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Meet the AAG Journals Editors: Kent Mathewson and Robert Perham

August 3, 2018

Kent Mathewson is the editor-in-chief of the AAG Review of Books. Published quarterly, the AAG Review of Books is a special journal highlighting recent texts in geography and related disciplines. The journal features book reviews by geographers and other scholars at various points of their academic careers. These reviews are also available from a database located on the AAG website.

Mathewson has lived in a number places in the U.S. Originally from North Carolina and Virginia, he has also lived in the Northwest, Midwest, Northeast, and then back to the South again. He studied geography at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio for his bachelor’s degree and University of Wisconsin, Madison for his graduate degrees. He is currently Fred B. Kniffen Professor in the Department of Geography and Anthropology at Louisiana State University. Previously he taught geography at a number of campuses in Wisconsin, as well as in Minnesota, Virginia, North Carolina and Ecuador. His travel experience matches his residential life. He has traveled extensively in Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe, and Australia. Courses that he teaches at LSU reflect his geographic travel, focusing on geographies of the Americas and Europe as well as cultural geography and history of geography.

Over the course of his career, Mathewson’s contributions to the geographic discipline include serving as a book review editor. He helped start the AAG Review of Books six years ago and has been a book review editor for other publications such as Historical Geography, Geographical Review, and Cultural Ecology Newsletter for the past 25 years. He enjoys the opportunity through his editorial work to meet many colleagues in geography and related disciplines as well as be at the forefront of surveying recent trends in disciplinary research. As a book reviews editor, Mathewson believes he is in “a privileged position not only for the responsibilities conferred, but also in a vantage point for viewing the shifting research trends in the discipline.” He believes in the importance of understanding the progression of the geographic discipline as reflected in the books geographers publish. For those hoping to publish in geography he offers the following advice: “In writing, strive for short and clear declarative sentences. Use jargon sparingly if at all. Write for a readership well beyond the narrow bounds of your specialty.”

Several graduate students are also a part of the AAG Journals’ editorial team, including Robert Perham who worked as an assistant for the AAG Review of Books. In his own words below, Perham talks about what led him to this position and his experiences working with the AAG publications team.

Hi, I’m Robert Perham. I grew up in Rusper, a small village in the South of England. I recently finished master’s degree in geography at Louisiana State University. I found myself in Baton Rouge by way of a road trip I took across the “deep South,” in 2013! Did I get lost and just decide to stay there, you ask? Kind of, after studying abroad at Rutgers University, NJ, during my undergrad at the University of Manchester, U.K., the road trip provoked my research interests in the U.S. South (particularly Southern identity and Confederate iconography). What better way to fulfil these interests and further my education in geography than pursuing a master’s in Louisiana, I thought. Also, I’d only be just over an hour from New Orleans; a city that as a geographer I find fascinating on so many levels, which is probably why it is one of my favorite cities in the world (Brighton, U.K. is probably my ultimate favorite). When New Orleans was thrusted into the center of national debates over Confederate iconography last Spring, my decision to pursue my academic interests in South Louisiana proved appropriate. Observing the numerous protests that ensued firsthand after the city unveiled its plan to remove four of its Confederate monuments is perhaps my most memorable research experience.

Not long after arriving in Louisiana, I was lucky enough to be offered the chance to work part-time for the AAG Review of Books under Kent Mathewson, the publication’s Editor-in-Chief and my advisor. This was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up and in the two years I spent working in the role, I thoroughly enjoyed commissioning, coordinating, and editing some 250+ book reviews. As an early career scholar, working so closely with Kent and our associate editors was an invaluable experience that taught me so much about editing and the academic publishing process. Personally, I found liaising with many distinguished leaders from across the discipline, commissioning significant books for review, and working with the AAG’s fantastic publications team in D.C. to be the most enjoyable aspects of my work. As I reflect on my stint working for the AAG Review of Books, I’m going to sorely miss being surrounded by bookcase upon bookcase full of new and exciting work that spans the entire discipline.

Journals

Meet the AAG Journals Editors – David Butler and Nik Heynen

July 2, 2018

Published six times a year since 1911, the Annals of the American Association of Geographers is one of the world’s foremost geography journals. The articles in the journal are divided into four theme sections that reflect the various scholarship throughout the geographic discipline: Geographic Methods; Human Geography; Nature and Society; and Physical Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences. There are editors responsible for each of the four themes, two of which are David Butler and Nik Heynen.

The Physical Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences section editor of the Annals of the American Association of Geographers is David Butler. Butler is a Texas State University System Regents’ Professor in the Department of Geography at Texas State University where he teaches courses on geomorphology, landscape biogeography, biogeomorphology, and Nature and Philosophy of Geography. With research interests that include geomorphology, biogeography, natural hazards, mountain environments and environmental change, Butler has considerable experience working with physical geography topics. He has also been the recipient of several awards during his career including the Distinguished Career Award from the Biogeography Specialty Group, the Geomorphology Specialty Group, and the Mountain Geography Specialty Group of the AAG as well as a variety of teaching and mentoring awards.

Aside from working with the AAG Journals, Butler has editorial experience that includes serving as Section Editor for Geomorphology for the 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.

As an editor for AAG Journals, Butler feels a sense of satisfaction that he is helping to advance physical geography within the discipline. In his mind, the most pressing issue within physical geography right now is “figuring out how to address the concept of the Anthropocene in classical physical geography research and teaching.” For those who are looking to publish research in physical geography, David says to be sure potential authors completely understand and respect the journal to which they wish to submit research. He adds, “Beyond that, don’t give up! If you feel like you have something important enough to say to be published somewhere, you’re probably right. If your first journal of choice ultimately rejects you, take to heart their critiques and try another journal!”

Nik Heynen is the Human Geography editor for the Annals of the American Association of Geographers, a Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Georgia, and an adjunct Professor in the Department of Anthropology. At the University of Georgia, Heynen teaches mostly large introductory classes, in addition to graduate seminars.

Heynen’s research, for which he has won several awards including the AAG’s Glenda Laws Award for geographic contributions to social justice research, focuses on urban geography, especially urban social movements and urban political ecology. He is also interested in environmental justice; food/hunger studies; race, class, and gender, and science and technology studies.

While also serving as an AAG Journals editor, over the last seven years Heynen has invested time helping to establish UGA’s Center for Integrative conservation (CICR) and for over three years served as the Director of the Integrative Conservation (ICON) PhD Program that was established by a group who came together through CICR. He recently became the Director of the Geography of the Georgia Coast Domestic Field Study Program based on Sapelo Island.

In addition to the teaching and administrative activities he does at UGA, and he is also currently an editor at a variety of outlets in addition to the Annals. He serves as an editor for Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space and was also the founding editor of UGA’s Geographies of Justice and Social Transformation book series. Since 2006 he has been involved with the journal Antipode, first as the Book Reviews and Interventions editor, than as a general member of the editorial collective and he continues to serve as a trustee of the Antipode Foundation, a U.K. based charity. Part of the work he still does at Antipode is Chair Antipode’s Institute for the Geographies of Justice (IGJ).

Heynen enjoys seeing the work of his colleagues and, as an editor, helping their work develop and be published. He believes that both Black geographies and Feminist geographies are the two most exciting areas of geographic thought at this time, but continues to find great value in Marxist Geography.

Learn more about Nik’s research by visiting his website: nikheynen.com.

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Meet the AAG Journals Editors – Barney Warf and Blake Mayberry

May 30, 2018

Barney Warf and Blake Mayberry work on The Professional Geographer, one of three academic journals published by the AAG. The Professional Geographer, published four times a year, was initially a publication of the American Society of Professional Geographers but became a journal of the American Association of Geographers in 1949 after the two organisations merged. The focus of this journal is on short articles in academic or applied geography, emphasizing empirical studies and methodologies. These features may range in content and approach from rigorously analytic to broadly philosophical or prescriptive. The journal provides a forum for new ideas and alternative viewpoints.

Barney Warf is the current Editor for The Professional Geographer and a Professor of Geography at the University of Kansas. His professional interests lie within the broad domain of human geography. Much of his research concerns information technology and telecommunications, notably geographies of the internet, including fiber optics, the digital divide, and e-government. He has also written on military spending, electoral geography, religious diversity, cosmopolitanism, and corruption. While most of his research involves secondary data, Barney’s most memorable research experiences have involved doing interviews in Latin America, particularly in Panama and Costa Rica, that added a human depth to the topics he researched. He has authored, co-authored, or co-edited eight research books, three encyclopedias, three textbooks, 50 book chapters and more than 100 refereed journal articles.

In addition to serving as editor of The Professional Geographer, he also currently serves as the editor of Geojournal, co-editor of Growth and Change, and edits a series of geography texts for Rowman and Littlefield publishers. For Barney, the best thing about being a journal editor is “reading about the diverse set of topics that authors write about. It’s truly astonishing the things people choose to research. Being an editor has exposed me to all sorts of issues and worldviews that I didn’t know existed.” For new authors, Barney encourages them to “keep an eye on important issues in the world like poverty and inequality. I worry that at times geography becomes overly ‘academic’ and too concerned with relatively obscure issues that have little bearing on the ‘real world.’”

Barney’s teaching interests include urban and economic geography, the history of geographic thought, globalization, and contemporary social theory. When asked about which area of geographic thought needs the most attention at this point in time, Barney believes “human geography today is at the confluence of several intersecting lines of theory, including poststructuralism, postcolonialism, feminism, queer theory, and the social construction of nature. I think the most interesting works are those that bring these perspectives into a creative tension with one another.”

Blake Mayberry is the editorial assistant for the Professional Geographer where his role is to help screen manuscripts initially for style and then to assign appropriate peer reviewers. Blake is also currently Assistant Professor of Geography at Red Rocks Community College where he edits an on-campus student-oriented scholarly journal, teaches in the Water Quality Management Program (a four-year program), and serves on the City of Golden Planning Commission.

Blake’s path to become a geographer has been appropriately circuitous, but he could start in the beginning: as a child he slept with a globe instead of a teddy bear! At times Blake wanted to be Indiana Jones, and at other times, Leonardo DaVinci. He found that geography was the best way to satisfy the scientific, analytical side of my brain, while also indulging my more romantic, artistic side. As a career, He also found geography to be extremely rewarding. Blake has worked as an urban planner in the Omaha metropolitan area, and with environmental groups conducting ecological restoration and advocating for the protection of native ecosystems.

Blake has done research on topics ranging from urbanization and water resources in the southwestern United States, to the Indian Removal Period during the nineteenth century. However, his real passion is for grasslands. His master’s thesis at the University of Nebraska-Omaha focused on the effort to create a national park in western Iowa’s Loess Hills in the aftermath of the Farm Crisis, specifically, the role that media play in natural resource conservation policy. Expanding on that theme, his dissertation research at the University of Kansas involved an ethnographic study of environmentalists working to restore prairies on the Great Plains and how cultural identity and sense of place influence people’s actions to remake the landscape. In his spare time Blake enjoys reading maps, drawing maps, and exploring places real-life places that he find on maps.

Blake encourages prospective authors to read as much as they can before publishing: “Engage with the literature, all of it, in depth, all the time, all throughout your research… as someone who sees a lot of manuscripts come and go at the PG, the really successful ones, and the ones that end up having the most impact on the discipline, are the those that engage deeply with theory, and from multiple perspectives. Resist the temptation to get into a ‘citation silo,’ where you only engage with the literature on your subject matter from the perspective of your PhD advisor and their former students. There is nothing more I love than to see a manuscript on spatial regression that cites Tuan! I tell my students that your written work reflects your effort, and I’d say the same about being a scholar – your lit review tells us whether you did your homework or not. Doing your homework will go a long way towards preventing revise and resubmits, and outright rejections.”

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Meet the AAG Journals Editors – Stephen Hanna

April 30, 2018

Dr. Stephen Hanna recently joined the AAG Journals’ editorial team as the Cartography Editor for the AAG suite of journals: the Annals of the Association of American Geographers, the Professional Geographer, and GeoHumanities.

Hanna is a full professor of geography and former chair of the Department of Geography at University of Mary Washington. His cartographic editorial experience is extensive, for example, Hanna has served as the cartography editor for two edited volumes on tourism, Mapping Tourism and Social Memory and Heritage Tourism Methodologies, as well as produced dozens of maps for personal publications in both academic and public outlets. As cartography editor, Hanna “enjoys engaging with a wide variety of graphics including some innovative ways of visualizing both qualitative and quantitative information.”

Hanna’s research is focused on critical cartography and heritage tourism, and his expertise is well documented in numerous cartographic projects. Some of his most recent NSF-funded team research involved investigating how slavery is (or is not) addressed in the landscapes, narratives, and performance that constitute southern plantation museums as heritage places.

In addition to ensuring that the maps and figures printed in the AAG suite of journals meet high quality cartographic standards, Hanna envisions his role as editor to include continued mentorship of students, a key component of his current work at an undergraduate focused institution.

Hanna offers the following advice for prospective publishers in geography: “As cartography editor, I’m focused on the maps people create to accompany their articles. Please don’t settle for the default map design options found in most GIS software packages. Take a little time to consider how best to encourage your readers to spend some time examining your maps. After all, you are including them to clearly communicate your findings or to support your argument.”

Journals

AAG Announces New Journal Editors, Thanks Leaving Editors

December 4, 2017

The AAG welcomes two new editors to take the positions of Cartography Editor for the AAG Journals (Annals, The Professional Geographer, and GeoHumanities) and the Methods, Models, and GIS Editor for the Annals of the AAG starting January 1, 2018. Stephen Hanna will be taking over for Cartography Editor Thomas Hodler while Ling Bian will assume the role of the Methods, Models and GIS Editor as Mei-Po Kwan steps down. The AAG would like to send a very special thank you to Thomas Hodler and Mei-Po Kwan for their years of extraordinary service in these positions.

The new Cartography Editor for the AAG suite of journals, Stephen Hanna, is a professor of geography at University of Mary Washington. Hanna’s research is focused on critical cartography and heritage tourism, and his expertise is well documented in numerous cartographic projects. He has produced dozens of maps for his own published work in outlets ranging from academic articles and books to newspapers such as The Washington Post as well as creating more than 50 maps for scholars in other disciplines. He has served as the cartography editor for multiple edited volumes and mentors students in cartographic design principles to prepare them for a successful career.

Ling Bian, professor of geography at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York, will assume editorial responsibilities for Methods, Models and GIS at the Annals of the AAG. Bian currently serves on the editorial board of the Annals and has previously served on the editorial board of The Professional Geographer and as Associate Editor of ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Bringing decades of publication experience in topics related to GIScience, remote sensing, and geographic image retrieval, Bian’s recent research focuses on individual-based and spatially explicit behavior modeling in human health applications.

The AAG would like to express its appreciation for the work of Thomas Hodler as the past Cartography Editor for the AAG Journals. Hodler, an emeritus professor at the University of Georgia, has contributed his cartographic expertise to the AAG journals for over a decade. Maps serve as the visual counterpoint to geographic research, and Hodler has provided valuable insight and guidance to ensure that the cartography published in AAG journals is of high caliber.

A sincere thank you and farewell to Mei-Po Kwan as she leaves her post as the Methods, Models and GIS Editor for the Annals. A professor of geography at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Kwan has served as the Methods, Models and GIS editor since January of 2006. Under Mei-Po’s guidance, the number of submissions to and citations from the Methods, Models and GIS section have increased substantially. Mei-Po Kwan’s dedication, intellect and hard work as an editor has been praised by Annals authors and is greatly appreciated by the AAG.

AAG journals, editors

Journals

Newly Renamed ‘Annals’ Section “Physical Geography and Environmental Sciences”

January 25, 2017

The Annals of the American Association of Geographers has a newly renamed “Physical Geography and Environmental Sciences” section. It’s our hope that this section of the journal will identify with physical geographers, in addition to being open in a multidisciplinary sense to the Environmental Sciences. By explicitly stating “Physical Geography” in the section name, we’d like to encourage more physical geographers to submit their best work to the Annals. The AAG was founded in part by physical geographers, so the new section name is also a way of recognizing and honoring the long tradition of physical geography within the broader scope of our wide-ranging modern field of Geography.

Annals, Annals of the AAG

Journals

‘Annals of the AAG’ Welcomes New Editor

January 6, 2017

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.

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‘Annals of the AAG’ Among Top 10 Ranked Geography Journals

July 1, 2016

The Annals of the American Association of Geographers, the flagship journal of the association, has once again been ranked among the top ten geography journals worldwide continuing a 15-year trend. According to the Journal Citation Reports released by Thomson Reuters this month, the Annals of the AAG placed eighth out of 77 journals in the geography category. The 2015 data also reveals that the journal’s Impact Factor increased from 2.291 to 2.756, the second highest score since 2000.

Impact Factor—figures that often confuse students and younger scholars—are an important indicator of a journal’s usage and impact. Being a scholar means engaging in original research that contributes something new to academic knowledge and practice. However, no scholar exists in isolation; they are influenced by the work of others and need to situate their research within context. Citing other people’s work is an important aspect of this. Collectively, data on citations indicate the relative scholarly value of different authors and publications.

Eugene Garfield, an information scientist, first proposed the idea of an international citation index in the mid-1950s. Garfield had observed the growth in scholarly research and was looking for a way to organize it. He felt that categorizing journals on the basis of citations would assist librarians in building their collections but it was 20 years before his ideas reached fruition as the Journal Citation Reports (JCR). “Impact Factor” made its debut in 1975 as a measure of citations and journal influence, and has been published annually ever since.

Put simply, the Impact Factor is a ratio between citable items and actual citations. It is calculated by taking the number of citations in the past year to articles published in the two previous years and dividing it by the total number of items published in those same two years. The items of journal content that are included in the calculation are full-length research articles, short communications, and review papers; other published pieces such as editorials, letters, book reviews, news items, and meeting abstracts are not counted as they do not present substantial research findings.

Academic output has proliferated in the last 40 years since Impact Factor was first launched. More than one billion citations have now been recorded and each year more than 12,000 scientific and scholarly journals and other materials are assessed for the JCR. A range of more sophisticated and nuanced metrics have been created including Eigenfactor and Article Influence Score, and data such as web page visits are also used to measure the significance of published work. Despite some controversies and misuse, however, the simple calculation of Impact Factor remains a prominent measure in journal evaluation.

Its significance lies in the fact that Impact Factor reflects what scholars themselves regard as noteworthy and useful research rather than being a subjective rating imposed by an outsider. In other words, citations are the strongest and most reliable indicator of scholarly value. Collectively, citations of a particular journal signify its relative importance within that scholarly field and the prestige of having a paper published in it.

Although the ranking, Impact Factor and Five-Year Impact Factor of the Annals of the AAG have all risen this year, the editors and the AAG aspire for these figures to increase further. That will be achieved by encouraging high quality manuscripts to be submitted, a dedicated editorial team and the valued contributions of many reviewers, resulting in the publication of excellent papers that contribute to the discipline of geography that, in turn, other scholars cite.

To find out more about the history and development of the Journal Citation Reports, read this excellent article: https://stateofinnovation.thomsonreuters.com/how-to-measure-up-impact-factor-2015

If you would like to consider submitting a paper to the Annals of the AAG, please refer to the Information for Authors. View the latest issue of the Annals of the AAG.

Journals

Consultation on sections in the ‘Annals of the AAG’

June 6, 2016

After the AAG meetings in Hawaii in 1999, a new format for the Annals of the Association of American Geographers was introduced wherein four sections and four editors were put in place to represent the breadth of the academic discipline of geography. Four major areas – (i) Environmental Sciences, (ii) Methods, Models, and Geographic Information Sciences, (iii) Nature and Society, and (iv) People, Place, and Region – were introduced as sections in the Annals to offset long-standing concerns about the lack of representation of certain aspects of the discipline (especially physical geography) in one of its flagship journals. Further, concerns about perceived biases accruing to a single editor were allayed by establishing an editorial team, with each editor taking responsibility for one of the four major subject areas.

With an understanding that the discipline is ever changing and defining a core or establishing specific fundamental areas of endeavor is always contentious, the sections were never meant to be immutable or permanent. On the recommendation of the Publications Committee, AAG Council is considering removing the Annals section headings while maintaining the integrity of an editorial team that represents the breadth of the discipline.

This is proposed in light of suggestions that the sections do not represent changes in the discipline and have the potential of characterizing articles in problematic ways. It is also clear that certain kinds of articles (e.g. papers that transcend the four major areas or papers that reflect on the discipline in general) are rarely submitted to the Annals and that the physical and environmental sciences are still underrepresented. Potential authors have raised concerns about not knowing to which section they should submit their work. Moreover, when two section editorships were advertised last year, more than one applicant stated that they were qualified to edit either section.

The proposal to remove the section headings is made with the understanding that the creation of an editorial team that represents the breadth and integrity of the discipline should continue. It is also understood that several substantive areas of geography can reside within the expertise of each editor but no one editor can encompass the whole discipline. The proposal is to remove the confusion and containment that accrues to the establishment of section headings while maintain the disciplinary integrity of an editorial team. The proposal is endorsed by the current four Annals editors and the two most recent past editors.

We would be most grateful for your views on this matter. Please send your thoughts, comments and suggestions to the AAG Publications Committee Chair, Stuart Aitken (saitken [at] mail [dot] sdsu [dot] edu) by 31 July 2016. All responses will be collated and presented to the AAG Council in Fall 2016 for their consideration.

Journals

‘Annals of the AAG’ Welcomes Two New Editors

January 11, 2016

Our flagship journal, the Annals of the American Association of Geographers, begins the new year with a change of editorship.

Bruce Braun and Richard Wright have completed their four year terms as editors of the Nature and Society, and People, Place and Region sections respectively. Their successors are James McCarthy and Nik Heynen.

James McCarthy is a Professor in the Graduate School of Geography at Clark University. He is perfectly placed to edit the Nature and Society section of the Annals as his own research interests center around nature-society relations including political ecology, environmental policy and social movements, environmental history, and environmental politics.

McCarthy has considerable editorial experience in the field of nature-society geography including as editor of two major volumes – The Routledge Handbook of Political Ecology (June 2015) and Neoliberal Environments (Routledge, 2007) – and three special issues of journals (Environment and Planning A, Geoforum and Antipode). He has also served on the Editorial Board of the Annals since 2008.

James is looking forward to leading this pivotal section of the Annals: “I consider nature-society research to be an absolutely essential area of scholarship for geography and for society, and the Annals to be the discipline’s leading journal in this critical domain. I am honored to have the opportunity to help recruit, develop, and publish the very best of geographic nature-society scholarship in the Annals.”

Nik Heynen is a Professor in the Department of Geography at University of Georgia. He has diverse interests including urban geography, urban political ecology, environmental justice, politics of race, urban social movements, and science and technology studies, which are well-suited to managing the breadth of manuscripts received in the People, Place and Region section of the Annals.

Heynen has considerable editorial experience including seven years in various editorial capacities at Antipode and was founding editor of the Geographies of Justice and Social Transformation Book Series at the University of Georgia Press, which to date has published 25 books with another 20 in process.

Nik is particularly excited about his new role: “At this point in my career, because of active research I have underway, I do not think there are many journals I would be as interested in editing as the Annals due to both the important disciplinary role it plays but also because of the diverse range of research results it publishes at such a high-quality.”

The AAG, the Publications Committee, and the rest of the Annals editorial team would like to express their heartfelt thanks to Bruce Braun and Richard Wright for their hard work over the last four years. They have presided over thriving sections, managing a heavy workload of manuscripts while ensuring that high quality and rigor was 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 2016 Special Issue is on Geographies of Mobility. 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.