Awards

March 9, 2017

The American Association of Geographers (AAG) congratulates the individuals and groups named to receive an AAG Award. The awardees represent outstanding contributions to and accomplishments in the geographic field. The awardees will be recognized at the AAG Annual Meeting in Boston during the AAG Awards Luncheon on Sunday, April 9, 2017.

Friends, family, and colleagues are invited to celebrate with the honorees. Admission, which includes a plated lunch, is only $55. Tables for parties of ten are also available. Buy tickets.

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Community College Travel Grants

April Shirey, Grand Rapids Community College, Grand Rapids, MI

AAG Darrel Hess Community College Geography Scholarships

Amy Kennedy, transferring from Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio to the Ohio State University

Marble-Boyle Undergraduate Achievement Award in Geographic Science

Coty Welch, University of North Alabama

AAG Dissertation Research Grants

Mia Bennett, University of California Los Angeles
Eric Nost, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Yoo-Min Park, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Brian Williams, University of Georgia
Sheridan Wright Kennedy, Rice University
Qunshan Zhao, Arizona State University

AAG Research Grants

Sarah Blue, Texas State University
Shouraseni Roy, University of Miami
Qiusheng Wu, State University of New York at Binghamton

J. Warren Nystrom Award

To be announced at the AAG Annual Meeting in Boston.

Mel Marcus Fund for Physical Geography

Dr. Sally Horn, University of Tennessee

*** AAG Book Awards ***

Humboldt Book Award for Enduring Scholarship in Geography

Geoffrey Martin, American Geography and Geographers, Oxford University Press, 2015

The John Brinckerhoff Jackson Prize

Lisa Benton-Short, The National Mall: No Ordinary Public Space, University of Toronto Press, 2016

The AAG Globe Book Award for Public Understanding of Geography\

Niem Nguyen, A Curriculum of Fear, University of Minnesota Press, 2016

The AAG Meridian Book Award for Outstanding Scholarly Work in Geography

Eric Sheppard, Limits to Globalization: The Disruptive Geographies of Capitalist Development, Oxford University Press, 2016

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Program Excellence Award

The Department of Geography and the Environment, University of North Texas
Honorable Mention: The Geography Department, George Washington University

Susan Hardwick Excellence in Mentoring Award

Beverly Mullings, Queen’s University

Glenda Laws Award

Sarah Hunt, University of British Columbia

The AAG Harold M. Rose Award for Anti-Racism Research and Practice

Melissa Wright, Pennsylvania State University

AAG Enhancing Diversity

Leela Viswanathan, Queen’s University

AAG Harm de Blij Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching

Ronald Kalafsky, University of Tennessee

E. Willard and Ruby S. Miller Award

Hui Lin, Chinese University of Hong Kong

The AAG Stanley Brunn Award for Creativity in Geography

David Harvey, City University of New York

AAG Honorary Geographer

James Hansen, Columbia University

Atlas Award

Noam Chomsky, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

AAG Presidential Achievement Award

Roger Downs, Pennsylvania State University

*** AAG Honors ***

Distinguished Teaching Honors

Michael Pretes, University of North Alabama

Ron F. Abler Distinguished Service Honors

Julie Winkler, Michigan State University
Kent Mathewson

Distinguished Scholarship Honors

Patrick Bartlein, University of Oregon
Michael Storper, University of California, Los Angeles

Lifetime Achievement Honors

Ruth Fincher, University of Melbourne
David Robinson, Rutgers University

Awardees

Graduate Students Honored During AAG Regional Division Annual Fall Meetings for Outstanding Work

December 20, 2016

The American Association of Geographers (AAG) announces the recipients of the 2016 Council Award for Outstanding Graduate Student Paper at a Regional Meeting. Graduate student AAG members from around the U.S. participated by submitting to their region’s paper competition and attending their regional division fall meeting. A student paper from seven out of nine AAG regions was chosen by a jury of AAG regional division leaders and the honors for this inaugural award were given at each of the division meetings.

The award is designed to encourage graduate student participation at AAG regional division meetings and support their attendance at major AAG annual meetings. Each awardee will receive $1,000 in funding for use towards the awardee’s registration and travel costs to the AAG annual meeting.

Jacob Watkins, recipient of the East Lakes (ELDAAG) division’s award, is a master’s student at Western Michigan University. The award was presented by AAG President Glen MacDonald and ELDAAG Regional Councillor Patrick Lawrence

Kathleen Epstein, recipient of the Great Plains/Rocky Mountains (GPRM) division’s award, is a master’s student at Montana State University. Her paper is titled, “The multiple meanings of ecosystem management: A historical analysis of modern environmental conflict in the Greater Yellowstone.” Pictured from left to right are AAG Executive Director Doug Richardson, Vice President of GPRM Brandon J. Vogt, awardee Kathleen Epstein and AAG Past President Sarah Bednarz.

Melody Lynch, recipient of the New England\St. Lawrence Valley division’s award, is a master’s student at McGill University.

Ashley Marie Fent, recipient of the Pacific Coast division’s award, is a Ph.D. student at the University of California – Los Angeles.

The Middle States and Mid-Atlantic regional divisions did not issue an award in this category this year.

To find out more about submitting a paper for next year, visit aag council award for outstanding graduate student paper at a regional meeting

Ashley Marie Fent, Council Award for Outstanding Graduate Student Paper at a Regional Meeting, Jacob Watkins, Jason LaBrosse, Kathleen Epstein, Melody Lynch, Paul Miller, Stephanie Mundis

Awardees

2017 AAG Honors Recipients Announced

December 19, 2016

The AAG is pleased to announce the selection of seven Honorees who will receive the 2017 AAG Honors in one of four categories. Recipients to be honored at an annual awards luncheon during the AAG Annual Meeting are:

Patrick Bartlein, University of Oregon, AAG Distinguished Scholarship Honors
Ruth Fincher, University of Melbourne, AAG Lifetime Achievement Honors
Kent Mathewson, Louisiana State University, AAG Ronald F. Abler Distinguished Service Honors
Michael Pretes, University of North Alabama, AAG Distinguished Teaching Honors
David Robinson, Rutgers University, AAG Lifetime Achievement Honors
Michael Storper, University of California Los Angeles, AAG Distinguished Scholarship Honors
Julie Winkler, Michigan State University, AAG Ronald F. Abler Distinguished Service Honors

AAG Honors are the highest awards offered by the Association of American Geographers. They are offered annually to recognize outstanding accomplishments by members in research & scholarship, teaching, education, service to the discipline, public service outside academe and for lifetime achievement. Although the AAG and its specialty groups make other important awards (see Grants and Awards), AAG Honors remains among the most prestigious awards in American geography and have been awarded since 1951 (complete list).

Nominations are invited from individual AAG members, specialty groups, affinity groups, departments, and other interested parties. Currently, honors are awarded in several categories, including Distinguished Teaching Honors, Gilbert F. White Distinguished Public Service Honors, Ronald F. Abler Distinguished Service Honors, Gilbert Grosvenor Honors for Geographic Education, Distinguished Scholarship Honors, and Lifetime Achievement Honors.

All AAG awards will be presented at the upcoming AAG Annual Meeting in Boston, during a special awards luncheon on Sunday, April 9, 2017.

About the Honorees

Patrick Bartlein – The Distinguished Scholarship Honors is presented to Patrick Bartlein for his fundamental contributions to fields across and beyond physical geography, including paleo-climate, biogeography, geomorphology, meteorology, water resources, hydrology, statistics, spatial analysis, geology, ecology and archaeology. He has been integral to major international and interdisciplinary collaborations, such as the Cooperative Holocene Mapping Project (COHMAP), the Paleoclimate Modeling Intercomparison Projects (PMJP) and national and international climate change assessments. Bart (as he prefers to be called) has 200-plus publications that have been cited some I8,000 times, touching on topics ranging from water balance modeling to Holocene vegetation and wildfire interactions to the potential effects of future climate change on species distributions. A visionary scholar with a rare ability to think across multiple temporal and spatial scales, Bart bas illuminated climatological phenomena from decades to billions of years in time and from meters to continents in space. The AAG is proud to honor him with its Distinguished Scholarship Honors.

Ruth Fincher – The Lifetime Achievement Honors is presented to Ruth Fincher for her contributions to geographical research, teaching, and service. Her dual focus on the lived experiences of disadvantaged populations and the political-economic structures within which those populations struggle has been a core part of her work throughout her career. So too has a focus on local issues, from neighborhood redevelopment to immigration and identity to rising sea levels. Beyond Fincher’s policy-relevant research, she has served on multiple advisory boards and committees at the national and international levels; has been elected Vice-President of the International Geographical Union; and has been honored as a Member of the Order of Australia. Her advocacy for geography within her university and on an international level has strengthened the health of the discipline beyond her outstanding research and teaching.

Kent Mathewson – The Ronald F. Abler Distinguished Service Honors is presented to Kent Mathewson for his tireless and frequently ‘ behind-the-scenes ‘ advocacy for geographic scholarship and historiography. He is particularly appreciated for his tireless work “recognizing and celebrating the work of book authors” through his long-time work as Book Review editor and most recently as Editor-in-Chief for The AAG Review of Books. His unwavering support for book authors is described as a contribution that is “essential to the intellectual vigor of our discipline.”

Michael Pretes – The 2017 Distinguished Teaching Honors is presented to Michael Pretes for his contributions to geographic education both within and outside the classroom. He has been a faculty member at the University of North Alabama since 2006 where he is an exemplary teacher-scholar. His students and colleagues extoll his passion for geography and his ability to instill a love and respect for geography in his students. In 2013 he was awarded with the university’s most distinguished award, the Phi Kappa Phi Eleanor Gaunder Award for excellence in undergraduate education. In addition, in 2015 he received the Southeast Geographers Excellence in Teaching Award. He held teaching and research positions at several institutions in the United States, and abroad. In addition to his work with undergraduate and graduate students he has reached out to students in secondary classrooms and members of communities where he lived and worked. Pretes is highly active in geographic education through various organizations such as the American Association of Geographers, the Southeast Division of the AAG, the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers, the Royal Geographical Society, the Arctic Institute of North America and the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education.

David Robinson – The AAG Life Achievement Honors is presented to David Robinson because he is a multi-dimensional geographer who has achieved extraordinary success and impact in many domains simultaneously. As a researcher, he is a leading figure in the fields of climate science and climatology and one the world’s foremost experts on global snow cover. As New Jersey State Climatologist for the past 25 years, he is among the most publicly prominent geographers in the New York-New Jersey region, granting hundreds of media interviews each year while also overseeing a publicly accessible statewide climate and weather data network. As a long-serving department chair at Rutgers, Robinson fostered a culture of success that combined scholarly achievement with mentorship, collegiality and mutual respect among all members of the department.

Michael Storper – The Distinguished Scholarship Honors is presented to Michael Storper for his outstanding record of scholarly achievement and innovative contributions to the fields of global economic development and the geography of urban and regional systems. He has held academic positions at highly reputable institutions in both the United States and Europe. His exceptional research has led to widely cited and highly influential scholarly publications and foundational contributions to economic and urban geography and related disciplines. The depth and quality of his work has put him in a category of scholarship that is truly deserving of this prestigious AAG award.

Julie Winkler – The Ron Abler Distinguished Service Honors is presented to Julie Winkler in recognition of her sustained and committed work to the AAG, the discipline of geography, her department, and her state and community. She has served as an officer in several national and international professional organizations; on the editorial boards of numerous high ranking journals (17 on the board of the Annals of the AAG); and has brought her insights to bear in guiding several departments through programmatic reviews. Her career has been marked by those things held as noteworthy by Ron Abler – a desire to sustain the breadth and vitality of geography, support of faculty in their careers, and a commitment to move the field in a direction that is marked by integrative approaches. She has done this exceptional service without sacrificing her contribution to research and teaching.

Awardees

Roger Downs To Receive the 2017 AAG Presidential Achievement Award

October 14, 2016

Roger M. Downs, professor of geography at Pennsylvania State University, will receive the 2017 AAG Presidential Achievement Award, which honors individuals for their long-term, major contributions to the discipline. Past President Sarah Witham Bednarz will confer the award during the close of her Past President’s Address at the AAG annual meeting in Boston. She remarked, “Downs is a scholar, excellent administrator, and guiding light for geographers interested in teaching and learning.”

He is recognized for his groundbreaking research in the development of spatial cognition in children, spatial thinking with and through geospatial technologies, and the nature and development of expertise in geography. He has worked closely with colleagues in psychology and other behavioral sciences to explore the intersections of geography and the cognitive sciences producing leading-edge work on cognitive mapping and spatial behavior.

Downs’ greatest contribution to the discipline, however, has been through his leadership and deft administrative skills which facilitated a renaissance in geography education. He was a member of the Planning Committee for the 1994 National Assessment Governing Board’s Geography Consensus and has been a driving force in the development of the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) assessment in Geography since then. He was writing coordinator of the team that developed the National Geography Standards: Geography for Life (1994) and chaired the group that revised the Standards in 2012. From 2001 to 2005 he led the National Academy of Science/National Research Council Committee on Support for Thinking Spatially producing the seminal document, Learning to Think Spatially which linked geographic information science and spatial thinking. From 1993 to 2012 as chair of the Geography Education National Implementation Project (GENIP) Downs played an influential role in every aspect of efforts to enhance the quality and quantity of geography education in the United States. As chair of The Geographical Sciences Committee of the National Research Council, he promoted geography education as vitally important to the health of the discipline at large.

He served as head of the Department of Geography at Penn State from 1994 to 2007. Previously he taught at Johns Hopkins University and held a key sabbatical position at the National Geographic Society as Geographer-in-Residence 1995-1996. He holds a B.A. (First Class Honors) and a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Bristol, UK. He received the Distinguished Geography Educator Award from the National Geographic Society in 1996 and the Gilbert M. Grosvenor Award from AAG in 1997.

AAG Presidential Achievement Award, cognitive science, psychology, Roger Downs, Sarah Witham Bednarz, spatial cognition

Awardees

Noam Chomsky To Receive AAG Atlas Award in Boston

September 20, 2016

The American Association of Geographers has selected Noam Chomsky as the recipient of its 2017 AAG Atlas Award, the association’s highest honor.

The AAG Atlas Award is designed to recognize and celebrate outstanding, internationally-recognized leaders who advance world understanding in exceptional ways. The image of Atlas bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders is a powerful metaphor for this award program, as our nominees are those who have taken the weight of the world on their shoulders and moved it forward, whether in science, politics, scholarship, or the arts. Primatologist Jane Goodall, international human rights and political leader Mary Robinson, and civil rights icon Julian Bond have been the recipients of the first three AAG Atlas Awards.

One of the world’s leading public intellectuals, Noam Chomsky has written and lectured widely on linguistics, philosophy, science, history, contemporary issues, international affairs, and US foreign policy. His work on the nature of human language and communication has profoundly transformed the field of linguistics, and greatly influenced science and philosophy more broadly. “In terms of the power, range, novelty and influence of his thought, Noam Chomsky is arguably the most important intellectual alive today, “ wrote Paul Robinson in the New York Times Book Review.

Chomsky’s wide-ranging intellect and impassioned work have long inspired geographers. And his highly-regarded contributions on contemporary topics concerning globalization and the intersections between geography, economics and politics are of great interest to AAG members. Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor and Professor of Linguistics emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

A Continuing Conversation with Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky will engage in a conversational interview with AAG Executive Director Doug Richardson, as he has several times previously, at this year’s AAG Annual Meeting in Boston. The audience will have an opportunity to ask questions following the interview.

This special interview with Chomsky will also serve as the keynote session to kick off Mainstreaming Human Rights in Geography and the AAG, one of three main Themes of the 2017 AAG Annual Meeting. Learn more.

2017, AAG Annual Meeting, AAG Atlas Award, Boston, Noam Chomsky

Awardees

Geoffrey Martin Receives the Humboldt Book Award for Enduring Scholarship in Geography

September 1, 2016

The AAG Review of Books (AAGRB) is proud to announce the selection of Prof. Geoffrey Martin’s monumental book, American Geography and Geographers, as the inaugural recipient of the Humboldt Book Award for Enduring Scholarship in Geography.

The award was selected from all of the books reviewed during the first four years of the AAG Review of Books. The selection committee chaired by the Editor-in-Chief of the AAGRB unanimously agreed on selection of American Geography and Geographers as the inaugural awardee for the Humboldt Book Award for Enduring Scholarship in Geography.

The Humboldt Book Award for Enduring Scholarship was established to recognize the single book reviewed in the AAG Review of Books judged to be a work that not only represents geographic scholarship at its best, but a book that also promises enduring scholarly value and importance. The author receives an honorarium of $1,000 as well.

Published by Oxford University Press in 2015, American Geography and Geographers has been characterized by Ron Abler as “unparalleled in the scope and depth of its research” and by Harm De Blij as “a monumental and magisterial work, exhaustively researched and documented.” William Koelsch added, “This landmark study will be a resource for teachers and students of the discipline for years to come, and an important first reference for scholars seeking to expand the breadth and depth of the field.”

The selection of the AAGRB Humboldt Book Award for Enduring Scholarship in Geography will be made every four years, from the books reviewed in the AAGRB during the prior four years.

Awardees

2016 J. Warren Nystrom Award

April 18, 2016

Four early-career academics presented high-quality research papers in the final of the 2016 Nystrom Competition on March 30, 2016 during a special session at the AAG Annual Meeting in San Francisco.

The Nystrom Award is an annual prize for a paper based upon a recent doctoral dissertation in geography.

In Fall 2015 the Nystrom Award Review Committee considered all the papers submitted and selected four candidates to advance to the final round of the competition.

The finalists and the papers that they presented at the Annual Meeting were:

Vena Chu, University of California, Berkeley – “Assessing southwestern Greenland ice sheet moulin distribution and formation from high resolution WorldView-1/2 remote sensing”
Kimberley Thomas, University of Pennsylvania – “Bordering non-water flows: Explaining upstream-downstream power asymmetries in the Ganges Basin”
Sharon Wilcox, University of Texas at Austin – “Murderous Jaguars, King cats, and Disappearing Tigres: Emergent Rhetoric of Conservation in the early Twentieth Century”
Peng Jia, Louisiana State University – “Delineating Hospital Service Areas Based on the Revised Huff Model”

The Committee was looking for original ideas and research that makes a potential contribution to the advancement of knowledge in a particular subfield of geography. Candidates were evaluated on the basis of the clarity and effectiveness of written style in their submitted papers, and the quality and effectiveness of their oral presentation.

After careful deliberation, Kimberley Thomas was chosen as the 2016 winner. She attended the AAG Awards Luncheon on April 2 to collect her certificate and cash prize of $1,000.

All finalists have been invited to submit their papers for consideration for publication in one of the AAG’s journals, The Professional Geographer.

This award is made from a fund established by John Warren Nystrom, who served as the AAG’s Executive Director from 1966 to 1979. Nystrom was an exceptional educator who taught geography for many years at Rhode Island College, University of Pittsburgh, George Washington University, and Florida Atlantic University. He published a number of geography textbooks and periodicals on U.S. relations with the European Community, Canada and Latin America. Beyond academia, he had a long and productive career in international relations as a senior official in the Foreign Policy Department at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a partner in the international relations consulting firm of Allen, Murden and Nystrom, and a Senior Fellow at The Brookings Institution. He also represented the United States at UNESCO, the United Nations’ educational, scientific, and cultural organization.

Awardees

2016 Annual Specialty and Affinity Group Awards

April 15, 2016

The AAG has around 65 Specialty and Affinity Groups which bring together AAG members around interests in particular topics, regions or professional communities.

Many of these groups bestow awards for outstanding achievement and service, prizes for papers and posters, and give grants for research and travel to students, faculty and professionals in their respective fields.

Some of these awards were presented at the AAG’s annual Awards Luncheon held in San Francisco on April 2, 2016 and these are listed below. The full list of all 2016 Specialty and Affinity Group Awards will be published on the AAG website in due course.

Special distinctions

Some of the Specialty Groups select established members of their community for their highest recognition.

The late Susan Hardwick, who passed away in 2015, was posthumously recognized by the Ethnic Geography Specialty Group for her career accomplishments in ethnic geography scholarship, teaching, and service.
Michael Kuby from Arizona State University received the Ullman Award from the Transportation Geography Specialty Group for his outstanding contributions and service to the field of transportation geography.
Mei-Po Kwan from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign received the Melinda S. Meade Distinguished Scholarship Award in Health and Medical Geography from the Health and Medical Geography Specialty Group for her outstanding record of research and teaching on health and medical geography, leadership in this area, and service to this community.
Dick Marston from Kansas State University received the Melvin G. Marcus Distinguished Career Award from the Geomorphology Specialty Group.
William Moseley from Macalester College received the Kwadwo Konadu-Agyemang Distinguished Scholar on Africa Award
John Weeks from San Diego State University received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Population Specialty Group for his outstanding contributions to the field of population geography through research, teaching, professional services, and mentoring.
Julie Winkler from Michigan State University received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Climate Specialty Group in recognition of her career of excellent research, teaching, and mentoring in climatology, and for outstanding service to the AAG and climate specialty group.
Bill Wyckoff from Montana State University was honored as a Distinguished Historical Geographer by the Historical Geography Specialty Group for his research and writing which exemplifies the best in historical geography scholarship.
Xinyue Ye from Kent State University was given a Distinguished Service Award from the Regional Development and Planning Specialty Group for his service to the group.

Awards for publications

The Geomorphology Specialty Group gave the Grove Karl Gilbert Award for excellence in geomorphological research to Edgardo Latrubesse from the University of Texas at Austin for his paper published in Earth Science Reviews entitled “Large Rivers, Megafans and other Quaternary Avulsive Fluvial Systems: A potential “Who’s Who” in the Geological Record.”
The Political Geography Specialty Group gave the Virginia Mamadouh Outstanding Research Award for a journal article or book chapter that makes an innovative, original contribution to the conceptual and/or methodological embrace of political geography to Ian Shaw for his paper published in Area entitled “Force-Full Power, Politics, and Object Oriented Philosophy.”

Thesis and Dissertation Awards

The Transportation Geography Specialty Group gave two awards to students who completed postgraduate degrees in the last year.

Ying Song from the University of Minnesota won the Outstanding Dissertation Award for her doctoral dissertation entitled “Green Accessibility: Measuring the environmental costs of space-time prisms in sustainable transportation planning.”
Lea Ravensbergen-Hodgins from the University of Toronto won the Outstanding Master’s Thesis Award for her thesis entitled “Socioeconomic Discrepancies in Children’s Accessibility to Health Promoting Resources: An Activity Space Analysis.”

Student Paper Awards

Many of the Specialty Groups have competitions for student papers or posters given at the AAG Annual Meeting or other events. The following were awarded with prizes in 2016:

China Geography Specialty Group

Yicong Yang, Cornell University “Understanding informal spaces in a Chinese megacity”

Cultural and Political Ecology Specialty Group

Lily House-Peters, University of Arizona “Social-Ecological Transformations and Riparian Enclosure: The Production of Spaces of Exclusion and the Uneven Development of Resilience in the Sonoran Borderlands”

Economic Geography Specialty Group

Aarti Krishnan, University of Manchester “Expansion of regional value chains: The case of Kenyan horticulture”

Ethnic Geography Specialty Group

Scott Markley, University of Tennessee “Examining the Geographies of Infill New Urbanism in Atlanta Suburbs”

European Specialty Group

Katherine Newman, University of Victoria “The Gothic Geopolitics of Bram Stoker’s Dracula: Vampires of the Orient in the Jus Publicum Europaeum”

Geographic Information Science and Systems Specialty Group

Yoo Min Park, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1^st Place, Honors Student Paper Competition, “Assessment of Personal Exposure to Air Pollution and Its Effects on Health”
Neil Debbage, University of Georgia, 2^nd Place, Honors Student Paper Competition, “Sensitivity of Spatial Metrics to Land Use Classification Scheme When Assessing Urban Sprawl Among Large U.S. Metropolitan Areas”
Jessica Dozier, San Diego State University, Finalist – Honors Student Paper Competition, “Improve Disaster Communication in Online and Offline Communities Using Social Media (Twitter) and Big Data”
Song Gao, UC Santa Barbara, Finalist – Honors Student Paper Competition, “Employing Spatial Analysis in Indoor Positioning and Tracking Using Wi-Fi Access Points”
Dapeng Li, University of Utah, Finalist – Honors Student Paper Competition, “Setting Wildfire Evacuation Triggers by Coupling Fire and Traffic Simulation Models: A Spatiotemporal GIS Approach”

Political Geography Specialty Group

Amber J. Boll-Bosse (MA Student Paper Award) “Participatory Action Mapping: A pathway for (re)thinking, (re)engaging, and (re)making maps in political geography”
Casey Ryan Lynch (PhD Student Paper Award) “Performative Power and Colonizing Assemblages in Post-Coup Honduras”

Population Specialty Group

Nathan Trombley, University of Tennessee “Remittance Behavior of US Immigrants”

Qualitative Research Specialty Group

Amber Bell-Bosse, University of Kentucky “We are living in a nightmare, and it is so clear to me now”: A Qualitative examination of participatory action mapping”

Regional Development and Planning Specialty Group

Yingyu Feng, University of Bristol “The Rise of Inequality? A Spatiotemporal Analysis of Housing Price Disparities in England and Wales During 2001-2015”

Remote Sensing, GIS and Cartography Specialty Groups

Laurel Ballanti, San Francisco State University (1^st place) “Tree Species Classification Using Hyperspectral Imagery in Muir Woods National Monument and Kent Creek Canyon, California”
Fang Fang, West Virginia University (2^nd place) “Discriminating tree species using crown-scale measurements: fusing leaf-on Lidar and high-resolution multi-spectral satellite date”

Remote Sensing Specialty Group

Wenjie Ji, State University of New York at Buffalo (1^st place)
Tengyun Hu, Tsinghua University, China (3^rd place)

Spatial Analysis and Modeling Specialty Group

Debra Blackmore, Portland State University
Su Han, San Diego State University

Sexuality and Space Specialty Group

Paul Kelaita, University of Sydney, Australia “Queer Infrastructure and Gay Elsewheres”

Awards for research and field study

Jonathan McCombs from the University of Georgia received the Student Field Study Award from the Cultural and Political Ecology Specialty Group for his field research proposal entitled “White Washing Green Spaces: Race and Nature in the Gentrification of Budapest’s Eighth District.”

Xiaoyu “Larry” Lu from University of Tennessee received the M. Gordon “Reds” Wolman Doctoral Student Research Award from the Geomorphology Specialty Group for an outstanding research proposal entitled “Connecting Spatio-temporal Domains of Water Erosion Regimes: A Geomorphic Perspective.
Kelly Jean Anderson from University of Maryland received the Student Research Award from the Human Dimensions of Global Change Specialty Group for field research entitled “Contextualizing Drivers and Outcomes of Rural to Urban Migration in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Case of Mozambique.”

Other Awards

The Graduate Student Affinity Group gave Professional Development Awards this year to Ningning Chen from National University of Singapore and Mia Renauld from Northeastern University.

The Transportation Geography Specialty Group supported travel to the AAG Annual Meeting to Geoffrey Battista from McGill University and Koos Fransen from Ghent University.

For further information about the annual, periodic and special awards given by Specialty and Affinity Groups, visit their respective webpages. A directory of groups can be found here: https://www.aag.org/cs/about_aag/specialty_groups_2

Awardees

2016 AAG Dissertation Research Grants

March 25, 2016

Every year the AAG provides support for doctoral research in the form of small grants to PhD candidates of any geographic specialty. Three recipients were chosen this year from among 25 applicants and will each receive $1,000.

Clifton Barrineau from the Department of Geography at Texas A&M University is a quaternary scientist studying a large sand plain of aeolian origin in South Texas. The funds from the grant will be used for Optically Stimulated Luminescence dating of sand samples collected from soil cores. This dating will determine periods of aeolian activation across the sand plain and be used to generate a detailed landscape history of the area. An understanding of the landscape’s history can be used to predict the future response to forecast changes in climate and to mitigate negative side effects of land degradation and soil loss via desertification.

Lucia Hussey from the Department of Geography at Western University in Ontario is seeking to identify the infectious diseases that are likely to have the most severe impacts from climate change in her native Ghana. The funds from the grant will support her field research during summer 2016. Her mixed methodology includes a multi-criteria evaluation approach to prioritize climate sensitive infectious diseases, then a survey, in-depth interviews and focus groups in two ecologically and climatically different districts to assess determinants of current vulnerabilities to endemic diseases. Her findings will inform the development of adaptation measures and policies to minimize infectious disease risks due to climate change in Ghana.

Sandy Wong from the Department of Geography & Geographic Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is conducting research on the causes of low rates of employment and overall well-being among individuals who are visually impaired. The funds from the grant will be used to support her travel to and lodging at her fieldwork site in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her fieldwork will involve collecting qualitative data on individual experiences and perspectives through interviews and participant observation. Her study seeks to demonstrate that space actively creates and strengthens social processes that continue to marginalize individuals with disabilities.

The AAG Dissertation Research Grants are supported partly by the AAG and partly from the Robert D. Hodgson Memorial Ph.D. Dissertation Fund, the Paul Vouras Fund, and the Otis Paul Starkey Fund.

Awardees

2016 Harm J. de Blij Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Geography Teaching

March 23, 2016

The 2016 Harm J. de Blij Award is presented to Donald J. Zeigler of Old Dominion University for his long and distinguished career as a teacher of geography to undergraduate students. The Harm J. de Blij Award recognizes outstanding achievement in teaching undergraduate geography including the use of innovative teaching methods. This award is generously funded by John Wiley & Sons in memory of their long-standing collaboration with the late Harm de Blij on his seminal geography textbooks

Don Zeigler has taught geography to undergraduate students at Old Dominion University, Virginia Beach, Virginia, for the past 36 years. During that period, he has taught nearly 200 sections of geography courses representing more than 25 geographical topics.

Zeigler attended to the ever changing student population and course dynamics by using a variety of pedagogical methods, beginning initially with chalk and talk in 1980 and employing video streaming and virtual reality in 2016. His teaching repertoire includes standard lecture classes (serving small to very large course sections), field-based and study abroad courses, problem based learning, and web-based and televised distance learning courses. Zeigler’s commitment to excellence in teaching has led him to design and teach courses fulfilling key university missions, including writing intensive and service learning courses, each with a geographical perspective.

Zeigler began his career at Old Dominion University as a first year faculty member in a major that had not existed the prior academic year. Zeigler was instrumental in building the undergraduate program in geography to its present size today of seven faculty members and 100 geography majors. He has accompanied students on field study trips to Israel, Jordan, the Bahamas and Mexico. “Simply stated, Don Zeigler is the face of Geography at Old Dominion University,” said Dr. Jonathan Leib, current Director of the Geography Program, “His reputation as a teacher, scholar, and as a genuine person permeates the campus and its student body.”

Donald J. Zeigler is recognized for his accomplishments as a gifted teacher, for his role as a mentor for students both within and outside the classroom, and for his continued passion for teaching geography. The American Association of Geographers, John Wiley & Sons Publishers, his friends and colleagues, and his many students from the past 36 years at Old Dominion University congratulate Don as the 2016 recipient of this award for excellence in undergraduate geography teaching. The Harm J. de Blij Award consists of $2,500 in prize money and an additional $500 in travel expenses to attend the AAG Annual Meeting, where the award is annually conveyed.

Harm J. de Blij Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Geography Teaching