Michael Harrison

Mike Harrison, a geographer with broad interests across physical geography and environmental studies, passed away on November 21, 2015, at the age of 55.

John Michael Harrison completed his bachelor’s degree at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute followed by a master’s degree at the University of Georgia.

He then moved to the University of Florida for doctoral studies, funded by the National Science Foundation and under the supervision of Peter Waylen. His thesis, entitled “The Modeling of Daily Precipitation in Costa Rica,” examined the means by which daily precipitation in Costa Rica could be modeled, and how the El Nino-Southern Oscillation affected precipitation-generating mechanisms.

Harrison distinguished himself in a series of tenure-track and tenured faculty positions, first as Professor of Geography at the University of Southern Mississippi then as Professor in the Department of Geography and the Environment at the University of Richmond. There he played a major role in creating the Environmental Studies Program, designing its curriculum, establishing facilities to support GIS, and recruiting those faculty members who now lead the effort.

He then moved to the Political Science and Geography Department at the University of Texas at San Antonio. During his time there he was honored with a Distinguished Teaching Award from the National Council for Geographic Education. More recently he moved back to live in Virginia and work as an Independent Scholar.

Harrison worked across various sub-fields of the discipline including physical geography, climatology, Latin American studies, mathematical modeling, GIS and remote sensing.

His presentations at the AAG Annual Meeting over recent years give a flavour of his broad-based interests: using remote sensing techniques to assess the rapid growth of the greater Las Vegas region; applying GIS analysis to examine relationships between rabies incidence and inter-annual climate variability; running models of the winds associated with the El Nino-Southern Oscillation to assess whether Polynesians could have travelled from Easter Island to South America; and a GIS analysis of how renaming a road in Atlanta after Martin Luther King affected socio-economic conditions.

Harrison was a long-time member of the AAG and particularly involved in the Southeast Division (SEDAAG). He held various service positions in SEDAAG and served on the Editorial Board of The Southeastern Geographer. He was also a member of the American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing.

Beyond his professional accomplishments, Harrison will be remembered as a thoughtful and giving colleague, and will be greatly missed. He is survived by his wife, Kathy Pendleton Harrison, as well as his mother, brother and sister.

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Matthieu Giroud

Matthieu Giroud, Associate Professor at Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée, and noted critical geographer specializing in urban social change, was killed at the Bataclan concert hall during the terrorist attacks in Paris on November 13, 2015.

Matthieu Giroud was born on September 24, 1977. He was from the village of Jarrie just south of Grenoble in southeastern France.

Giroud began his geographical studies in the Institute of Alpine Geography at Joseph Fourier University in Grenoble. He then moved to England and gained a bachelor’s degree in geography at the University of Leeds in 1999.

He returned to Joseph Fourier University for a master’s degree in geography, his research looking at the evolution of a historic neighborhood of Grenoble. This was followed by a Diploma of Advanced Studies in 2003 at the University of Poitiers, in Migrinter, a research center specializing in international migration, spaces and society. His focus was on immigration and inter-ethnic relations, specifically in Grenoble.

Giroud remained at the University of Poitiers for his doctorate, under the supervision of Françoise Dureau. He studied two old working class neighborhoods – Berriat Saint-Bruno in Grenoble (France) and Alcântara in Lisbon (Portugal) – and examined how they were being affected by urban renewal. His thesis, entitled “Résister en habitant? Renouvellement urbain et continuités populaires en centre ancient” was completed in 2007 and received mention très honorable avec felicitations, the highest academic distinction awarded in the French academic university system. He was also awarded the 2008 thesis prize by the French National Geography Committee.

He continued working on various research projects at the Migrinter research center on migration and urban change while also passing the national qualification to become a university lecturer. He then moved to Blaise Pascal University in Clermont-Ferrand in 2008 where he spent four years as Maître de conférences en géographie (Associate Professor equivalent).

In 2012 Giroud moved to the University of Paris East at Marne-la-Vallée where he was Associate Professor in geography and a member of the multidisciplinary research unit Analyse Comparée des Pouvoirs (Comparative Analysis of Powers).

His ongoing research focused on the social effects of gentrification including resistance and evictions; spatial mobilities and living spaces; and critical analysis of contemporary urban development.

Giroud attended the AAG Annual Meeting in New York in 2012, presenting a paper on “Gentrification and the contested representations of the popular.” He questioned the assumptions often made by public authorities that the process of gentrification is an effective means of revitalizing declining urban areas by drawing attention to the existing inhabitants of such neighborhoods and the tensions experienced and expressed as their spaces are rebranded.

Giroud coordinated the translation of David Harvey’s Paris: Capital of Modernity, published in French in 2012. He was also the co-editor, with Cécile Gintrac, of Villes contestées: Pour une géographie critique de l’urbain (Contested cities: for a critique of urban geography), the first French reader of critical urban studies, published in 2014. At the time of his death he was involved in several major research projects on urban change.

Aside from his academic success and promising career ahead, Giroud loved music, soccer, cities, life and friendship. He leaves behind a son, aged 3, and a wife, Aurélie, expecting their second child.

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Susan W. Hardwick

Susan Hardwick, professor emerita at the University of Oregon and national leader in the field of geography education, passed away on November 11, 2015, at the age of 70, after a brief illness.

Susan Louise Wiley was born on May 9, 1945 in Greensburg, PA. After completing her secondary education at Slippery Rock High School in 1963 she moved to Slippery Rock University for a bachelor’s degree in Education and Social Science / Geography, graduating in 1967.

Hardwick began her teaching career in a one-room schoolhouse at Honcut Middle School in Oroville, California in 1968. This was followed by a master’s degree in Geography from California State University, Chico, with a thesis entitled “Chinese Settlement in Butte County, California: 1860-1920.”

In 1974 she moved to the Department of Earth Sciences at Cosumnes River College, a community college in Sacramento, CA, where she stayed until 1986, teaching and serving as chair of the department. During this time she also spent a year as Director of Ethnographic Research for the City of Sacramento.

Concurrently she undertook doctoral studies at the University of California, Davis. Her thesis, completed in 1986, was entitled “Ethnic Residential and Commercial Patterns in Sacramento with Special Reference to the Russian-American Experience.”

Next Hardwick returned to the Department of Geography and Planning at California State University, Chico, between 1986 and 1997 holding posts as Assistant Professor, Associate Professor and Professor. She also spent the last three years as the university’s co-coordinator of the Literacy and Learning Program.

She moved to Texas State University in San Marcos in 1997 as Professor of Geography and Associate Director of the Gilbert M. Grosvenor Center for Geographic Education. In 2000 came her final move, this time to the Department of Geography at the University of Oregon.

Hardwick’s early interests in the geographies of immigration continued throughout her career, in both research and teaching. Focusing on the North American context, she was interested in migration flows and spatial patterns, shifting identities of immigrants and refugees, and urban social landscapes. Her extensive publication record contains scores of books, book chapters and articles on the ways in which racial and ethnic differences shaped North American towns and cities. She was particularly known for her long-running work on Russian immigrants in North America.

In recent years she had also focused on Canada, particularly the migration experiences, spatial patterns and transnational identities of immigrants at the Canada-U.S. borderland. She spent several years as a Senior Research Fellow on the Metropolis Project at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University during which time she was the Principal Investigator on a number of projects. One of her most recent publications was a co-edited volume with Francophone geographer, Remy Tremblay, called Transnational Borders, Transnational Lives: Academic Mobility at the Borderland (University of Quebec Press, 2014) telling the stories of a selected group of geographers who migrated to one side to another of the Canada-US border. She left four publications in progress including work on the role of immigrants in the development of the United States, the Klu Klux Klan in Oregon, and the lives of Russian Americans in the Pacific Northwest.

Hardwick’s other major area of activity – in teaching, scholarship and activism – was geographic education. Oregon colleague Alec Murphy said, “It is hard to name any major development in geography education over the past few decades that does not in some way bear Susan’s imprint. She was a tireless and effective champion of the cause.”

Among her many accomplishments, she played a critical role in crafting the original and revised versions of the National Geography Standards and co-hosted “The Power of Place,” a hugely successful Annenberg public television series for educators. She also spearheaded the development of an online training program for teachers of AP Human Geography, and played a central role in bringing to fruition the “Road Map for the Large-Scale Improvement of K–12 Geography Education.”

She was a co-author for three widely used textbooks: My World Geography (Pearson Prentice Hall, 2011) currently being used by thousands of middle school geography and social studies students; The Geography of North America: Environment, Political Economy, and Culture (Prentice Hall, 2nd edition 2012) for college and university level regional geography courses; and Geography for Educators: Standards, Themes, and Concepts (Prentice Hall, 1996) a text that has been used by thousands of pre-service and in-service geography and social studies teachers.

University of Oregon colleague W. Andrew Marcus said, “Susan’s tireless efforts, her innovation in creating new programs and her capacity to build bridges where other people saw chasms, have given her a special place in the pantheon of scholars who have changed education.”

Hardwick’s professional service contributions were legion. Most notably, she served the National Council for Geographic Education as president and vice president of research and external relations. At different points during her career she sat on the national councils of both the Association of American Geographers and the American Geographical Society, taking the lead on many initiatives for those organizations. She was also an active member of the editorial board of the Journal of Geography for more than a decade. She was a great contributor to other professional organizations in the U.S. with a geographic remit, including the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers and the National Geographic Society.

Although she retired in 2010, Hardwick remained active in the geography department at the University of Oregon, teaching two courses each year, mentoring graduate students and future teachers, and serving as co-director of the university’s graduate summer program in geographic education.

Over the years, Hardwick’s commitment and achievements in different areas – scholarship, teaching effectiveness, service, leadership and mentoring – were widely lauded.

In recognition of her scholarship on the evolving ethnic geography of cities in the United States and Canada, she received the Distinguished Scholar Award from the Ethnic Geography Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers in 2001.

She was recognized throughout her career for her teaching effectiveness. From California State University, Chico she received a series of awards: the Meritorious Professional Promise Award in 1987, the Professional Achievement Award in 1994, the Outstanding Teaching Award in 1994, and the Outstanding Professor Award in 1995. In 1995 she was selected out of more than 23,000 California faculty for the statewide Outstanding Professor Award, and in 1999 she was selected as the California State Nominee for the Carnegie Foundation’s Outstanding Professor of the United States award. From the University of Oregon she twice received the Rippey Innovative Teaching Award (2003-2005, 2008-2010).

Hardwick’s service to her various institutions was also recognized: California State University, Chico (Outstanding Faculty Member Award, 1987), Texas State University (Outstanding Faculty Service Award, 1999), and the University of Oregon (Outstanding Service to the Department Award, 2001-2002 and 2009-2010).

For her contribution to geography education, Hardwick received the California Geographical Society’s Outstanding Statewide Geographical Educator Award in 1988 and the National Council for Geographic Education’s Distinguished University Educator Award in 1994. She was further lauded for her extraordinary service and leadership in advancing geography education with the AAG’s Gilbert Grosvenor Honors for Geographic Education in 2006 and in 2013 with the George J. Miller Award for Distinguished Service, the highest award given by the National Council for Geographic Education.

Hardwick gave many years of service to the discipline as an outstanding mentor and this was recognized by the National Council for Geographic Education’s National Outstanding Mentor Award in 2008 and the AAG’s Excellence in Mentoring Award in 2014. Such were her distinguished contributions that, shortly before her death, the AAG Council decided to name the latter award after her: it is now the Susan Hardwick Excellence in Mentoring Award.

In sum, Hardwick’s contributions across academic scholarship, geography education, and professional service were remarkable. Her resume is a phenomenal record of dedication and achievement. Although she worked tirelessly in her professional life, she also found time to spend with her family, especially enjoying her grandchildren, travelled the world with her husband (North America Europe, Russia, Southeast Asia, Central and South America), wrote non-fiction, and simply enjoyed the blustery central Oregon coast where she lived.

Many grieve for the loss of such a wonderful friend and colleague. AAG Executive Director Doug Richardson, described Susan Hardwick as “universally beloved in the discipline. A very kind, caring person, open, constructive and helpful at all times.” Colleague W. Andrew Marcus said, “We will miss her terribly, but take solace in knowing that her influence lives on in so many ways.”

She leaves behind her husband and fellow geographer, Donald Holtgrieve; 3 sons, James, David and Randal; and 3 grandchildren, Paige, Austin and Annabelle.

With thanks to Alec Murphy for much of the material in this obituary

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Edward Soja

Ed Soja, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Urban Planning at UCLA, who made considerable contributions to postmodern political geography and urban theory, passed away on November 2, 2015, at the age of 75, after a long battle with illness.

Edward William Soja was born on May 4, 1940, to a family of Polish immigrants and grew up in the Bronx, New York. He was “nurtured in its dense diversities” and was “a street geographer by the time he was ten” (book jacket of Thirdspace), formative influences that shaped his urban-centric geographic imagination.

Soja attended Syracuse University where, among his teachers, was Eduardo Mondlane, the first Mozambican to hold a PhD and the founder of the Mozambican liberation movement, FRELIMO. At Syracuse, Mondlane developed the East African Studies Program which caught the interest of Soja.

In the early 1960s, Soja went to Kenya to study urban planning as the country underwent a transition from a traditional society to more modern forms of social, economic, and political organization. On return from fieldwork in February 1965 he taught about East Africa, as well as quantitative techniques.

His thesis, entitled “The Geography of Modernization in Kenya: A Spatial Analysis of Social, Economic, and Political Change,” was completed in 1967 and published by Syracuse University Press in 1968 as part of the Syracuse Geographical Series.

Soja took up a position as Assistant Professor at Northwestern University, continuing to specialize in the political geography of modernization and nation-building in Africa. During his seven years at Northwestern he also held visiting appointments at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, and the University of Nairobi, Kenya.

In 1972 Soja was recruited to the Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Planning at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) where he remained for the rest of his career. There he began focusing his research on urban restructuring in Los Angeles, as well as the critical study of cities and regions. His interests were wide-ranging, including questions of regional development, planning and governance, and the spatiality of social life.

During his long and distinguished career as a scholar at UCLA, Soja devoted himself to teaching graduate and undergraduate students. He taught courses on regional and international development, urban political economy and planning theory. He also served as academic advisor to numerous doctoral candidates from the department of urban planning. He was twice the department chair and, for nine years, the Associate Dean.

For many years, Soja was also a visiting professor at the London School of Economics, specifically the Cities Program, an international center dedicated to the understanding of contemporary urban society, where he taught on the MSc City Design and Social Sciences course.

Soja was one of the key figures associated with the ‘spatial turn’ in geography. He brought the insights of critical social theory – including political economy, postmodernism, and cultural theory – to create innovative analyses of space and society, especially struggles over control of space in the city and the emergence of new forms of urbanization.

His work focused on Los Angeles, an enormously diverse metropolis with pronounced social and spatial inequalities. He sought to understand different aspects of urban life – its everyday rhythms, the division of labor, public policy, struggles over places, and the relations among distant locals – through the conceptual lens of spatiality.

His canonical paper on “The Socio-Spatial Dialectic” (Annals of the Association of American Geographers, June 1980) drew on the work of French Marxist urban sociologist Henri Lefebvre and other social theorists to argue that society produces, organizes and gives meaning to space, but that these spatialities in turn shape society and the relations of production.

Soja’s book Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory (Verso, 1989) and the concurrent work of David Harvey introduced postmodernism as a new kind of problematic of which geographers should take note. Postmodern Geographies drew enormous favourable attention worldwide and established him as one of the discipline’s leading theoreticians.

One of his greatest contributions to spatial theory and the field of cultural geography was his use of Lefebvre, author of The Production of Space (1974). Soja updated Lefebvre’s concept of the ‘spatial triad’ with his own concept of ‘spatial trialectics’ which included ‘thirdspace,’ or spaces that are both real and imagined. These ideas were published in two further works: Thirdspace: Journeys to Real-and-Imagined-Places (Blackwell, 1996) and Postmetropolis: Critical Studies of Cities and Regions (Blackwell, 2000).

Soja also worked with Allen J. Scott to edit a volume on The City: Los Angeles and Urban Theory at the End of the Twentieth Century (University of California Press, 1996) which brought together a variety of essays by experts in urban planning, architecture, geography, and sociology examining the built environment and human dynamics of Los Angeles, emphasizing dramatic changes that had occurred since 1960.

More recently he wrote Seeking Spatial Justice (University of Minnesota Press, 2010) where he offered new ways of understanding and changing the unjust geographies in which we live, and My Los Angeles: From Urban Restructuring to Regional Urbanization (University of California Press, 2014) which covered more than four decades of urban development in LA and other urban regions.

A characteristic of Soja’s work was his interweaving of theory and practice; his theoretical interpretations of place, location, landscape, city and region were grounded in his inquiry into the shaping of space and society in Los Angeles including the rise of the city region, the revival of inner cities, and social movements for the right to the city.

In 2013, the Association of American Geographers conferred Lifetime Achievement Honors on Soja in recognition of his path-breaking contributions to geographic theory and urban studies, especially his arguments for the importance of space in understanding society and the city, and his insights into postmodernity and the Los Angeles metropolis. It was especially fitting that the award was presented at the Annual Meeting in Los Angeles that year.

In 2015, Soja was awarded the 2015 Vautrin-Lud Prize, considered to be geography’s Nobel Prize. The prize honors the career of a distinguished geographer whose work has been very influential within and beyond the discipline. Unfortunately, Soja was unable to be present at the event in Saint-Dié, France, in October 2015 but his work was explored in a roundtable discussion between many of his international peers.

How to sum up the career and contributions of this remarkable man which started with modernization in Kenya and transitioned to postmodernity in Los Angeles? He was one of human geography’s most passionate and articulate advocates. His work reshaped urban studies. His writings on space, spatial justice, and cities have inspired many. His critical thinking continues to open new research directions for the theoretical and practical understanding of contemporary cities and regions.

Along the way, he motivated and provoked students and colleagues alike through his passion and enthusiasm for theory, criticism, cities, and social justice. Derek Gregory, recalling a sabbatical that Soja spent at Cambridge University, remembered that “Ed enlivened the Department of Geography no end too, and delighted the graduate students with his healthy irreverence, his sense of intellectual adventure – and by his evident happiness at spending time with them.” He will be sorely missed by many friends who knew his warm and generous personality.

Soja is survived by his wife, Maureen, and their children, Christopher and Erika. Following his death, the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs decided to establish the Edward Soja Memorial Fellowship in his memory.

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Tony Hambly

Tony Hambly, an eccentric and well-loved teacher, who taught geography at schools in Zimbabwe and South Africa for 46 years, passed away on October 30, 2015, aged 73.

Anthony Hambly was born in October 1942 in Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and educated nearby at Falcon College.

His father was a Latin teacher. While Tony also loved the subject and had intentions of following in his footsteps, his father warned of a dying subject with few job prospects. Meanwhile an enthusiastic teacher sparked his interest in geography and Hambly transferred his affections.

He studied for a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology and geography at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa. He also obtained a teaching diploma which he later followed up with a Bachelor of Education degree through the University of South Africa.

Hambly began teaching in 1964 in Southern Rhodesia. His first post was as a geography teacher at Churchill School in Harare. From there he went on to become head of geography at Jameson High School in Kadoma, then moved to Oriel Boys’ School in Harare, where he was also deputy headmaster.

He moved his family to South Africa in 1978 to take up a post as the head of geography at Treverton College. Over the years he taught all sorts of subjects including Latin, English, music and maths, but geography remained his main love.

“Geography is topical, it’s relevant, and it’s all around you,” said Hambly in an interview in 2011. “It’s about modern life and why things work. It’s a mixture of all subjects — physics, biology, history, economics — geography is at the middle of it all. Geography examines current topics, housing problems, economic problems, why this river runs where it does, why it rains, why it doesn’t rain.”

Hambly believed that the key job of a teacher was to teach critical thinking. He said: “With any subject it’s important to develop critical thinking, not accepting things at face value and simply accepting what people say. If I’ve produced some discriminating thinkers then I’ve succeeded as a teacher.”

This he achieved through an eccentric teaching style. Fellow Treverton College geography teacher, Dave Purdon, said Hambly was an “absolute character but a teacher at heart. He loved children and he found ways to really connect with them. He always said to me that he didn’t teach, he ‘told stories.’”

He was also well-known across the country as the chairperson of the Flat Earth South Africa (FESA), an offshoot of the Flat Earth Society, an organization that believes the Earth is flat rather than round. It started as a bit of a joke but became a means of stimulating critical thinking among students.

Hambly was always active in the wider life of the college, producing several dramatic productions, as well as coaching rugby and cricket at all levels. He also served as deputy headmaster between 1980 and 2003.

Outside the classroom, he was part of the team that set the geography exam for the Independent Examinations Board in South Africa. He also edited a number of textbooks for Heinemann.

After 30 years at Treverton College, Hambly moved to Maritzburg Christian School in Pietermaritzburg in 2008 where he taught for two further years before retiring at the end of 2010.

After retirement, he remained actively involved in education, working on new textbooks, generating teaching-support materials, and co-authoring a new atlas for South Africa.

Hambly will be remembered as a quirky but well-loved character. Colleagues and friends paid tribute to someone who taught life-long lessons rather than standard classroom lectures. He is survived by his wife Maureen and their two daughters, Clare and Vivienne.

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John Wolter

John Wolter, a cartographer and librarian who served as Chief of the Geography and Map Division at the Library of Congress, passed away on October 22, 2015 at the age of 90.

John Amadeus Wolter was born on July 25, 1925 in St Paul, Minnesota, the eldest son of Amadeus and Marjorie Wolter. He traced his lifelong fascination with maps back to his childhood days when he collected railroad timetables and route maps.

Between 1943 and 1945, Wolter served in the Merchant Marine with the Isthmian Steamship Company, whose vessels had been requisitioned for wartime service. After the Second World War he continued with the company as a deck officer until 1950, voyaging on passenger and cargo vessels to ports in the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, India, Ceylon, Indochina and Indonesia, and from New York west-bound ‘round the world.’

After a brief stint at the College of St. Thomas, Minnesota he entered the United States Army in 1950 starting with service in the Far East during the Korean War.

In 1956 he received a bachelor’s degree in geography from the University Minnesota then spent a year in Washington, DC working as a marine transportation officer for the Military Sea Transportation Service and also undertaking postgraduate studies at Georgetown University. He then returned to the Isthmian Steamship Company for the remainder of the 1950s. During his many years at sea as a navigating officer and cargo officer he used, and made additions and corrections to, a variety of navigational charts and maps.

Back on terra firma in 1960, Wolter returned to the University Minnesota. He served as map librarian, assistant to the director of university libraries, and as lecturer and research fellow in the geography department, as well as completing a master’s degree in library science in 1965. During this time he participated in several Library of Congress Geography and Map Division map processing projects and became familiar with the varied cartographic collections.

In 1966 took a post as assistant professor Wisconsin State University–River Falls, teaching geography but only stayed two years until being appointed Assistant Chief in the Library of Congress’s Geography and Map Division in 1968.

Alongside his position in Washington, DC, he carried out doctoral research in geography through the University Minnesota. His dissertation, completed in 1975, was entitled “The Emerging Discipline of Cartography.” Using bibliometric methods, he traced the history of subject bibliographies of cartography back to the nineteenth century, demonstrating the increasing independence and strength of the field of cartography. He also looked at the growth of textbooks and manuals written for students of cartography, and provision for the education and training of cartographers in the US.

In 1978 he was promoted to Chief of the Geography and Map Division, succeeding Wally Ristow, and shortly after oversaw the move of the Division from Pickett Street in Alexandria to the Madison Building on Capitol Hill. It was the first special collections division to make its home in the building and they enjoyed much local and national media coverage given the photogenic nature of maps, charts and atlases.

During his tenure as Chief of the Division, he wrote a number of reference works including an article giving “A Brief History of the Library of Congress Geography and Map Division, 1897-1978,” a co-edited “World Directory of Map Collections,” an article on “Geographical Libraries and Map Collections” in an encyclopedia of libraries, and a piece on “Research Tools and the Literature of Cartography.”

Because of his position, he also sat on many committees including the United States Board on Geographic Names, serving as its Chairman for some time, and the board of directors of the Philip Lee Phillips Map Society aiming to develop, enhance and promote the collections of the Geography and Map Division.

Wolter was also member of many national and international organizations that reflected his interests and specialisms. He was among the founders of the Washington Map Society which was established in 1979 and, under his suggestion, they met in the Geography and Map Division. He was a member of the Society for the History of Discoveries, serving in various executive roles including as President; the International Cartographic Association, including being the US member on its Commission on the History of Cartography; and the International Society for the History of the Map.

He joined the Association of American Geographers in 1961, receiving his 50-year membership in 2011, and he was a member of the International Geographical Union serving two spells on the United States national committee. In addition he was a member of the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping, the North American Society for Oceanic History, the Society for Nautical Research, the Naval Historical Foundation, the American Merchant Marine Veterans, the Disabled American Veterans, the Special Libraries Association, and Theta Delta Chi.

He also served on the editorial boards of Cartographica, American Cartographer, Terrae Incognitae, ACSM Bulletin, Surveying and Mapping, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, and was an editorial advisor for The Portolan and a contributing editor to Imago Mundi.

During 1989-90 he took on the additional role of Acting Director for Public Service and Collections Management before retiring from the Library of Congress in 1991. For all his contributions Wolter was recognized with a Presidential citation from the American Congress Surveying and Mapping (1985), an award from the Smithsonian Institute (1986), and a Distinguished Service Award from the Library of Congress (1992).

In retirement he did some consultancy work, continued his research, and gave occasional lectures. Post-retirement publications included three books: Progress of Discovery: Johann Georg Kohl auf den Spuren der Entdecker (1993), Images of the World: The Atlas Through History (with Ron Grim, 1996), and The Napoleonic War in the Dutch Indies: An Essay and Cartobibliography of the Minto Collection (1999).

Wolter leaves behind his wife of 59 years, Joan, and their four sons, Mark, Thomas, Matthew and David.

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Vincent P. Gutowski

Vince Gutowski, popular and long-time faculty member at Eastern Illinois University, with diverse interests across applied geography, passed away suddenly on October 5, 2015, aged 70.

Vincent Peter Gutowski was born on February 1, 1945, in Jersey City, NJ. His father, Chester, celebrated the birth of his first son from aboard a ship somewhere in the Pacific where he was on wartime service with the U.S. Coast Guard.

Following the war, the Gutowskis lived in Pittsburgh, PA. Vince graduated from South Catholic High School in 1962 then served in the U.S. Navy. This included time in Panama at Coco Solo, the submarine and naval air base in the Canal Zone. There he met Pamela Maedl, whose father spent most of his career as a high school teacher in the Zone. They married in 1971 in California.

After his military service, Gutowski continued with his education, receiving a B.A. in 1974 and an M.A. in 1977 both from California State University Northridge. He then moved back to his home city for a PhD at the University of Pittsburgh in the Department of Geology and Planetary Science, completing it in 1987.

Much of his early work was on fluvial environments, with publications on topics including stream terraces, riverbank erosion, depositional zones, riverside land use, urban water consumption, and changing urban waterfronts.

Gutowski joined the Department of Geology and Geography at Eastern Illinois University (EIU) in 1983 where he stayed until retirement in 2010. He had a broad spectrum of research and teaching interests including geomorphology, environmental studies, field methods, cartography and applied geography.

The university’s geography major was withdrawn just after his arrival at EIU but Gutowski was credited with its revival into a thriving and growing program. He was a committed teacher, following the example of his own teachers in encouraging his students to do more than just take classes. He made his students aware of their importance and thrived on guiding those who had a zeal for learning. He encouraged students to do research; in fact all of his own research projects had student involvement. His appreciation for student scholarship at the undergraduate level allowed him to successfully steer many into graduate school and he was instrumental in helping his students receive scholarships.

Gutowski led students on field trips throughout the United States, including the southern Appalachians, the Coastal Plain and the Southwest. He also demonstrated the importance of balancing studies with social gatherings, frequently hosting students at his home. Many former students will remember Gutowski as their friend, confidant and greatest advocate, while approaching his duties in a laid-back, yet academically-responsible manner.

As GIS emerged as a geographic tool, he embraced it for his continuing interests in fluvial geomorphology and paleogeography. In the latter field of scholarship, he spent over a decade on field-based investigations – digging through layers of soil, and sorting through seeds and snail shells – to construct a portrait of the climate and ecology of eastern Illinois 20,000 years ago.

He was also involved in a number of projects for local governments in Illinois – Charleston, Coles County and Decatur – applying GIS for regional planning, infrastructure mapping, and water resource management.

He was deeply committed to local environmental issues, including serving on the Embarras River Management Association’s board of directors and as chair of the council of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources Conservation 2000 Program.

Gutowski became a member of the AAG in 1978. He regularly attended the Annual Meeting and was actively involved in the West Lakes Regional Division, as well as a number of Specialty Groups.

During his career at EIU, Gutowski received numerous university awards for his teaching, research and service, including the Luis Clay Mendez Distinguished Service Award in 2008 for his outstanding dedication to the university, his profession, and the community-at-large. On receipt of awards, Gutowski always credited those who had mentored him. A hallmark of his scholarly work, publications and consultancy projects was collaboration, testament to his inclusive approach.

Gutowski generously used personal funds made via his consulting work to buy equipment for student use in EIU laboratories. He and his wife also established the Vincent P. and Pamela R. Gutowski Fund to support students majoring in geography who show outstanding scholarship and dedication.

After retirement, Gutowski remained active in the department at EIU and in the community, including a project to locate and map a lost cemetery. In 1922, non-union miners were killed during the famous Herrin Massacre in Southern Illinois. Gutowski, along with his long-term collaborator Steve Di Naso, and a research team used a variety of geospatial techniques along with detective work to uncover the victims who had been buried in an unmarked potter’s field thereby helping to bring closure to a divisive chapter in the community’s history. Their accomplishments were recognized with a Superior Achievement Award from the Illinois State Historical Society.

He also spent time in retirement playing golf and on the family property along Kickapoo Creek, planting and tending to thousands of trees.

Vince Gutowski was highly respected and regarded by his colleagues and students alike. Fellow EUI geographer, Godson Obia, described him as “a stellar academic and a great person,” remarking on how much he gave to his students and department. He will also be greatly missed by his family. He predeceased his siblings – two brothers and a sister – and also leaves behind Pam, his loving wife of 44 years, their three children, Jennifer, Carl and Frank, and four grandchildren.

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Elizabeth J. Leppman

Elizabeth Leppman, a respected geographer with broad interests across cultural and historical geography, latterly at Walden University, passed away on September 21, 2015, at the age of 71, after a struggle with cancer.

Elizabeth Jane Leppman was born on December 6, 1943, in Chicago, although she lived in Moorestown, NJ, during most of her childhood. Her father was a German immigrant and she remembered a steady stream of international visitors to their home, sparking an early interest in geography.

After receiving a B.A. from Middlebury College she started her career as a cartographer with Rand McNally. She later received a master’s degree from York University in Toronto and a doctorate from the University of Georgia.

Her PhD thesis, completed in 1997, was entitled “Choices in the Rice Bowl: Geography of Diet in Liaoning Province, China.” Her study examined the difference in nutritional levels and quality of food between city and countryside dwellers. Despite increasing migration to the cities, a reduction in the rural-urban divide, and the modernization of peasant lifestyles, she observed a clear distinction in food behavior between the city and countryside. The work was later published as a book Changing Rice Bowl: Economic Development and Diet in China (2005).

Leppman’s interest in the geography of food and diet continued, along with interests in cultural geography and the geography of religion, the latter spanning religious and sacred landscapes, especially in Appalachia and Central Minnesota, and missions, especially in China and Appalachia, and their worldview. She wrote various scholarly articles and book chapters in each of these fields.

Over the years, Leppman had teaching appointments at Millersville University in Pennsylvania, Miami University of Ohio, St. Cloud State University in Minnesota, the University of Kentucky and Eastern Kentucky University. Most recently she was on the faculty at Walden University where she taught geography and other social science courses.

She was committed to geography education and had a key role in the writing and editing of a number of textbooks, atlases and handbooks for teachers. These included: Teaching Map and Globe Skills, K-6: A Handbook (1982), Working with Historical Maps: Integrating Geography and History Skills (1997), the Student Atlas of World Politics, 6th edition (2004) co-authored with John Allen, Australia and the Pacific (2005), and Exploring Geography Through Primary Sources (2011).

Leppman served terms as editor of the Journal of Geography, published by the National Council for Geographic Education, and also as editor of Geography of Religions and Belief Systems, the online journal of the AAG’s specialty group.

She was a member of the AAG since 1975. Her involvement in a diverse range of specialty groups – including China, Cultural Geography, Geography of Religions and Belief Systems, Health and Medical Geography, Historical Geography, Political Geography, and Study of the American South – reflected her varied interests within geography.

Her geographic passions spilled over into the rest of her life. She enjoyed travel, photography, Chinese art and culture, local and state history, and many other interests. She was also a devoted parishioner in Episcopal churches in the many communities where she lived, latterly in Lexington, KY, where she was involved with Good Shepherd Episcopal Church and was a committed volunteer at Mission Lexington, among other community activities.

Leppman accomplished much and liked to keep busy. Her family said: “Elizabeth’s life was always dominated by her present list of projects and by future even more ambitious ones…”

She is survived by her brother John, daughter Karen, son Bradford, grandchildren Tyler and Kelsey, and cat Peaches.

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William Woods

Bill Woods, professor emeritus at Kansas University and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, a soil geographer and geoarchaeologist whose work stood at the nexus of geography, soils, anthropology and archaeology, passed away on September 11, 2015, at the age of 68.

William Irving Woods was born on March 5, 1947 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. After graduating from Whitefish Bay High School in 1965, he received an undergraduate scholarship to attend the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM).

His bachelor’s degree, granted with distinction in 1970, was in anthropology. This was follow by a master’s degree in geography, completed in 1973. During his time at UWM, he also served variously as a tutor and teaching assistant in anthropology, economics and geography.

Over this period he also pursued interests in modern languages, passing reading proficiency exams in German and Spanish, and spent a period at the Goethe Institute in Brilon, Germany where he earned a Certificate in German Language Ability.

In 1976 Woods was appointed the staff archaeologist in the Department of Anthropology at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE), a position he held until 1985. From 1980 until 1985 he was also a lecturer in the department at SIUE and was involved with the Environmental Studies Program, teaching courses on anthropology, archaeological mapping techniques, archaeology of the Midwest, and interdisciplinary concepts of environmental analysis, as well as running field trips.

He concurrently taught cultural anthropology courses at Jefferson College, MO, and Belleville Area College, IL, as well as giving archaeological training seminars for the USDA Forest Service and US Army Corps of Engineers. At the same time he was also undertaking his doctoral research in geography at UWM. His thesis, completed in 1986 was entitled “Prehistoric Settlement and Subsistence in the Upland Cahokia Creek Drainage.”

Following the completion of his PhD, Woods continued at SIUE but this time in the Department of Geography where he stayed for 17 years, working his way up the ranks to professor. He taught courses including physical geography, soils, field study of environmental problems, cultural geography, cultural landscape, regional geography, and Latin America. He was also an affiliated faculty member in the Environmental Studies Program and the director of the Contract Archaeology Program. In 2004 he left SIUE but remained an emeritus professor in the Department of Geography there until 2013.

Woods started at the University of Kansas (KU) in 2005 and stayed until retirement in 2014 as professor emeritus. He was a professor in the Department of Geography teaching courses on human geography, global environment and civilization, soils, anthrosols, Amazonia, cultural landscape, and sustainability and unsustainability. At KU he also served as director of the Environmental Studies Program and was a courtesy professor of anthropology, core faculty member of the Latin American Studies Program and the Center for Global and International Studies.

He was widely respected internationally and was invited to give seminars at universities across the world including Italy, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, Sweden, Poland, Costa Rica and Brazil.

Woods’ interests stood at the interface of geography, anthropology, and archeology, and included abandoned settlements, anthropogenic environmental change, cultural landscapes, soils and sediments, and traditional settlement-subsistence systems. Field study was always a significant aspect of both his teaching and research. He directed archaeological and geological investigations in the United States, Mesoamerica, South America, and Europe, serving as principal investigator on more than 110 projects.

He is perhaps best known for his work on terra preta (black earth) soils, also known as Amazonian Dark Earths (ADE). These are distinguished by dark, nearly black color, high carbon and nutrient content, and high productivity (in contrast to more nutrient-poor soils in the Amazon basin that were shaped by natural processes). In the early days, Woods was part of a small but interdisciplinary group of committed and enthusiastic people studying terra preta, and went on to become a world leader in this field.

In a number of collaborative projects with colleagues from Latin America, Europe, and the US, he investigated the origin and importance of the soil. He was directly involved in organizing seminars, conferences, workshops, field trips on ADE, was the co-editor of the four main books on ADE, and authored of numerous articles and chapters on the subject.

His research showed how terra preta was formed by the strategies for land use and settlement of prehistoric Indian cultures. This provided a deeper understanding of the environmental and cultural history of the Amazon basin, as well as clues to sustainable use of resources in the Amazon today and in the future. His work was crucial to the emergence of a new understanding of the Amazonian rainforest landscape that has evolved over recent years, from having been regarded as an untouched wilderness to being best understood as a cultural landscape.

Throughout his career Woods looked at other aspects of anthropogenic soils and environmental history too, particularly prehistoric cultivation. For example, during his tenure at SIUE, he directed the study of Monks Mound, one of the major earthworks at Cahokia in southwestern Illinois, the largest prehistoric Indian settlement in North America, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

He was also well known for his development of techniques for examining soils at archaeological sites, especially the quantitative analysis of soil phosphate. One of his last research topics concerned carbon sequestration in soils as a potential mitigating process for land degradation and atmospheric CO₂ accumulation. An ancillary interest involved birds as an indicator of anthropogenic environmental change.

Woods’ cross-disciplinary interests were reflected in his society memberships: Association of American Geographers, American Geographical Society, Geological Society of America, Society for American Archaeology, American Chemical Society, Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers, and British Society of Soil Science. He also served on the editorial boards of Journal of Archaeology, Journal of Ecosystem and Ecography, and PLOS ONE.

During his career, Woods received many awards and distinctions. At SIUE he received the 1999 Paul Simon Outstanding Teacher-Scholar Award, recognizing the interdependence of research/scholarship and teaching. The Association of American Geographers’ Cultural and Political Ecology Specialty Group awarded him the Robert Netting Award in 2006 for his impressive body of work in interdisciplinary cultural ecology. In the same year he received the Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers’ Carl O. Sauer Distinguished Scholar Award given in recognition of a significant contribution towards Latin American geography.

In 2012, Uppsala University in Sweden conferred on him an honorary doctorate for his pioneering research on terra preta, and in 2013 he received the Rip Rapp Award, one of the Geological Society of America’s most prestigious awards, in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the interdisciplinary field of archaeological geology.

Aside from his influential scholarly work, Bill Woods will be remembered as a great mentor and supporter of young and emergent scientists, providing inspiration and always willing to give advice. He will be missed by colleagues and friends across the disciplines that he touched. He is survived by his wife Deanna, son Colin and daughter Gillian, former wife Sandi, and four grandchildren.

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Gary S. Dunbar

Gary Dunbar, Professor Emeritus of the University of California at Los Angeles, who made notable contributions in the history of geography, passed away on August 16, 2015, at the age of 84.

Gary Seamans Dunbar was born on June 8, 1931 in Clifton Springs, New York. By 1948 he was valedictorian of Avon Central School graduating class. Further academic credentials came from the University of Virginia where he earned a bachelor’s degree with distinction (1952) and a master’s degree (1953).

In 1956 he completed his doctorate at Louisiana State University with a thesis entitled “Cultural Geography of the North Carolina Outer Banks.” This was later published as a book: Historical Geography of the North Carolina Outer Banks (1958).

After a year teaching at Longwood College in Farmville, VA, he returned to the University of Virginia where he remained from 1957 to 1967. He began as assistant professor, later becoming chairman of the geography department. During this time he also taught at the University of Dacca in East Pakistan (now Dhaka in Bangladesh) as a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar (1962-1963), and spent two years at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria (1965-1967). In the summers he taught at various Canadian universities: University of Manitoba (1961), Queen’s University (1962), McMaster University (1963), and York University (1968). In 1967 he joined the department of geography at the University of California, Los Angeles, remaining there until retirement in 1988.

Dunbar published considerably with special reference to intellectual history. He was particularly interested in the history of both U.S. and French geography. His books included: Elisée Reclus, Historian of Nature (1978), The History of Geography: Translations of Some French and German Essays (1983), The History of Modern Geography: An Annotated Bibliography of Selected Works (1985), Modern Geography: An Encyclopedic Survey (1991), A Biographical Dictionary of American Geography in the Twentieth Century (1992; second edition 1996), and Geography, Discipline, Profession and Subject since 1870: An International Survey (2001).

Additionally, he published a number of articles relating to the history of geography, including essays published in Geographers: Biobibliographical Studies. Other articles related to historical geography, history of exploration, and cultural geography. He also gave a number of lectures in both the U.S. and abroad, and provided notes and reviews in several geographical periodicals.

He was a member of several professional societies including the Association of American Geographers, which he joined in 1953. From 1981 to 1992 he served as President of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers. He also served on several editorial boards.

During his career, Dunbar traveled through North and South America, the West Indies, Europe, Africa, and Asia, often involving his wife and children in his adventures.

On early retirement at the age of 58, he moved to Cooperstown, NY, an area he had first visited in 1952 as a graduate student. While researching the cultivation of hops for his Master’s thesis, he was captivated by the village, Otsego Lake and the surrounding countryside. It became his home for the last 27 years of his life and he much appreciated the quietude of offered by the Cooperstown environment, where he was involved in various local community organizations.

Gary Dunbar was a kindly person, quite given to helping others, and happily productive in the genre of the history of geography. He leaves behind his beloved wife of 62 years, Elizabeth, their three children, Emily, Elihu, and Esther, and four grandchildren.

Contributed by Geoffrey Martin, and with thanks to the Dunbar family for the photograph

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