AAG Welcomes Spring 2024 Interns
Two new interns have joined the AAG staff this spring. The AAG would like to welcome Adain and Evangeline to the organization.
Aidan Clark (she/her) is excited to be serving as the AAG’s Media and Communications intern. She attends the University of Oregon in Eugene, OR, where she is completing her B.S. in Geography with a concentration in GIS. She is also passionate about her minors in History and Environmental Studies. As a recipient of the departmental Holzman Family Award for excellence in geography, Aidan has studied a wide variety of subjects in the field with cartography and remote sensing being her favorites. Outside of academics, she enjoys sailing, skiing, and making stained glass art. After graduation, Aidan will be moving back home to St. Paul, Minnesota and pursuing a career in GIS or contemplating a master’s degree.
Evangeline Dwelle (she/her) is a senior in Geography at the University of North Texas. Although now a proud Dentonite, she is originally from Austin, Texas, which sparked her interest in environmental issues especially as they relate to cities, particularly surface water quality and water quantity and conservation. Evangeline’s previous positions include an internship with the Upper Trinity Groundwater Conservation District, conducting field work and processing data, and a field technician for a GIS-based air quality study. She has also been a field technician in ecological research on the southern coast of Chile through UNT’s Sub-Antarctic Biological Conservation Program. Previous research includes a study of the air quality in college campus buildings, and how indoor plants relate to particulate matter in the air. Her current personal research is a GIS-based project studying the role of riparian vegetation in protecting surface water quality in the Austin, Texas creek systems. In her free time, Evangeline loves to enjoy the outdoors, whether it be camping, hiking, biking, or hammocking. She loves to read, build puzzles, is a live music enthusiast, and she is currently restoring a piano she found on the curb.
If you or someone you know is interested in applying for an internship at the AAG, the AAG seeks interns on a year-round basis for the spring, summer, and fall semesters. More information on internships at the AAG is also available on the Jobs & Careers section of the AAG website at: https://www.aag.org/internships.
Over the next several months, we’ll devote space in this column to the perspectives of JEDI Committee chairs as they continue implementing AAG’s Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) plan through the framework of 
The weeks and months following the 2020 murder of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis saw an outpouring of public support for racial justice in the United States. America, it seemed, was ready for a long overdue ‘racial reckoning’. American corporations, government agencies, and academic institutions hurried to introduce an array of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) measures designed to address institutional barriers to equality.
In many respects this should be a time of rising attention and support for geography. The concerns of the planet — global climate change, geopolitical turmoil, social and spatial justice — are those that speak to geography’s strengths. Geography scholars have been recognized with Guggenheims, MacArthurs, National Academy invitations and other honors. Geospatial technologies are standard throughout business and government, and geographers are best poised to educate geospatial practitioners and develop new technologies. We are also a STEM discipline, which puts us at a strategic advantage given the priorities of many universities these days.
The 2024 AAG Distinguished Scholarship Honor is awarded to Jennifer Collins for her research in physical climatology and human geography, most notably for her studies of hurricanes, hurricane risk, and hurricane evacuation behavior. Her research has substantially advanced knowledge of hurricanes and tropical storms and led to improvements in forecasting. She is highly regarded for her analyses of the combined contributions of El Nino and the Madden-Julian Oscillation to the 2009 hurricane season in the eastern North Pacific, and of the environmental conditions affecting the record-breaking 2015 Pacific hurricane season. Collins and her co-authors also transformed the known history of Atlantic hurricanes by finding that the 1846 Great Havana Hurricane was the first known Category 5 hurricane to make landfall there.
The 2024 AAG Distinguished Teaching Honors is awarded to Patricia Lopez for her teaching, mentoring and pedagogical accomplishments at Dartmouth College. As Chris Sneddon, former Chair of Geography at Dartmouth College states, “Dr. Lopez is the most extraordinary teacher and mentor in higher education I have yet to encounter.” In her early career work at Dartmouth, she developed and taught eight courses, as well as engaged in high stress and deeply important work, such as teach-ins that responded to political crises that affected campuses and the US. Even in the most isolating times at the beginning of the COVID- 19 pandemic, Professor Lopez demonstrated pedagogy that taught students to value collaboration as central to knowledge production and to embrace multiple modes of learning across audio, visual and written media. Her courses span the breadth of student lea ming from leading introductory courses to teaching Global Poverty & Care, Geopolitics of Humanitarianism and co-teaching a class on #BlacklivesMatter. This is because her work centers on bringing care into labor, life, teaching, and mentoring.
The 2024 Gilbert Grosvenor Honors for Geographic Education is awarded to Dr. Rafael de Miguel Gonzalez for his exceptional service to the discipline of geography and unique contributions to the geographic education community. Currently the President of EUROGEO (the European Association of Geographers) and Professor of Geography Education at the University of Zaragoza (Spain), De Miguel is one of the preeminent scholars of geography education in the world today. De Miguel is recognized as one of geography’s key public advocates of national and international educational reform and innovation, through his work for about 30 years as a geography school teacher, later university professor, lead researcher, project manager, editor, writer, map-maker, higher education administrator, speaker and -as Board member of several geographical institutions- representative of the community of geographers and geography educators in front of national education policy makers and international organizations like the UN, the European Commission or the Council of Europe.
The 2024 AAG Lifetime Achievement Honor is awarded to Cindi Katz for her enduring scholarly contributions to feminist scholarship and social theory, and the subfields of cultural, social, and economic geography and political economy; as well as shedding light on the political-ecological conditions that affect the lives of children. Dr. Katz has contributed to diversifying the field through her mentorship of women and scholars of color.
Dr. Daniel Arreola is an emeritus professor at the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning at Arizona State University. He is a prolific scholar who focuses on the Hispanic experience of the American Southwest and the Mexican border. Several of his seven books have won major AAG awards, and he is described as knowing the Mexican American borderlands better than anybody else. He has passed his passion on to his students and is widely considered to be an outstanding educator. Dr. Arreola served the AAG through his long-standing engagement with the APCG. He was instrumental in designing the AP Human Geography course, thus leaving his mark on the geography education of countless young geographers.
Dr. Ling Bian is a leading GIScientist whose extensive research, service, and outreach efforts, over three decades, have contributed greatly to the growth and development of quantitative approaches in geography. Her many research contributions include the development of a ground-breaking spatio-temporal approach for modeling the spread of communicable diseases among people and through social networks – an approach that has high relevance to understanding COVID-19 spread. Dr. Bian has provided outstanding service to our community through her leadership in national GIScience initiatives, her participation in national and international committees, and her dedicated efforts as section editor of the Annals of the AAG. She led a program to teach web GIS to high school students, creating pathways into geospatial careers for students from diverse backgrounds.
Dr. Heejun Chang is an accomplished geographer who has achieved the highest levels of scholarship, practice, and service. His research focused on human modifications of hydrologic systems (including climate change), its impacts on society, and spatial integrative methodological approaches has produced more than 170 well-cited publications and over 100 invited talks. Chang is recognized with major awards that include the Abe Fellowship from the Social Science Research Council and Japan Foundation, Sigma-Xi, and the E. Willard and Ruby S. Millar Award from the American Association of Geographers (AAG). Mentoring graduate and undergraduate students is also among Dr. Chang’s exceptional work, which also includes many publications co-authored with students. Additionally, during service as chair of the Geography Department at Portland State University, Chang was instrumental in substantially enhancing the diversity of its faculty. A 25-year member of the AAG, Chang has also provided leadership as Chair of the Spatial Analysis and Modeling Specialty Group, board member of the Water Resources Specialty Group, organizer of numerous special sessions, and editor-in-chief of the Professional Geographer.
Dr. Min Chen, professor of geography at Nanjing Normal University, is a leading mid-career scholar in the field of GIScience. With his boundless energy and vision, Dr. Chen has played a key role in building and sustaining GIScience through his extensive research and service activities. Co-author of more than 180 publications, he is widely known for his development of a model-sharing and collaborative simulation platform that facilitates knowledge-building in an open web environment. As executive editor of the Annals of GIS, he has greatly elevated the journal’s profile, making it a leading outlet for GIScience research worldwide. His leadership in various AAG specialty groups and international GIS organizations like the International Association of Chinese Professionals in GIScience have greatly advanced GIS scholarship and provided essential support for emerging scholars in the field.
Andrew Curley is an exceptional early career geographer at the University of Arizona who has been instrumental in supporting the recent growth of Indigenous Geographies and the community of Indigenous geographers within the AAG. A member of the Navajo (Diné) Nation, Dr. Curley has been an exceptional mentor for new Indigenous geographers, as well as scholars of energy and political geographies. His research focuses on addressing urgent questions relating Indigenous sovereignty, climate change, and development. He is also one of a group of new political ecologists, who focus their work on questions of tribal sovereignty. He has been particularly involved in public facing scholarship among the Diné.
Dr. Kate Derickson is an outstanding geographer who has significantly advanced the discipline through innovative, community-engaged scholarship that tackles urgent issues of environmental justice, urban development, racism, and climate change with and for impacted communities. She has developed a rigorous research record that includes contributions to the top journals in geography, distinguished by the significance of community engagement. Derickson is perhaps best known for developing and applying the concept of “resourcefulness”—articulated in an article in Progress in Human Geography with over 1,200 citations—that directs researchers and university leaders to prioritize capacity building of community partners to participate in research design and policy advocacy. She also co-founded the CREATE (Co-Developing Research and Engaged Approaches to Transform Environments) Initiative, a multifaceted program to advance research and education at the intersection of equity and environment through community engagement, interdisciplinary scholarship, and graduate training. Her extensive efforts in training the next generation of community-engaged scholars are reflected in the Community Engaged Scholarship Award from the University of Minnesota. For the American Association of Geographers, Derickson has also demonstrated leadership as Chair of the Socialist and Critical Geography Specialty Group and as member of the Awards Committee and Editorial Board of the Annals of the AAG. She was also Convener of the Antipode Summer Institute. Derickson has a record of path-breaking scholarly interventions in urban theory and community engaged research and for radically opening spaces in the discipline for junior scholars.
Dr. Chunyuan Diao is an outstanding early-career scholar whose extensive research contributions and service to the AAG have strengthened and advanced the field of remote sensing and geographers’ roles in it. Her publications in leading journals and extensive grant-funded research activities have creatively advanced our ability to monitor and model ecosystem dynamics across natural, human-natural, and disturbed biogeographical systems at multiple spatial and temporal scales. Dr. Diao’s leadership and service to the AAG Remote Sensing Specialty Group have fostered a supportive and expanding scholarly community; and her effective teaching and mentorship activities are helping to develop a new generation of remote sensing scholars whose gender and race/ethnic diversity more fully represent the populations impacted by global eco-environmental change.
Dr. Jerome E. Dobson is a professor emeritus of geography at the University of Kansas. He has a rare combination of experience in government, academia, and the private sector. He is recognized as a pioneer of Geographic Information Science. He led development of the current world standards for estimating populations at risk during disasters of all sorts and for how landmines and mine fields are represented on maps worldwide. He coined the term “geoslavery” to raise awareness of geospatial technology in human tracking coercively or surreptitiously. Dr. Dobson has a record of dedicated service to AAG, including co-founding the AAG Energy Specialty Group, chairing the Honors Committee and GIS Specialty Group, and serving on the Editorial Board of The Professional Geographer and on various AAG committees. Dr. Dobson served as president of the American Geographical Society. His innovative and diverse scholarship and commitment to helping people across the world through research and action are exemplary. Recently he and two Italian colleagues retrospectively mapped ocean floors from 30,000 BP to the present and digitally discovered scores of islands, which they named the Bering Transitory Archipelago and which may have served as stepping stones for the first crossings from Siberia to Alaska.
Dr. Song Gao is an associate professor of geography and the director of the Geospatial Data Science Lab at the University of Wisconsin Madison. He has established himself as one of the thought leaders and highly cited scholars in the field of geospatial artificial intelligence (GeoAI) and was heavily involved in the geospatial modeling of the spread of COVID-19. He has successfully mentored young scholars and students in GIScience, offered workshops and webinars for the AAG and other organizations, and is an associate editor for AAG’s International Encyclopedia of Geography and International Journal of Geographical Information Science. Dr. Gao’s involvement with cutting-edge data science and AI techniques, his commitment to taking on and solving important challenges, and his enthusiasm for working with different international organizations make him a strong asset to the AAG.
Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern is an exceptional mid-career geographer who is a leader in a growing group of geographers who focus on issues of labor, race, and class within agriculture and food systems. Dr. Minkoff-Zern is the author of two books, one of which, The New American Farmer: Immigration, Race, and the Struggle for Sustainability, tells the story of Mexican and Central American immigrants, who are reshaping American farming by drawing on agricultural knowledge and practices from their home countries. Her second book, Will Work for Food: Labor Across the Food Chain, forthcoming in 2025, looks at exploration of the labor across the food chain, from farms to food processing and into the home, exploring the intersections between sustainability movements and labor organizing. Beyond her excellent research, she is also a leader in the subfield of food and agriculture, having served as chair and in many other roles in the AAG Geographies of Food and Agriculture Specialty Group. In this position she helped steward the specialty group towards new programs, such as a scholarship for community food and agriculture partnership research. As an associate professor in the Food Studies Program and an affiliate of the Department of Geography and the Environment at Syracuse University, she is at the forefront of bridging the disciplines of Geography and Food Studies.
Dr. Chandana Mitra is an associate professor in the Department of Geosciences at Auburn University. She uses her training in urban climate, GIS, and remote sensing to work across disciplinary boundaries on topics such as the sustainability and resilience of cities in the face of climate change. She is committed to addressing STEM education and importance of science communication in her research. She is an advocate for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), for example by mentoring girls interested in STEM at the EmpowHER conference, co-founding GeoFIDE, a DEI organization the Geosciences, and by supporting underrepresented students. Dr. Mitra has held various positions in the AAG’s Asian and Regional Development and Planning Specialty groups and brings a strong commitment to social justice issues and cross-disciplinary approaches to the AAG.
Dr. Jessie Poon is among the world’s leading economic geographers, with a substantial record of research that includes four co-authored books and more than one hundred journal articles and book chapters. Her research—from early path-breaking work on the geographical structure of trade patterns and dynamics of regionalization to more recent explorations of social, cultural, financial, and information networks and to digital economies more generally—has been remarkably consistent over the last three decades, with uniformly high-quality writings distributed across leading journals in human geography and into related fields of regional science, business, communications, trade and development, and allied social sciences. In many leadership roles, Poon was also chair of the Regional Studies Association, Committee Member of the Council of the American Association of Geographers (AAG), Chair of the Southeast Section of the Asian Geography Specialty Group, member of the AAG Research Grants Committee, and editor or member of the Editorial Board of numerous top journals in her field. A longtime member of the AAG, Dr. Poon has also worked tirelessly to make geography, and the academy more broadly, a more equitable, diverse, and inclusive community. She has published extensively on the state of women in her field, advocated for other female scholars, championed increasing representation of female scholars in research journals, including editorial boards, while serving as the first female editor of Papers in Regional Science. Her trailblazing efforts have opened space within economic geography for women to both contribute to important debates and flourish while doing so.
Danielle Purifoy is an assistant professor in the Department of Geography at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Despite being just a few years beyond her PhD, she has already established herself as a prominent scholar of Black Geographies, political geography, and legal geographies. She also engages in community work and practical environmental engagement well beyond the university. She studies, in particular, “the making and unmaking of Black Towns,” focusing on their experiences of environmental racism. She found, in particular, that towns in the Southern US often developed two parallel communities, one white and one Black. The Black town was often not included within the incorporated boundaries, allowing for a devastating amount of environmental racism. Beyond this research, Dr. Purifoy is growing leader and mentor within the Black Geographies community, is a co-leader of the Mapping Black Towns project, has been a co-editor of numerous special journal issues, and has given invited lectures at universities around the world. She is truly an impressive early-career geographer.
Dr. Mark Rosenberg is a distinguished health geographer who has been a tireless advocate for geography and geographers throughout his career. His leadership, vision, and enduring commitment to mentorship have propelled the growth and development of health and medical geography. His influential research contributions provide rigorous evidence about how geographical and sociopolitical processes shape unequal access to health care, especially for vulnerable populations. Bringing energy, vision, and leadership to a wide range of national and international geographical organizations, including health geography groups of the AAG, CAG, and IGU, he has offered critical insights and direction that have strongly supported the groups’ health, growth, and development. By effectively mobilizing enthusiasm, wisdom, care, and practical advice, Dr. Rosenberg has excelled in mentoring diverse graduate students and early-career faculty, many of whom have achieved successful careers in health geography research and policy.
Dr. Shih-Lung Shaw is a leader in the areas of time geography and the applications of GIS to transportation geography. He is current Chancellor’s Professor in the Department of Geography and Sustainability at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. His research developed a space-time GIS framework, which has been used to analyze a large variety of human dynamics phenomena, including both longtime issues such as travel dynamics and more recent phenomenon such as COVID infection patterns. Beyond his innovative, important, and useful research, Dr. Shaw has been a leader in the AAG. He is a former chair of the Transportation Geography Specialty Group and treasurer of the GIS group, and has been the lead organizer of the Human Dynamics Symposium at AAG annual meetings for eight years. Shih-Lung has also been president of the UCGIS and has been a strong supporter of a project to promote the professional development of women in GIScience.
Dr. Selima Sultana is Professor and Associate Head in the Department of Geography, Environment, and Sustainability at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. She is an outstanding scholar, a committed member of the AAG, and a mentor to many, specially to early career academics, and women and BIPOC geographers. Her service to the AAG is varied and extensive. She has been President of the AAG Regional Division of Southeast, Chair of the Transportation Geography Specialty Group, served on the AAG Council as Regional Councilor, representing the Southeast Division, Chair of the AAG Publications and the Status of Women in Geography Committees, and co-founder of the new Protected Areas Specialty Group. In addition, Dr. Sultana has been on the editorial board of many publications including The Professional Geographer and Southeastern Geographer, the latter where she served as editor. She is also on the AAG Mentoring Task Force, which highlights her ongoing mentorship. Likewise, at her home campus of UNC Greensboro, she has been a leading mentor to both graduate and undergraduate students. Dr. Sultana’s is also an exceptional researcher focuses on a large variety of social justice issues, including accessibility and the low visitation rates of African Americans at National Parks, and how the changing structure of urban areas increases commuting times for BIPOC women.
Dr. Yehua Dennis Wei is an internationally renowned urban/economic geographer whose research centers on effects of globalization and institutional change on cities, regions, and sustainability. A pioneer in the study of regional development and regional/ spatial inequality in China, Wei has published five books and more than 250 journal articles and book chapters. He has also edited a dozen journal special issues and served as editor-in-chief of Applied Geography. His awards and honors include the Excellence in Research Award from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the Distinguished Scholar Award from the Regional Development and Planning Specialty Group of the American Association of Geographers (AAG), the Outstanding Young Scientist Award from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and a role as Overseas Evaluation Expert of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Over nearly 30 years, Dr. Wei has provided valuable leadership to the AAG by organizing numerous special sessions and international conferences, and by chairing three AAG specialty groups (China Geography, Asian Geography, and Regional Development and Planning). The quality and impact of his service are also reflected in the Distinguished Service Award from each of these groups. In addition to revealing spatial inequality and equity issues in China through his research, Dr. Wei has also worked hard to enhance diversity and inclusion in geography and the academe by serving on the AAG’s Enhancing Diversity Committee, and at the University of Utah, on the Diversity Committee, Senate Advisory Committee on Diversity, and Senate Committee on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion.
Dr. Ruth Wilson Gilmore is recognized for her extraordinary contributions to the confrontation with racial capitalism and the conditions necessary for structural reform, particularly of carceral institutions and prison systems, mass punishment, and criminalization and race. She has also shared her expertise in labor and social movements, the intersections of race and gender, the African Diaspora and Black Radical tradition.
Dr. J. Marshall Shepherd is the Georgia Athletic Association Distinguished Professor of Geography and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Georgia and serves as associate director of Climate and Outreach for the Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems. He is a Full Professor in the Department of Geography where he was a previous Associate Department Head. In 2023, he was appointed associate dean for Research, Scholarship and Partnerships in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Georgia.
Explorer, Pwo Navigator, cultural revivalist, educator, and storyteller Charles Nainoa Thompson is this year’s Honorary Geographer, an award given annually by the American Association of Geographers to recognize an exceptional leader in the arts, research, teaching, and writing whose work addresses geographic topics.
This year’s recipient of the Stanley Brunn Award for Creativity in Geography is Margaret Wickens Pearce, cartographer and founder of 
The 2024 AAG Wilbanks Prize for Transformational Research in Geography is awarded to Qihao Weng, Chair Professor of geomatics and artificial intelligence at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Weng is also a professor of geography at Indiana State University, and the director of Indiana State’s Center for Urban and Environmental Change. Professor Weng has defined urban remote sensing as a new field and has transformed urban environmental research with theoretical and technical advances, including novel algorithms and innovative methods for sub-pixel-scale analysis and time series imagery. His research has significantly advanced our theoretical understanding and empirical knowledge of urban heat islands, urban sprawl, urbanization effects, and urban environmental sustainability. By establishing relationships among satellite thermal infrared imagery, land surface temperature, and air temperature, his research connects remotely sensed data to urban landscape patterns, radiation budgets, and climate change. His 2004 methodology for estimating land-surface temperature from satellite-derived attributes of vegetation, developed with Lu and Schubring, has had far-reaching impact in a range of fields, including urban geography, landscape ecology, urban planning, urban meteorology, and climatology.
Dr. Nik Heynen has an exceptional record in anti-racism scholarship, with a focus on abolition geography. His work highlights the intricate connections between environmental racism, racial capitalism, and political ecology, making him one of the most prominent voices in anti-racism geographical research. Moreover, Dr. Heynen has incorporated anti-racism practices in his other endeavors in and out of the academy, including mentoring and advocating for future generations of anti-racism scholars, as well as translating scholarship into tangible and positive impacts on communities through anti-racist community engagement activities and initiatives.
Dr. Elizabeth Olson, professor of geography at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, is recognized for the breadth and depth of her commitments to fostering inclusivity and care. Dr. Olson has been an outstanding mentor for scholars of color and women. As department chair, she made a concerted effort to create a more diverse faculty, focusing on the recruitment and retention of scholars of color. She has worked continuously to build a department culture in which faculty and students of color can thrive. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Dr. Olson’s expertise in care work informed how the university responded to the pandemic, contributing to the formulation of policies to support early-career faculty. Finally, Dr. Olson’s scholarship on care ethics, youth, and religion speaks to her dedication to creating more welcoming and inclusive spaces in the university and in the discipline.
Dr. Derek Alderman is recognized for his outstanding and impactful contributions to mentorship of students and early career faculty colleagues. The committee particularly noted the caring and inclusive environment Dr. Alderman creates which supports a highly valued climate of collegiality within the University of Tennessee Department of Geography and Sustainability, the impressive number of students mentored throughout his career, his holistic “coaching up” mentorship style that centers diversity, equity, and inclusion, draws upon his own life experience, and goes far beyond a one-size-fits-all mentorship approach. The committee was moved by the testimonies and letters of support submitted by Dr. Alderman’s mentees which embody the spirit, memory, and legacy of the late Dr. Susan Hardwick.
Mohammed Rafi Arefin, assistant professor of geography at the University of British Columbia, is recognized both for his outstanding research on political ecologies of urban waste in the global North and South and for his unwavering commitment to environmental and climate justice. Dr. Arefin embodies the spirit of the Glenda Laws Award in his efforts to help establish a Centre for Climate Justice (CCJ) at UBC that connects the university with communities on the front lines of climate disruption. In addition to putting the university’s resources in service of diverse communities in British Columbia, the CCJ provides an activist network to advocate for substantive policy changes around issues of housing, sovereignty, and political freedoms. Dr. Arefin must also be recognized for his tireless efforts to bring international attention to the incarceration of political activists in Egypt ahead of the UN’s COP27 climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh.
Soe W. Myint, Meadows Endowed Chair Professor, Texas State University, is an internationally recognized scholar who holds the Fulbright Canada Research Chair, has earned recognition from the Canadian Association of Geographers, and is an editor or editorial board member of well recognized remote sensing, GIS, and ecology journals. Dr. Myint possesses a long list of well-cited publications and is acknowledged as one of the most influential researchers in the fields of remote sensing and GIS to address environmental issues in urban, forest, and coastal ecosystems advancing understanding of environmental equity in cities. Dr. Myint is recipient of multiple grants from top national research organizations; a dedicated mentor to geography graduate, undergraduate, and postdoctoral students; and an advocate for diversity and inclusion in the discipline. He has served as a member or chair of over 60 PhD committees and has made outstanding contributions to the discipline as a member of the AAG through his exemplary research, teaching, and service.
Dr. Karen Barton, professor in the Department of Geography, GIS, & Sustainability at the University of Northern Colorado, is this year’s recipient of the the Harm de Blij Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Geography Teaching. The selection committee felt that all applicants were outstanding, however, Dr. Barton’s unparalleled commitment to international field education stood out as exemplary. She has led field courses to Nepal, Iceland, Guyana, Nicaragua, Peru, Kenya, and Norway in addition to points within the United States. She includes service learning in her field excursions that help students understand their place in the world, and most impressively, Dr. Barton has assembled funds for these courses from a broad range of sources, allowing a diverse group of students to participate in these impactful trips. Dr. Barton has been recognized with four awards for her teaching excellence on campus. Her peer recommendations indicate a sustained commitment to undergraduate education and experiential learning over her career as a geographer.
Displacing Territory: Syrian and Palestinian Refugees in Jordan by Karen Culcasi (University of Chicago Press, 2023) presents a powerful and innovative response to the global crisis of forced displacement. Culcasi argues against framing the “refugee crisis” via the perspective and priorities of the Global North, instead setting her analysis in the Southwest Asia and North Africa region. Her focus on Jordanian refugee policy and the lived experience of refugees creates a provocative reframing of questions about migration and displacement, read against the central themes of power, territory, and place.
The City after Property: Abandonment and Repair in Postindustrial Detroit by Sara Safransky (Duke University Press, 2023) begins with a paradox: Detroit’s residents face foreclosures and evictions amidst a crisis of land abandonment. Safransky answers this paradox by weaving theoretically rich insights with detailed research, resulting in a rich account of urban property, racial capitalism, and deindustrialization. Safransky orients geographical scholarship to the possibilities of urban space outside dominant property regimes and centers the work of Black Detroit residents in confronting the challenges to their community.
The Cactus Hunters: Desire and Extinction in the Illicit Succulent Trade by Jared D. Margulies (University of Minnesota Press, 2023) delves into the world of global succulent collecting to explore how and why some of the most passionate lovers of these plants engage in their illicit trade. Margulies examines how the desires of collectors can threaten the very existence of the species they seek out. The book develops a political ecology of desire to interrogate the close relations between our unconscious and conscious selves and the wider ecological web of life.
Waste and the City: The Crisis of Sanitation and the Right to Citylife by Colin McFarlane (Verso, 2023) builds a compelling argument for addressing the worldwide inequality in sanitation through a focus on five key areas: people, things, life, protest, and allocation. McFarlane argues that access to sanitation is fundamental not only to reducing poverty and inequality but also to “citylife,” the right to a livable urban life.
Border Witness: Re-imagining the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands Through Film by Michael Dear (University of California Press, 2023) is a masterfully written book that uses film to narrate the human and landscape geographies of the US-Mexico border region. It convinces the reader to consider “border film” a vibrant genre and reviews a century of film to illuminate the communities, spaces, and identities that emerge in a dynamic geographical zone. Both academics and non-academics will appreciate Dear’s thorough research, insights on timely issues, nice illustrations, and wonderful prose. This is a book that is only possible when decades of research and fieldwork slowly marinate into a rich, deep study.
Near Woods: A Year in an Allegheny Forest by Kevin Patrick (Rowman & Littlefield, Stackpole Books Division, 2023) creates a wonderfully informed, nuanced, and thoughtful meditation on a small patch of woods outside Indiana, PA. Inspired by Thoreau’s Walden, Patrick explores the relationship between people and place, weaving together natural history, cultural history, the seasons, and his own reflections. The book demonstrates that a good geographer can take the most unassuming landscape and spin a tale about it, offering deep insights about connections that transcend time and space. The book is presented in an easy and enjoyable prose style, and it is accompanied by beautiful and evocative color photographs.
In January 2024, the AAG welcomes Anastasia Christou as the new 
Inwood is a professor in the Department of Geography and The Rock Ethics Institute at the Pennsylvania State University. His research and teaching are focused on the social, political, and economic structures that perpetuate exploitation and injustice with a specific focus on the US South. His work explores racial capitalism and the broad trajectories of white supremacy. In addition, his work has engaged with the U.S. civil rights struggle and a broad understanding of the geography of the American Civil Rights struggle. His work has been funded by the National Science Foundation and his work has been recognized with several AAG honors including the Glenda Laws Award and the AAG’s media achievement award. He has authored or co-authored over fifty peer-reviewed journal articles and is co-editor of the volume Non-Killing Geographies: Violence, Space, and the Search for a More Humane Geography (Center for Global Non-Killing, 2011) and has a forthcoming co-edited book on Geographies of Justice (Bristol University Press 2024). He brings to his editorship at GeoHumanities an awareness of the intersection of geography, humanist value systems and human rights, politics, and history.
Cresswell is Ogilvie Professor of Human Geography in the School of GeoSciences at the University of Edinburgh. His research focuses on geographies of place and mobility and their role in the constitution of social and cultural life. He is the author or editor of a dozen books and over 100 articles on the role of space, place, and mobility in social and cultural life. Cresswell is also a widely published poet with three collections – most recently Plastiglomerate (Penned in the Margins, 2020). His most recent academic book, Muybridge and Mobility (co-authored with John Ott) was published by the University of California Press in 2022. 
Deborah Dixon is Professor of Geography at the University of Glasgow. Dixon’s internationally recognized work in feminist geopolitics was instrumental to the emergence of geohumanities as an inter-disciplinary field of research and practice. Her work cuts across scientific, artistic, and cultural categories to examine and imagine the ecological and social presence and futures of landscapes and places. Her collaborations include 
Guo Chen has been named the first Human Geography/Nature and Society editor for The Professional Geographer, inaugurating a new position at the journal. Chen will join current editor Heejun Chang, who will continue in his second term as editor, focusing on articles related to Geographic Methods/Physical Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences.
Adams is the longtime director of the Urban Studies Program at the University of Texas, first in the UT Department of Geography and the Environment now in the Department of American Studies. His service to AAG includes founding the Media Geography Specialty Group (now Media and Communication). From 2015 to 2020, he served as associate professor II at the University of Bergen, funded by the Research Council of Norway. In 2001, he was a Fulbright fellow at McGill University and University of Montreal, Quebec. His current research focuses on sociospatial and political aspects of digital media, digital humanities, and culturally specific understandings of environmental risk and climate change.
King is professor and head of the Department of Geography at the Pennsylvania State University. His affiliations range across the university, as a faculty research associate with the Population Research Institute, research affiliate with the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, and faculty affiliate with the School of International Affairs and Consortium on Substance Use and Addiction. King is an honorary research associate with the African Climate and Development Initiative at the University of Cape Town and was selected as a National Academy of Sciences Kavli Fellow in 2017. He previously served from 2021 to 2023 as co-editor of Human Geography and Nature & Society for the Annals. King’s research, teaching, and outreach focuses on livelihoods, conservation and development, environmental change, and human health, centering in Southern Africa. King’s laboratory group (HELIX: Health and Environment Landscapes for Interdisciplinary eXchange) is examining how COVID-19 is transforming the US opioid epidemic. His book, States of Disease: Political Environments and Human Health University of California Press, 2017), received the Julian Minghi Distinguished Book Award.
Strauss brought to the role of editor their significant publications in economic and labor geographies, feminist theory, migration studies, legal geographies, environmental change, urban political ecology, and critical urban theory. With extensive publications in geography, social science, and law journals, Strauss has also served on six editorial boards and been a reviewer for many papers in and beyond geography. Strauss’s tenure with the Annals was characterized by encouragement of paper submissions from outside of North America and in diverse topics areas “that still evidence a commitment to engagement with geography and geographical debate.”
Meehan is a broadly trained human-environment geographer with expertise in urban political ecology, environmental justice, water policy, mixed methods, and science and technology studies. She is co-author of Water: A Critical Introduction (Wiley, 2023), with Naho Mirumachi, Alex Loftus, and Majed Akhter. She is co-editor with Kendra Strauss of Precarious Worlds: Contested Geographies of Social Reproduction (University of Georgia Press, 2015). In 2023 she won the European Research Council’s Consolidator Grant award to support her research on household water insecurity and water shutoffs in high-income countries. During her time at the Annals, Meehan sought to democratize knowledge and expand the audiences for the journal, beyond the geography discipline and beyond academia. She encouraged the use of Annals as a platform for key debates in the discipline and worked with the other editors to bring human-environment topics into the foreground, especially work that focused on racialized natures and environmental justice. “I have been thrilled to work with the editorial board, my co-editors, AAG staff, and the AAG Council to shepherd the very best geographic scholarship to the pages of the Annals,” Meehan says.