On the Map

History Painted in Place: Detroit Murals Map and Guide

November 26, 2024

"Power to the People" mural captured in an image from above on Woodward Avenue in Detroit; Source: Joe Gall, courtesy Hubert Massey and Detroit Heals Detroit

Just weeks after Detroit was named #4 in the United States for the creation of beautiful murals, the city’s Office of Arts, Culture and Entrepreneurship (ACE) took on the task of putting the city at number one. To accomplish this, in 2022 the city launched a mural map and app to identify every mural and artist in the city, based on hundreds of curated murals and biographies of artists.

This initiative builds on a rich legacy of mural art in Detroit. Mural art has left its mark as far back to the early 1930s, capturing almost 100 years of history in Detroit. As the city struggled through the transition of the Great Depression, the prominent Mexican painter and muralist Diego Rivera was commissioned by the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) to capture the energy of Detroit’s distinctive automotive, steel, and other industries. Often considered to be the most complex artworks devoted to American Industry, Rivera’s “Detroit Industry” murals depict the city’s manufacturing base and labor force on 27 panels, spanning all four walls of the DIA’s Diego Court.

Grand in scope and scale, the paintings celebrate Detroit’s auto factories and depict men of all races side by side on an assembly line. Rivera’s technique for painting frescoes, his portrayal of American life on public buildings, and the 1920s Mexican Mural Movement led to and influenced the New Deal mural programs of the 1930s and 1940s, in addition to the future generation of artists in the city.

The main two panels of his series draw inspiration from Ford’s River Rouge Plant, where Rivera toured and sketched for months before creating large-scale tributes to their workers along with a blend of critique and celebration of the forces of industry. He also blended ancient Aztec symbolism into his modernist treatment, creating allegorical figures to portray the complex relationship of human and machine.

A view of the south wall of the Diego Rivera Detroit Industry mural at the Detroit Institute of Arts

A view of the north wall of the Diego Rivera Detroit Industry mural at the Detroit Institute of Arts

The Detroit Institute of Arts’ Research Library, Archives, and Collection Information department holds the digitization of a collection of existing 8 x 10-inch (large format) nitrate photo negatives, which were taken in 1932–33 to document the making of Diego Rivera’s “Detroit Industry” murals. Their digitization preserves the history of the murals and makes the images accessible to the public. In addition, the film that Ford Motor Company’s team made of the artist at work is now accessible on the National Archives website.

Hubert Massey is a contemporary muralist whose work is inspired by 1960s- and ’70s-era activism and the art of Diego Rivera, having studied with former Rivera apprentices Stephen Dimitroff and Lucienne Bloch. In 2020, Massey worked with twenty Detroit teens to create a street mural in the Lower Woodward neighborhood, celebrating the phrase “Power to the People” and the Black Lives Matter movement spreading worldwide.

Massey works in the fresco technique and is the only known African American commissioned fresco artist in America. He has also produced work in the mediums of mosaic, terrazzo, sculpture, stained glass, and other material. You can find his work across Detroit’s Mexicantown, Greektown, the Cultural Center, the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, and the Detroit Athletic Club, among other places.

Girl with the D Earring mural; Source: Zoyes Creative — “Girl with the D Earring” mural; Source: Zoyes Creative

Sydney G. James is another Detroit artist who has contributed large-scale work to the city. A Black figurative painter and public art muralist, she pays homage to the city and emphasizes the deep connection between her art and Detroit, highlighting how murals serve as vibrant expressions of identity and community. Her work not only beautifies the urban landscape but also tells the stories of the people and the place that inspire her.

One of her most notable works is “Girl with the D Earring,” an 8,000 square-foot painting of a Black woman, on Grand Boulevard from Woodward Avenue into Milwaukee Junction. This work re-envisions Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring.” “It’s one woman,” James told Hour Detroit. “But she represents Detroit in general. ‘Girl with the D Earring’ is a celebration of the city and a celebration of its people.”

“Detroit Never Left” mural; Courtesy Sheefy McFly’s website

Musician and visual artist, Sheefy McFly’s “Detroit Never Left” mural, located at Gratiot and Chene near Detroit’s Historic Eastern Market, is a nod to the idea of Detroit having a “resurgence.” The painting depicts a party full of Detroiters: a man jitting—a dance style that was born in Detroit–with a woman twerking (a dance move perfected in New Orleans in the 1990s, with origins in West African dance), a radio, and a Black man wearing a Cartier watch and a blue “D” hat, exuding an authentic Detroit. McFly told The Michigan Chronicle that “anyone from Detroit that walks by can identify with the mural.” His style blends Neo-Expressionism and Pop Art with a Detroit twist that reflects the cultural and social dynamics of Detroit, capturing the city’s spirit and history.

Public art is a form of creative place making, which further deepens connection with places where we live, work, and play.

The vibrant murals of Detroit are more than just artistic expressions; they are a testament to the city’s rich history, diverse culture, and dynamic geography. By intertwining art with public spaces, the city’s murals not only beautify the landscape but also celebrate the unique cultural tapestry that defines this iconic American city.

Explore Detroit’s murals in the city’s interactive map. Filter by year, artist, name, or location.

President's Column

Mentoring and the AAG Mentoring Task Force

November 6, 2024

Credit: Clay Banks, Unsplash

Serving as president of AAG has afforded me the privilege of participating in several of the AAG’s regional division conferences in the fall. These conferences often showcase students’ research, whether as papers or posters, and it is a delight to see all the innovative work that students do around the country. The quality of this research and its presentation also show the tremendous mentoring by faculty at a variety of institutions who support students and encourage them to participate in conferences and present their work. Mentoring is a critically important part of our work as we educate the next generations of geographers and prepare them for a variety of careers.

Research shows that effective mentoring has positive outcomes for faculty careers and for careers outside the academy (Fain and Zachary 2020). Mentoring helps early career scholar-educators and aspiring geography practitioners better prepare for and navigate academic and non-academic job markets, and aids in the transition from graduate school to professional careers. Mentoring enhances professional development and provides networking opportunities for early-career professionals, supports early-career geographers throughout the promotion and tenure process, and is particularly important for those in temporary/precarious positions who often lack institutional support structures. Ongoing political assaults on academic freedom and DEI work on many college and university campuses have only increased the need to better support marginalized faculty.

Mentoring is a critically important part of our work as we educate the next generations of geographers and prepare them for a variety of careers.”

But mentoring does not just benefit mentees. Scholars working on mentoring and consultants for industry and academy, such as Dr. Stacy Blake-Beard, consider ‘mentoring as transformational’ and as ‘mutually empowering’ for mentors and mentees. There are thus benefits for mentors, especially if these mentors appropriately recognize and address mentoring needs across social difference. This is one of the important lessons of research on mentoring: not all mentoring is equal, nor does mentoring necessarily achieve its goals, especially when goals and expectations for mentoring relationships are unclear.

Recognizing that many departments are stretched thin, and that plenty of geographers work as ‘stand-alone’ geographers in their department or even college, the AAG Mentoring Task Force has focused on examining how AAG can expand its mentoring efforts to better address our members’ needs. Since fall 2023, members of this Task Force have been collecting, reading, and discussing scholarship and literature on mentoring strategies. We have been hosting a series of listening sessions at the Honolulu Annual Meeting, as well as at different regional meetings, including the 2023 West Lakes and SEDAAG regional division conferences and at the joint REP/MAD conference in Washington DC. These listening sessions yielded a broad array of insights that will inform our recommendations.

The Mentoring Task Force also facilitated an in-person panel session at the last Annual Meeting in Honolulu on “How to Survive Your First Year as a Faculty Member.” Skillfully chaired by Jack Swab, the session featured four panelists (Clare Beer, Shamayeta Bhattacharya, Bill Limpisathian, and Fikriyah Winata) who shared their experiences, insights, and recommendations as first-year faculty members. Conversations with the audience following the panel’s initial discussion revealed the challenges of job searches as well as great advice on how to overcome them, and to thrive in a new position. I was impressed, as well, by more senior scholars who said they attended the session in order to learn what challenges face current early-career geographers in order to better mentor their own students. To me, this is an example of the two-way street that is mentoring: those of us at more advanced career stages have a lot to learn from those who are just starting out their own. (Look for a second iteration of “How to survive your first year as a faculty member” at our next Annual Meeting in Detroit!)

Our listening sessions taught us that different but important needs for mentoring emerge at different times in one’s professional life. The Mentoring Task Force is keenly aware of the spatial unevenness of mentoring resources available across a variety of institutions and career stages. R-1 institutions often provide their faculty and graduate students with access to commercially available mentoring programs through institutional memberships, while smaller colleges and less well-funded institutions are not able to provide such access. It is also easier in larger departments or colleges to find mentors willing to step up while the service and teaching loads at community colleges and smaller, regional campuses of public institutions are already taxing. For these reasons, a major goal of the AAG Mentoring Task Force is to explore how the AAG can develop and support more diverse mentoring structures, provide guidance to departments and colleges on best practices for mentoring.

While the Mentoring Task Force continues its work, the most recently revised and updated AAG Statement on Professional Ethics (Section IV in particular) reflects more attention to mentoring. It includes expanded recommendations for graduate student mentoring in departments and clarifies that preparation for job searches as part of graduate advising commitments. The statement also links to a guide on ‘How to Advise Graduate Students’ from the University of Michigan, which may serve as a possible model to adapt for a variety of institutions.

Existing mentoring initiatives at AAG have long included the AAG Leadership Workshop for department chairs and other (or aspiring) administrators, as well as the Geography Faculty Development Alliance which offers an annual summer workshop for early-career geographers. Beginning in Honolulu in 2024, the AAG began hosting a Student Day at its Annual Meeting, adding to its daily offerings for students with a full day of sessions dedicated to, among others, methods and professional development workshops, career panels, and offering networking opportunities over lunch. The AAG’s next Student Day will take place on March 26, 2025 in Detroit. And I am sure a number of you have seen AAG’s most recent work within its Research Partnerships initiative, calling on members to submit their ideas on new mentoring efforts to AAG, with the opportunity to collaborate on grant proposals to fund these activities. That effort, the Targeted Mentoring Networks request for partnerships, has attracted numerous ideas and will likely see the submission of two grant proposals this fall.

There are other helpful tools available to begin facilitating mentoring. My own department has encouraged using Individual Development Plans (IDPs) for graduate advising. IDPs originate from the American Association of the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and enable post-doctoral scholars to better articulate and successfully pursue their career goals. My department has amended these plans to accommodate graduate student career goals and planning, whether they intend to pursue academic or non-academic careers. As multi-year planning tools, IDPs are helpful because they encompass a broader timespan than the more common annual progress reviews and check-ins and I encourage you to check out this resource.

As the Mentoring Task Force continues its work, we would love to hear from AAG members about your experiences, needs, and insights. Please also feel free to let us know of excellent examples of mentoring policies and workshops at helloworld@aag.org!

Finally, here are the members of our Mentoring Task Force:

Mark Barnes
Clare Beer
Guillermo Ramos Douglass-Jaimes
Lorraine Dowler
Lesley-Ann Dupigny-Giroux
Patricia Ehrkamp
Caroline Faria
Matt Gerike
Aretina Hamilton
Frank Magilligan
Marcus Seepersad
Sara Smith
Selima Sultana
Jack Swab
Marissa Wald
Antoinette WinklerPrins
Gary Langham (ex officio)

References:

Fain, Lisa Z. and Lois J. Zachary, 2020, Bridging Differences for Better Mentoring: Lean Forward, Learn, and Leverage, Berrett-Kohler Publishers

Audrey J. Murrell and Stacy Blake-Beard (eds.), 2017. Mentoring Diverse Leaders: Creating Change for People, Processes, and Paradigms.

Please note: The ideas expressed in the AAG President’s column are not necessarily the views of the AAG as a whole. This column is traditionally a space in which the president may talk about their views or focus during their tenure as president of AAG, or spotlight their areas of professional work. Please feel free to email the president directly at P.Ehrkamp@uky.edu to enable a constructive discussion.

On the Map

Cranberries: A Fine, Finicky Fruit

November 4, 2024

Credit: Philippe Murray Pietsch, Unsplash

Geography in the News is an educational series offered by the American Association of Geographers for teachers and students in all subjects. We include vocabulary, discussion, and assignment ideas at the end of each article.

Cranberries (Vaccinium macrocarpon) are a big part of the winter holidays. Native to North America, they grow in bogs and wet areas from New England to the upper Midwest and Canada. Some also grow in the Appalachian Mountains. A cousin species, V. oxycoccos, grows in Europe.

Cranberry vines grow best in sandy, organic, acidic soils. They prefer cold winters and cool summers. Massachusetts was once the leading producer, but is now outpaced by Wisconsin. Other states where the berry is grown are New Jersey, Oregon, and Washington. In Canada, too, cranberry farms are found in British Columbia and Nova Scotia.

The vines take at least three years to spread and form a mat before bearing fruit. In September, as berries ripen, the farmers flood their fields and use a thrashing machine to scoop berries from the vines. Once they float to the water’s surface, the berries are collected for market.

Cranberry harvest in New Jersey. Source: Agricultural Research Service

Only 5 percent of the berries go to the market fresh. Most are frozen whole, canned, or bottled as juice. Most people buy more cranberry sauce, juice, and even cranberry health supplements than fresh cranberries.

It was not always this way. For centuries, wild-growing cranberries were harvested by the many nations of the Algonquian people who continue to inhabit all of New England and much of the Midwest and Eastern Canada. They call the berry sassamenesh, and harness its power as a superfood. (Cranberries are full of Vitamin C and other nutrients.) One recipe is pemmican, which mixes the berries with dried fish or meat and tallow. Pemmican was the original power bar: it is formed into cakes and baked in the sun. This provides fat, carbs, and nutrients in a form that is easy to carry and store for months.

Demand for Cranberry Grows Fast

For a plant that takes years to bear fruit, the cranberry is otherwise growing fast. Its market expands every year. Cranberries are an important import to other countries, and it is now seen as a food for all year long, particularly for its health benefits. Shoppers have come to expect dried and fresh cranberries in many products, from baked goods to cereal to energy bars. This expansion was driven by a shrewd international marketing strategy from a nearly century-old grower-owned cooperative, Ocean Spray Cranberries, Inc.

Cranberries: The National Cranberry Magazine, 1960, one of Ocean Spray’s many marketing efforts to get more cranberries into kitchens and on tables. Source: Wikimedia

Ocean Spray began as a small farmers’ cooperative in 1930. By 1988, the company controlled 85 percent of the world’s cranberry market. The key to their success was smart decisions in both marketing and production. Ever eat a “craisin”? This dried version of the fruit was a snacking breakthrough in 1981. By then, Ocean Spray was already famous for its juices. Soon, it was putting cranberries in cereals, energy bars, and desserts.

As demand for cranberries shot upward, competitors got into the game. Private companies made high offers to farmers, hoping to lure them from Ocean Spray. Still, Ocean Spray remains the dominant player, and certainly the most recognizable in the grocery store. It represents about 700 family-owned cranberry farms.

America’s cranberry farmers produce about 8 billion barrels a year. Most come from Wisconsin, which had one of its strongest harvests yet in 2024. It’s almost the perfect place for these unique berries, with plenty of water, sandy soil, and ideal weather. That doesn’t mean they are always a sure thing, however. There is a margin of risk every year. “I like the challenge,” said John Stauner, owner of James Lake Farms in Wisconsin. “It’s a profession where you have a lot of variability throughout the year.”

The weather has always created uncertainty for farmers. Climate change is adding to their worries. In the past decade, Massachusetts bogs experienced flooding from both ocean saltwater and torrential rain, killing some bogs. On the other extreme, a 2022 drought also took a heavy toll on production.

Cranberry bogs are part of the climate solution in New England, too, at least after they have run their course producing the fruit. Although one in four bogs that have gone out of business in Massachusetts, some farmers are using their land for large-scale restoration to protect wildlife and wetlands in the state.

Some cranberry production has headed overseas since the 1990s. A California company invested $20 million in building cranberry bogs in Chile. The investment has made Chile the third biggest cranberry producer worldwide. The United States remains the world’s top producer.

Some years ago, the geospatial firm Descartes Labs used radar data and algorithmic machine learning to map America’s cranberry bogs. It wasn’t easy: find out how they did it.

The next time someone passes the cranberry sauce or offers you a glass of cranberry juice, tell them a thing or two about this bright berry’s history, geography, growth habits, and economic value.

And that is Geography in the News, updated November 1, 2024.

Material in this article comes from “Cranberries” (1996), an original article for Geography in the News by Neal Lineback, Appalachian State University.

AAG’s Geography in the News is inspired by the series of the same name founded by Neal Lineback, professor and the chair of Appalachian State University’s Department of Geography and Planning. For nearly 30 years from 1986 to 2013, GITN delivered timely explainer articles to educators and students, relevant to topics in the news. Many of these were published on Maps.com’s educational platforms and in National Geographic’s blogs. AAG is pleased to carry on the series.

Sources Consulted for this Article

Agricultural Marketing Resource Center, Cranberries. April 2024.
Blakely, J., Native fruit: Cranberry for all seasons. The Smithsonian Institution, Unbound, November 14, 2017.
Borzo, Sherrie, The sucking sound of history: Cranberries. No date.
Chronicle 5 WCVB, Restoring a cranberry bog to a wetlands habitat. YouTube, 2021.
Living Observatory, Learning from the restoration of wetlands on cranberry farmlands. December 2020.
Teirstein, Z. Northeast drought endangers Massachusetts cranberry harvest. September 14, 2022.
USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, Cranberries: No longer just an American tradition, 2016.
WXPR-Wiconsin, Half-way through harvest, this year’s cranberry crop is looking good for growers. 2024.

Vocabulary and Terms

Algorithm
Appalachia, Appalachian mountains
Bog
Cooperative
Machine learning
Pemmican
Radar
Sassmenesh/sasminash
Tallow

Questions for Discussion and Further Study

What kinds of conditions do cranberries need to grow?
For further study outside of this article: Find out more about the regions and places mentioned in this article. For example, what states make up New England? Do all of them have cranberry bogs? Where are British Columbia and Nova Scotia on a map of Canada? How do we define the Appalachians? How do the climates of these places differ, and how are they similar?
What impact has climate change had on cranberry farming? What impacts can old cranberry farms have on climate change and wetlands?
For further study outside of this article: What approaches are scientists and farmers taking to protect the cranberry farms, or to convert old farms back to wetland habitat? What scientific tools are they using to measure, track, and address changes they observe?
The Algonquian peoples were the first to use cranberries for health and energy on long journeys. What were the special, portable cakes they made for this purpose, and what ingredients did they use?
For further study outside of this article: Find out more about the Algonquian peoples and language groups. What are some of the tribes that speak Algonquian languages (which have different names)? See if you can find out where some of these tribes lived before European colonization, and where they are now. Can you find other food or plant names in Algonquian?

News

AAG Welcomes Fall 2024 Interns

November 4, 2024

Two new interns have joined the AAG staff this spring. The AAG would like to welcome Adeti and Geoffrey to the organization.

Adeti Afe is a third-year student at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, studying Geography and Environmental Science while pursuing a GIScience certificate and a French minor. Her journey with Geography and Environmental Science began with a deep love for nature, which has grown into a commitment to sustainability and conservation. She developed an interest in science in the fourth grade, thanks to a great teacher named Mr. Omar, who was intentional in his teaching. She eventually fell in love with Environmental Science because she enjoys learning about how humans impact the environment, and how organisms interact with a variety of habitats. She attended a French immersion school for nine years, which ultimately inspired her to pursue a minor in the language. Adeti plans to graduate in May 2026. Her interests include ecology and urban planning. After graduating, she aims to attend graduate school and pursue a career in landscape architecture/design or ecology

Geoffrey Brown is a fourth-year Social and Environmental Geography student at Ohio State University. He’s minoring in Environmental Science with a concentration in Ecosystem Restoration. Although a ‘Buckeye’ at heart, he’s originally from Land O Lakes, Florida, where his interest in the environment started. He’s worked in various internships from Surveying and GIS to Urban Forestry. He’s currently researching water chemistry and habitat changes at an old quarry site that has been turned into an urban park in Columbus, Ohio. In his free time, he likes to go hiking, cook, and complain about the New England Patriots. He looks forward to graduating this fall and is excited to be at the AAG.

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. More information on internships at the AAG is also available on the Jobs & Careers section of the AAG website at https://www.aag.org/about-us/#internships.

News

Hybrid Meetings: What Do They Really Cost?

November 4, 2024

Laptop screen with images of many participants in a virtual session.

Credit: Chris Montgomery, Unsplash

By Antoinette WinklerPrins, AAG Council Treasurer

This is the second of a short series of perspectives by 2024-2026 Council Treasurer Antoinette WinklerPrins—a series designed to help illuminate some of the financial challenges a professional organization such as the AAG faces. In this column, she offers information about the costs of managing a hybrid annual meeting, such as the one AAG has supported since 2023. Read the first installment.

When the pandemic started, we all learned quickly how to use virtual meeting tools to continue to do knowledge work, and to connect socially. COVID-related social distancing forced us into the virtual meeting space, yet we soon realized that virtual access created opportunities for participation and engagement that had not been available before—a very positive outcome of a disruptive global event. Since we emerged from the pandemic, the expectation for a virtual option for any meetings is more prevalent, and organizations are responding in varied ways. AAG is one of the relatively few professional organizations that remains committed to a synchronous hybrid annual meeting.

We are making this commitment to make sure this important professional event is accessible to those who cannot travel or who make a personal choice to not travel. At a larger scale, we are also committed to lowering the carbon footprint of our meetings. (We are on track to reduce meeting-related emissions by 45% by 2030.)

Members are sometimes surprised that the virtual option does not result in a lower cost for the meeting, including registration. After all, a virtual meeting seems to be less complicated than traveling in person. Isn’t it less costly, too?

Unfortunately, no. Let me explain.

Two Words: Tech and Labor

While the participation and engagement components of virtual or hybrid meetings are positive, lower cost is not one of the benefits. The benefits of virtual or hybrid meetings come at a cost, chiefly for technology and in labor.

Tech: The ability to hold a virtual or hybrid meeting depends on technology and IT support to ensure that all functions smoothly. AAG carefully researches and combines the most complementary and budget-friendly services and platforms possible to support its hybrid meetings, from the platform that hosts meeting submissions and all video-streamed sessions to integrations with meeting software onsite. In addition, hardware is needed: up-to-date computers, video screens, microphones, and equipment with recording capabilities for room set up. There are also critical aspects of a hybrid meeting that are easy to overlook but need a modest financial investment, notably online helpdesk software to approximate in-person responses to questions at registration.

Labor: Qualified people need to be available to run it all, at a scale serving many thousands of participants simultaneously. Both on- and offsite IT assistance is needed, and must be staffed by people who are adept at monitoring and troubleshooting for live gatherings simultaneously with livestreaming for virtual guests. Skilled labor is the single most important expenditure for a meeting, and is also the most direct way for AAG’s economic activity to benefit people, be it our local host location or offsite locations. Paying fair wages for this expertise is critical: meeting rooms with a hybrid component are a complex visual and aural experience. Virtual meetings, too, are not as simple as “plug and play.” These rooms must be monitored in case of a variety of challenges, from technical issues to participant safety and security. Virtual and hybrid sessions raise the possibility of having to troubleshoot with participants using older versions of applications and programs; this can take a lot of time. Onsite, coordinating with hotels and conference center staff can also add to the cost of labor to support a hybrid meeting.

Cost Proportions for Hybrid Meetings

Nainoa Thompson, AAG Honorary Geographer, speaking at AAG 2024 in Honolulu. — AAG’s 2024 Honorary Geographer plenary with Nainoa Thompson in Honolulu was a hybrid session.

On the basis of AAG’s 2023 and 2024 meetings, we’ve found that registrations for the virtual option cover roughly one-half of its costs. Virtual registration fees contributed about 12% of meeting revenues at the 2023 Annual Meeting, while virtual services accounted for 24% of total meeting costs. In Honolulu, the proportion was similar: 9% revenue to 18% of costs.

The costs above don’t just represent the sessions that occur online. Also included are the costs of live-streaming in-person sessions and providing meeting presenters with the opportunity to hold hybrid sessions (virtual presenter in a streamed in-person session). Since major keynotes and panels are live-streamed, these are the events that make a hybrid conference feel like one conference, instead of two parallel and unequal experiences in-person and online.

We believe the value of maintaining a hybrid and virtual option for the annual meeting transcends the bottom line. Hybrid is the best possible way to make sure the meeting is accessible, not only for those who can register at in-person rates and travel, but for members who cannot travel or wish to reduce their climate impact. It also contributes significantly to AAG’s efforts to shrink our carbon footprint, combined with supportive innovations such as the development of regional nodes that connect with the main meeting.

The annual meeting means a lot to all of us: a time to gather, share knowledge, network, and grow the discipline. When we set new registration fees, we were careful not to do so in a “one size fits all” way. We set the new fees for a proportional cost sharing, rather than trying to pass on all costs to members. We hope this creates the best possible value for our members at a financially sustainable cost. For all of us.

Please feel free to reach out to me or Gary Langham, AAG’s ED with questions, comments, or concerns. Send your comments and questions with the subject line “Treasurer’s Corner” to helloworld@aag.org.

News

Shifting the Research Enterprise: Embracing Care as a Strategy Forward

November 4, 2024

Participants from the Convening of Care conference gather for a group photo on Sept. 24, 2024, in Washington, DC.

By Risha RaQuelle, AAG Chief Strategy Officer and
Emily Skop, Professor, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs

In the evolving landscape of academic research, initiatives for justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI) have long been critical in advancing an inclusive, fair, and just research enterprise. These efforts, led by passionate advocates, have catalyzed significant progress in dismantling structural barriers and promoting diversity. However, as political and legislative challenges increasingly target JEDI initiatives, academic institutions need new strategies to continue this essential work.

The Convening of Care, held on September 19-20, 2024 and co-sponsored by the American Association of Geographers, the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, and the National Organization of Research Development Professionals with funding from the National Science Foundation, brought together research enterprise leaders, department heads, and early-career scholars to explore care as a way to navigate these challenges and advance inclusivity, even in the face of JEDI bans.

A key component of this convening was the formation of triads—collaborative groups made up of research enterprise professionals, academic department leaders, and early-career scholars. This triadic model allowed participants to exchange insights, reflect on their experiences, and collaboratively identify how care can be operationalized in their respective roles to foster a more inclusive and supportive research environment.

The Role of Triads in Reimagining Care

During the Convening of Care, triads were instrumental in guiding the discussions and exploring how care could complement the values promoted by JEDI. Bringing together individuals at different stages of their academic careers, with varied responsibilities and experiences, the triads created a unique space for cross-level collaboration. These groups examined how care, as a relational and ethical practice, could be infused into the day-to-day workings of research institutions.

The inclusion of research enterprise leaders, department heads, and early-career scholars ensured that a diverse range of perspectives was represented, offering insights into how care could be implemented at multiple levels of the academic and research enterprise. This triadic collaboration made it possible to address not only the policy and structural challenges but also the relational and cultural dynamics within academia.

The discussions within the triads focused on two central themes:

The lived experiences of researchers and leaders navigating the research enterprise.
Recommendations for how care can be embedded into research practices and leadership approaches.

Moving beyond traditional JEDI frameworks, which often focus on compliance and metrics, care encourages leaders to focus on the well-being of their researchers, emphasizing relational dynamics and mental health.”

Implications of Care for Research Enterprise Leaders

For research enterprise leaders, care introduces an instructive shift in how research environments are structured and supported. Moving beyond traditional JEDI frameworks, which often focus on compliance and metrics, care encourages leaders to focus on the well-being of their researchers, emphasizing relational dynamics and mental health. The triads identified that care could be embedded in leadership practices by:

Developing care-based mentorship programs that prioritize the emotional and personal growth of researchers.
Fostering transparent communication that acknowledges the challenges faced by underrepresented scholars and provides pathways to address these challenges without fear of retaliation.
Creating support networks that allow researchers to thrive in environments where they feel valued, rather than merely meeting diversity quotas.

Department Leaders: Shaping Departmental Culture through Care

Department leaders play a critical role in shaping the day-to-day culture of research environments. For these leaders, care offers a way to move beyond policy mandates to create a department culture that genuinely supports diversity and inclusion through personal connection and understanding. Triads involving department heads explored how care could be integrated into department leadership by:

Establishing listening sessions where faculty and students can voice their concerns and experiences in a supportive environment, ensuring that everyone’s voice is heard.
Promoting inclusive department meetings where care is demonstrated through equitable participation and recognition of contributions from all members, especially those from underrepresented groups.
Introducing well-being check-ins as part of regular departmental practices, helping to mitigate burnout and promote a healthier work-life balance for all scholars.

Early-Career Scholars: Building a Foundation of Care

For early-career scholars, many of whom face significant challenges navigating the complexities of the research enterprise, care provides a critical support system. The triads identified how care could serve as an essential tool in helping these scholars overcome barriers to inclusion, particularly in institutions where JEDI policies have been restricted. Key takeaways for early-career scholars include:

Building peer support networks that emphasize mutual care and provide a safe space for sharing experiences, advice, and strategies for success.
Advocating for mentorship models that not only focus on professional development but also on personal well-being, ensuring that early-career scholars are supported in all aspects of their academic journey.
Encouraging collaborative research practices that prioritize equitable partnerships, sharing both the workload and recognition, and fostering an environment where scholars can grow together.

TLC GRAM: A Framework to Operationalize Care Across Roles

The triadic collaboration also paved the way for a broader discussion on how care could be operationalized through the TLC GRAM framework as part of AAG’s JEDI implementation, the TLC GRAM framework was presented during the Convening of Care. The framework’s elements—Training, Listening, Communication, Governance, Reports, Advocacy, and Membership—provide a structured approach to embedding care in research organizations at every level.

The triads identified key areas where TLC GRAM could guide their efforts:

For research enterprise leaders, TLC GRAM offers a way to integrate care into leadership training and governance, ensuring that decisions prioritize well-being and relational dynamics.
For department heads, the framework provides tools for implementing listening practices and fostering transparent communication within departments, helping to create a supportive and inclusive culture.
For early-career scholars, TLC GRAM can be a guide for advocating for care-based mentorship and creating collaborative research environments that prioritize equity and shared success.

While TLC GRAM builds upon the values of JEDI, it also allows institutions to transcend the limitations of JEDI language, making care the central focus of their inclusivity efforts.

The Path Forward: Care as a Strategy for Inclusive Research

The triadic collaboration during the Convening of Care demonstrated that care is more than just a complementary approach to JEDI: it is a powerful strategy for moving forward in the face of JEDI bans. Through the insights and experiences shared in triads, it became clear that care provides a more flexible and relationally grounded approach to fostering inclusivity, one that can be applied at every level of the research enterprise.

By focusing on care, institutions can continue to promote equity and inclusion even in politically challenging contexts. Research enterprise leaders, department heads, and early-career scholars all have a role to play in operationalizing care through the TLC GRAM framework, ensuring that academic environments remain supportive, inclusive, and just—regardless of external political pressures.

Learn more about the outcomes of the Convening of Care and next steps for implementing care-based practices through the TLC GRAM framework.

The Convening of Care project is supported by the National Science Foundation under Award No. 2324401 and Award No. 2324402. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

The AAG Culture of Care column is an outreach initiative by the AAG JEDI Committee. Don’t forget to sign up for JEDI Office Hours.

On the Map

Winds of Change

October 26, 2024

NASA’s QuikSCAT satellite, launched in 1999, shows the Santa Ana winds blowing over the Pacific. Source: NASA

Powerful Santa Ana winds often make the headlines in Southern California. They have brought traffic to a standstill on freeways, with wind gusts up to 80 mph (129 kph). They create dust storms and deplete the soil. Sometimes the winds are strong enough to topple trucks and blow down trees. Worst of all, they can power wildfires.

Also called “devil winds,” the Santa Ana winds blow down from the Santa Ana mountains, the Colorado Plateau and the Basin and Range in Utah, Arizona, and Nevada. The winds blow across westward across the coast and into the Pacific Ocean. They happen in the deadly dry season of autumn wildfires in Southern California. In October 2023, Santa Ana winds whipped up a small grassland blaze into the devastating Highland Fire. The fire grew from 14 acres to more than 2,400 acres before it was contained a week later.

Santa Anas are katabatic winds. Also called “gravity winds,” they blow out of high-pressure cells in the mountains. They can be any temperature. The bora winds of Italy and Slovenia are cold, while the Santa Ana winds and their cousins in France, mistrals, are usually hot. In Japan, the katabatic wind is called the oroshi. In Switzerland, it is the foehn.

The high-pressure air mass at the heart of a katabatic wind begins over mountains or high plateaus. As dense air rushes outward from the center of the high-pressure area, its weight causes it to hug the ground. Wind velocity increases as gravity draws it toward the lowlands. When the Santa Ana wind descends in elevation, it also heats up through adiabatic warming, as it compresses, with no exchange of heat from the surrounding air. The typical rate of warming is 5.5 degrees Fahrenheit per 1,000 feet (1 C./100 m.) of descent. The Santa Ana winds can be as hot as 100 F by the time they reach sea level.

Katabatic winds are very, very dry, with humidity of less than 10 percent. In California, this adds to their dangers. Their gusts dry out vegetation and disturb loose soil. While many native California plants are adapted to these conditions, non-native grasses and undergrowth are not. This has contributed to fire hazard, along with some forest management practices that were, ironically, meant to stop fires.

An Ill Wind

“There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch.”

—Raymond Chandler

The Santa Ana winds are a dramatic player in literature and lore. Their dry, usually hot temperament contributes to an image of Los Angeles as mysterious and sultry, with a hint of menace. Culture critic Mary McNamara compares the winds to living on the surface of Mars. She says, “The Santa Anas are exhausting, and no one does well when they are exhausted.” Writer Joan Didion said, “It is hard for people who have not lived in Los Angeles to realize how radically the Santa Ana figures in the local imagination.” These howling dry winds do seem to define autumn in southern California, buffeting houses and cars and carrying dust and debris. To be fair, they also usher in some of the area’s best surfing waves, and can extend summertime weather at the beach.

Will Climate Change Affect the Winds?

A 2019 study observed that the frequency of Santa Ana winds has decreased in the last twenty years, due to climate shifts. In the early and late parts of the Santa Ana’s season, there are fewer winds than in the 20^th century. During the peak from November to January, there hasn’t been much change.

Southern California Santa Anas photographed from space. Source: NASA

Since that first study, the authors have discovered a cold version of the Santa Ana winds that forms differently and has less threat for wildfires. Either type, hot or cold, is associated with temperature extremes in the region. Southern California’s hottest and coldest days have been when these winds happen. Yet the cold type has become much less frequent since the 1940s. “In that case,” says the study’s lead author Alexander Gershunov. “We’re not seeing any positive news in terms of future wildfire seasons.” Gershunov and his co-researchers hope that their work can contribute to early-warning systems for the hot winds to come.

And that is Geography in the News, updated November 1, 2024.

Material in this article comes from “How an Ill Wind Blows” (1996), an original article for Geography in the News by Neal Lineback, Appalachian State University.

Sources Consulted for this Article

American Museum of Natural History, Katabatic Winds.
Chandler, R. Red Wind, out of print, 1938.
Didion, J., The Santa Anas, also known as Los Angeles Notebook, 1969.
Gershunov, A. et al, Hot and cold flavors of California’s Santa Ana Winds: Their causes, trends, and links with wildfires (open access), Springer 2021.
Guzman-Morales, J. and A. Gershunov, Climate change suppresses Santa Ana winds of Southern California and sharpens their seasonality (free), Geophysical Research Letters, 2019.
MacNamara, M. Forget traffic and earthquakes: The Santa Anas are the worst part of life in L.A., Los Angeles Times, 2012.
Masters, N. The devil wind: A brief history of the Santa Anas, PBS SoCal, 2012.
NASA Earth Observatory, QuickSCAT.
National Geographic Education, Wind.
National Weather Service, Mountain and Valley Winds.
Voosen, P. California’s fire-fanning Santa Ana winds may not get any better with climate change, Science 2021.

Vocabulary and Terms

Adiabatic warming
Bora
Elevation
Froehn
Humidity
Intensify
Katabatic winds
Lowlands
Mistral
Plateau
Velocity

Questions for Discussion and Further Study

What geographic feature are the Santa Ana winds znamed for? What type of wind are they?
For further study outside of this article: How much can you discover about katabatic winds?
How does NASA’s QuickSCAT radar scatterometer get information about wind and ocean currents?
For further study outside of this article: What kind of tools and techniques do geographers, meteorologists, oceanographers, and other earth and space scientists use to measure and track winds?
Apart from the Santa Ana winds, what are some of the other conditions and environmental elements that can aggravate wildfires?
For further study outside of this article: What techniques, new and old, are used to control wildfires?

Awardees

2025 AAG Awards Recognition

October 21, 2024

Photo of bright sparkly lights on dark background

AAG Honors

AAG Honors are offered annually to recognize outstanding accomplishments by members in research and scholarship, teaching, education, service to the discipline, public service outside academe and for lifetime achievement.

AAG Distinguished Scholarship Honors

Jiquan Chen

Professor Jiquan Chen has received the 2025 AAG Distinguished Scholarship Honor in recognition of his transformative impact on geography and environmental science. With over 600 publications and more than $30 million in research funding, Dr. Chen has made significant advances in understanding global ecosystems and the interactions between humans and nature. His groundbreaking SESometry framework has provided a new approach to measuring and analyzing the socioecological impacts of climate change, influencing both policy and scientific research worldwide.

A fellow of both the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Ecological Society of America, Dr. Chen’s contributions have reshaped landscape ecology and sustainable resource management. Through his leadership at Michigan State University’s Landscape Ecology and Ecosystem Science Lab, he has also mentored the next generation of scholars, extending his influence across the field. His achievements reflect an unwavering commitment to scientific innovation and the pursuit of sustainable solutions to global challenges.

Xinyue Ye

Dr. Xinyue Ye was awarded the AAG Distinguished Scholarship Honor for his transformative work at the intersection of geography, urban planning, and data science. As the Harold L. Adams Endowed Professor at Texas A&M University, he has built an extensive research portfolio that spans multiple disciplines, including geography, urban planning, computer science, engineering, medicine, and public policy. His establishment of pioneering research labs, such as the Urban AI Lab and Computational Social Science Lab, has significantly advanced urban informatics, employing innovative tools like digital twin infrastructures and virtual/augmented reality to enhance urban planning and resilience.

Dr. Ye’s work has secured over $30 million in external grants, demonstrating his ability to attract substantial research support. His interdisciplinary approach has fostered collaboration across 18 academic departments, resulting in widely cited publications and policy-relevant contributions. Dr. Ye’s commitment to community impact is evident in his projects that address socioeconomic disparities, environmental resilience, and spatial data accessibility, particularly benefiting underserved communities.

AAG Gilbert Grosvenor Honors for Geographic Education

J. Scott Greene

J Scott Greene Dr. Scott Greene is recognized with the 2025 Gilbert Grosvenor Honors for Geographic Education Award, celebrating his remarkable dedication to advancing geographic education. Known for his tireless commitment, Dr. Greene’s teaching excellence has earned him several awards including the University of Oklahoma’s highest teaching honor, the prestigious Regents Award for Superior Teaching.

His current leadership positions include coordinator of the Oklahoma Alliance for Geographic Education (OKAGE ) and board member of the National Council for Geographic Education. While he was chair of OU’s Department of Geography and Environmental Sustainability, he engaged deeply in educational outreach and initiated inclusive dialogue through his support and sponsorship of the “Uncomfortable Conversations in Comfy Chairs” program. His collaboration with the National Geographic Society showcases his innovative approach to teaching and his commitment to providing educators with professional development, original and effective teaching strategies, classroom materials, and model geography education programs. This partnership is exemplified by the Slingshot Challenge which engages youth in addressing environmental issues. The Oklahoma program achieved the nation’s second-highest participation under his guidance.

Dr. Greene’s commitment to professional development has led him to work directly with Oklahoma K-12 educators and to provide resources such as Giant Traveling Maps, which inspire geographic inquiry and critical thinking. Dr. Greene has also influenced state legislation, secured resources and helped develop geography education standards. Under Dr. Greene’s leadership, OKAGE has demonstrated a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion through prioritizing engagement with rural, Title I and BIPOC schools statewide.

Lifetime Achievement Honors

Victoria Lawson

The American Association of Geographers awards the AAG Lifetime Achievement Honors to Dr. Victoria Lawson for her outstanding contributions to geographical research, teaching and mentoring, and disciplinary service. Lawson has published pathbreaking research at the intersection of feminist economic and social geography. Lawson’s initial work was on migration and informal work in Ecuador. Lawson’s ensuing research focuses on rural poverty issues in the United States, leading to the formation of the Relational Poverty Network that charted a new course for geographical relational poverty thinking. Over her 40-year career, Lawson played a leading role in helping to advance feminist care ethics approaches in geographical research.

Lawson’s passion for research has been matched by equal dedication to teaching, mentoring, and increasing the representation of women in the geographical sciences. Lawson advocates for expanding access to underrepresented groups within academia. Her efforts have been critical to making the geographical discipline stronger and more inclusive today. For her commitment to mentorship and excellence in teaching, she has received several awards and honors, including Marsha Landolt Distinguished Graduate Mentor Award, the University of Washington Distinguished Teaching Award, and the Solomon Katz Distinguished Lectureship in the Humanities. In her long service to geographers and geography, Lawson served as department chair, founded the AAG Healthy Departments Initiative, was chair of AAG National Councilors and is a past president of the AAG. Beyond her scholarship prowess, excellence in teaching, and distinguished service, Lawson’s contribution is best demonstrated in her caring humanity, deep sense of ethics, and professionalism.

Rickie Sanders

The American Association of Geographers awards the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Honors to Dr. Rickie Sanders. For four decades, her scholarship, transformative teaching, and visionary leadership have reshaped multiple disciplines and had an influence well beyond academia. Sanders, Professor Emerita in Geography at Temple University, is the first Black woman in the United States to earn a Ph.D. in Geography and the first Black woman in the United States to earn the rank of Professor in the discipline. Sanders was among the first to integrate race and gender in geographic research. Sanders has held significant leadership roles, including heading Temple’s Geography and Urban Studies Department and Women’s Studies Program, and has received grant funding to support her innovative work in geographic education.

Recipient of numerous awards from the AAG and NCGE, her legacy of anti-racist, intersectional practices has revolutionized the discipline. Most recently, the AAG’s Feminist Geographies Specialty Group created the Rickie Sanders Junior Faculty Award. Importantly, Sanders has served as a mentor and role model for Black women, women of color, Black men, and LGBT2QIA+ people, advocating for their presence and success in geography and academia. Sanders’s career is a testament to the metamorphic power of social justice.

AAG Media Achievement Award

Cary Mock

The 2025 Media Achievement Award is presented to Dr. Cary Mock for his exceptional and outstanding communication of geographical and climatological insights to broadcast, print, and social media. He has given well over 200 interviews since 2000 to a wide range of local, national, and international media outlets, ranging from local newspapers to the Washington Post, the Guardian, Reuters, and the Associated Press. He has spoken on radio, including Voice of America, and appeared on numerous television stations in the US, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Professor Mock is highly regarded for his ability to convey climate information in ways that are compelling and relatable to varied audiences and he is especially sought after for his ability to not only explain the science of current weather patterns, but also to put current events in historical contexts. His detailed, thorough archival research of climate history enables him to authoritatively compare current climate extremes to historical events. Through decades of carefully communicating climate knowledge, Cary Mock has developed networks of trusted relationships with media and become a reliable, informative voice and excellent role model.

Learn more about AAG Honors

AAG Fellows

The AAG Fellows is a recognition and service program that applauds geographers who have made significant contributions to advancing geography.

The 2024-2025 AAG Fellows selection committee: Budhu Badhuri, Oak Ridge National Laboratory; Steven Manson, University of Minnesota Twin Cities; Anne Chin, Florida State University; Doug Allen, Florida State University; Sara McLafferty, University of Illinois; and Alex Moulton, CUNY – Hunter College.

David Cairns

Dr. David Cairns is a respected and innovative biogeographer who integrates diverse field studies to understand how ecological and geomorphic patterns and processes are shaped by gradients in environmental conditions, disturbance regimes, and climate change. His work straddles specialty groups and scientific communities, and he has received honors from several, including the Henry C. Cowles Award from the American Association of Geographers (AAG) Biogeography Specialty Group. He is also a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Cairns’ research focus in the high Arctic has been a significant part of his career, and he currently serves as president of the Board of Directors of the Arctic Research Consortium of the United States, which coordinates international and interdisciplinary work in the Arctic, and was integral to the development and activities of the International Polar Year research program. He served in various capacities for the AAG, including serving as chair and board member for the Biogeography Specialty Group, and as a reviewer on AAG journals and student paper competitions. He made impressive efforts to implement equity and diversity policies at Texas A&M University. Dr. Cairns has provided a model of mentorship and collaboration that elevates all of the voices in a room, and has a laudable track record of teaching and mentoring. The AAG is very proud to recognize Dr. David Cairns as an AAG Fellow.

Gang Chen

Dr. Gang Chen has an exemplary track record of leadership and service at multiple levels. This includes, among other things, leadership of the Landscape Specialty Group to service on the Southeastern Division of the AAG (SEDAAG) Program committee to the editorship of the journal Remote Sensing of Environment. A professor in the Department of Earth, Environmental and Geographical Sciences, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Dr. Chen’s scholarship spans environmental sustainability, geospatial analytics, and remote sensing. Dr. Chen’s research has contributed to the development of novel geospatial models and datasets that advance Earth observation, big data analytics, and enhanced accessibility of geographic services to underserved communities. Dr. Chen is a beloved mentor who has served as faculty advisor to 46 students, from high school sophomores to postdoctoral fellows. Passionate about justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion, Dr. Chen has strived to improve representation of women within the male-dominated field of remote sensing and has undertaken numerous professional development initiatives, workshops, and community outreach events to support the next generation of geographers. These efforts span advising two NGOs – Sustain Charlotte and TreesCharlotte in environmental protection using green infrastructure, giving ‘Science Saturdays’ talks at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences for K-12 students and their families, and developing remote sensing workshops for urban planners and students in Bangkok, Thailand. The AAG is very proud to recognize Dr. Gang Chen as an AAG Fellow.

Lorraine Dowler

Dr. Lorraine Dowler has played a significant and sustained role in advancing geography through her exceptional research, service, and teaching innovations. She has shaped the field of feminist geography by mentoring a generation of feminist scholars and documenting the ties between the gendered spaces of daily life and state politics, power, and militarization. Internationally renowned for her work on feminist geopolitics, Dr. Dowler raises key questions about the gendering of identities in geopolitics, the power dynamics underpinning them, and the blurred boundaries between public and private spaces. She has had a central role in efforts to advance and improve our discipline through her service on AAG Council and Finance committee and her leadership of initiatives like the Task Force for a Harassment-Free AAG. Within her university, she has held a range of leadership positions, from overseeing initiatives around justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion to the headship of Women’s Studies. An exceptional and dedicated mentor, Dr. Dowler is diagnosing obstacles to access and exposing bias and harassment while mentoring new generations of geographic scholars at the intersection of her department, college, and profession. Recipient of teaching and mentoring awards, she has initiated innovations in undergraduate curriculum such as the Apocalyptic Geographies course, which challenges students to use a geographic perspective in analyzing contemporary global justice issues.

Lesley-Ann L. Dupigny-Giroux

Lesley-Ann Dupigny-Giroux Dr. Dupigny-Giroux is a University Distinguished Professor of Geography and Geosciences at the University of Vermont. She is also the state climatologist of Vermont and a recognized leader in hydroclimatic natural hazards, climate literacy and climate services. Her research intersects climate science, hydrology, remote sensing, and geographic information science. She was lead editor of “Historical climate variability and impacts in North America,” a first monograph of its kind that uses documentary and ancillary records in analyzing climate variability and change. She has contributed to all five National Climate Assessments, and served a major role on the 3^rd and 4^th National Climate Assessments. A highly sought-after speaker, Dr. Dupigny-Giroux has focused on climate literacy to help citizens, municipalities and legislators understand how climate science can inform decisions and improve quality of life. Her numerous leadership roles include serving as president of the American Association of State Climatologists, member of the American Meteorological Society’s Applied Climatology Committee, member of the NOAA Science Advisory Board Climate Working Group, and member of three committees/boards of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine. A Fellow of the American Meteorological Society, she was also an AAG National Councilor and Chair of the Climate Specialty Group, which has honored her with the Lifetime Achievement Award. The AAG is very proud to recognize Dr. Lesley-Ann Dupigny-Giroux as an AAG Fellow. (Photo: Steve Exler, VT EPSCoR program, University of Vermont)

Timothy Hawthorne

Dr. Timothy Hawthorne’s career has been focused on community, from his pioneering research in community geography to his leadership in student engagement with participatory research. His innovative vision, creating mobile GIS labs to bring geoscience technology to high-need schools and communities, has made GIS an accessible science and tool for communities. These efforts have advanced geography as a participatory, citizen science. Dr. Hawthorne has been a leader within Applied Geography and geographic education, and he has been an award-winning mentor during his career. Just as his research has been focused on community engagement, his teaching and mentorship has been dedicated to advocating for geography students and providing opportunities for students to get involved in the field, showing them that geography is a discipline engaged in the real world with real peoples’ lives. His publicly engaged research in Belize illustrates how Dr. Hawthorne unites his research, teaching, and mentorship in a participatory, community project. Through long-standing research with a community with which he has built strong ties, Dr. Hawthorne invites students to participate in publicly engaged research. This combination of community research, innovative geographic mobile labs, and student-centered, and participatory field work research both in the US and abroad shows that Dr. Hawthorne is the quintessential scholar-teacher. The AAG is very proud to recognize Dr. Timothy Hawthorne as an AAG Fellow.

Joshua Inwood

Dr. Joshua Inwood’s career has centered on developing theoretical frameworks to study racism, white supremacy, and the legacies of social justice movements while ensuring this research is accessible and impactful to multiple audiences. His work has positioned him as a leading voice in examining white supremacy within the field of geography, illustrating how geographic concepts and practices both perpetuate racial oppression and serve as tools for resistance. At the core of Dr. Inwood’s scholarship is an exploration of power dynamics in social and political discourse, alongside a commitment to understanding how grassroots resistance movements challenge systems of oppression and demand accountability. Dr. Inwood is widely recognized as one of geography’s most effective advocates and communicators. Through public forums, he demonstrates the critical role of geographic storytelling and perspectives in addressing pressing social issues. A prolific writer, he contributes extensively to both scholarly publications and broader public research platforms, bridging the gap between academia and the wider community.

In addition to his research, Dr. Inwood serves as a faculty facilitator and co-organizer for workshops aimed at equipping future scholars and educators with tools to use geography as a lens for understanding and improving the world. His work exemplifies the power of geography to drive meaningful change. The AAG is very proud to recognize Dr. Joshua Inwood as an AAG Fellow.

John Kupfer

Dr. John Kupfer is a highly productive landscape ecologist working at the interface between biogeography, ecology, and geographical information sciences. He has published over 70 papers addressing how ecological patterns and processes are shaped by gradients in environmental conditions, by disturbances such as floods and fires, and by human activities. His research is policy-relevant and actional science. In this way, he is leading biogeography into environmentally important and exciting areas for the 21^st century. His research has been recognized twice by the Henry Cowles Award for Excellence in Publication from the Biogeography Specialty Group of the AAG. He is also an award-winning teacher. Additionally, he has provided valuable service to the AAG on numerous committees that include the Governing Council, the Search Committee for the Executive Director of the AAG, the Presidential Taskforce on the State of AAG Regions, and the Honors and Publications committees. He was also president of the Biogeography Specialty Group. The AAG is very proud to recognize Dr. John Kupfer as an AAG Fellow.

Zhenlong Li

Dr. Zhenlong Li is an associate professor in the Department of Geography at Pennsylvania State University and leads the Geoinformation and Big Data Research Laboratory. He is a leading scholar in GIScience focusing on geospatial big data, spatial computing, and geospatial AI. His research aims to enhance knowledge discovery and decision-making regarding hazards, public health, population mobility, and climate change. His work is widely recognized with over 100 well-cited articles published in top-tier international journals, supported by extensive research grants from prestigious sponsors including NSF and NIH. Dr. Li emphasizes equipping future GIScientists with strong problem-solving abilities by integrating spatial and computational thinking in his teaching and advising, and a number of his mentees have secured prominent academic and professional positions. He currently serves as an associate editor of the International Journal of Digital Earth and International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation. Previously, he served as the Chair of the AAG Cyberinfrastructure Specialty Group and co-Chair of Earth Science Information Partnership (ESIP) Cloud Computing Group. Dr. Li’s significant contributions to the advancement of GIScience and his role as a rising leader in the discipline make him a valued member of the geography community and a deserving recipient of the AAG Fellow distinction. The AAG is very proud to recognize Dr. Zhenlong Li as an AAG Fellow.

Corene Matyas

Dr. Corene Matyas has dedicated their career to producing exceptional, community relevant climate research and communication, guiding and mentoring the future generations of geography and climatology scholars, and creating space for marginalized peoples in the discipline. Dr. Matyas’ research studying the precipitation patterns within hurricanes is critically important as we increasingly need to understand heavy precipitation landfalls and how human perceptions of perceived risk impact assessments and actions in the face of these storms. Dr. Matyas’ research is coupled with their exceptional teaching. They have won teaching awards at both the college and disciplinary level and winning the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Teacher of the Year Award and the SEDAAG Excellence in Teaching Award a decade apart is a testament to the sustained impact Dr. Matyas has made in teaching and guiding students. It is this dedicated service to the future of our discipline that is a throughline for Dr. Matyas’s career. Their service as a judge for student competitions, organizer for specialty groups and societies that make space for marginalized, underrepresented scholars in geography, and their consistent mentorship of students in the classroom as well as involving them in research is inspiring. They also communicate science to diverse audiences through visual arts. The AAG is very proud to recognize Dr. Corene Matyas as an AAG Fellow.

Soe Myint

Dr. Myint is a leader in the use of remote sensing and geographic information science to understand coupled human-environment systems in the context of natural hazards, land change, urban sustainability, and environmental management. He has won accolades from organizations including the United States Geological Survey, the University Consortium of Geographic Information Science, and the American Association of Geographers (AAG) Remote Sensing Specialty Group. Dr. Myint has made great efforts to sustain and advance justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion in geography including giving talks at minority-serving schools in under-resourced communities and serving as the founding Chair of his school DEI committee. Dr. Myint has an extensive record of service to the AAG Remote Sensing Specialty Group, including chair, vice chair, director, special session organizer, and judge for student paper competitions (2009, 2015). He was also invited by AAG to help lead a joint workshop organized by AAG, NASA, and USAID as part of the My Community Our Earth (MyCOE) fellowship initiative that focused on climate change and sustainable landscapes in Asia. Dr. Myint has a long and distinguished track record of teaching and mentoring. The AAG is very proud to recognize Dr. Soe Myint as an AAG Fellow.

Christian Renschler

Christian Renschler Chris S. Renschler is a Supervisory Research Soil Scientist at USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) National Soil Erosion Research Laboratory (NSERL), following a distinguished 20-year academic career with positions at eight universities on four continents, encompassing research, teaching, and outreach. As the NSERL Research Leader he leads and coordinates science and stakeholder engagement activities to develop the knowledge and technology needed by land users to conserve natural resources for future generations. A Fulbright Scholar, he is internationally recognized for his expertise in soil and water conservation, integrated watershed management, extreme events, and natural resources and hazards management, utilizing GIS and Remote Sensing technologies. His research and stakeholder engagement activities involve the development, validation, and application of integrated hydrology and erosion modeling tools, created collaboratively with scientists, engineers, and practitioners, to facilitate effective decision-making in the context of global climate change, extreme weather events, community resilience, and evolving land use and land cover patterns. Dr. Renschler has exhibited a strong commitment to service within the AAG and has held multiple leadership positions within the AAG, including chair of the Geomorphology Specialty Group, where he played a pivotal role in fostering collaboration and in advancing the group’s career development, research, and awards programs. He is an editorial board member of the Journal of Earth Science Informatics and Remote Sensing. Dr. Renschler is a past recipient of an Achievement in GIS Award from the Environmental Systems Research Institute (Esri) and currently serves as the president of the International Soil Conservation Organization (ISCO). The AAG is very proud to recognize Dr. Christian S. Renschler as an AAG Fellow.

Kevon Rhiney

Dr. Kevon Rhiney is a mid-career scholar with an impressive record of research, leadership, mentorship, and service to the AAG. Dr. Rhiney is associate professor of Human-Environment Geography at Rutgers University and was previously on the faculty at The University of the West Indies (Jamaica). One of the leading Caribbean scholars, Dr. Rhiney has enhance understanding of small-island agrarian political ecology, critical disaster studies, and the human dimensions of global environmental change. This has included groundbreaking research on coupled human-environmental impacts of global change on smallholder coffee production. Dr. Rhiney’s service to the discipline notably includes work as editor of the journal Geography Compass, as co-founder and past chair of the AAG Caribbean Geography Specialty Group, and as a former board member and director for the AAG Development Geographies Specialty Group. His teaching and mentorship reflect a commitment to advancing the field of geography and enriching geographic education on the Caribbean as an understudied region. Dr. Rhiney has been especially active in the recruitment and mentorship of international students and students who enhance the diversity of geography. His expertise in formulating policies has been sought by highly influential organizations such as the IPCC, USAID, and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, which speaks to how Dr. Rhiney’s scholarship has reached into the influential circles beyond the academy. The AAG is very proud to recognize Dr. Kevon Rhiney as an AAG Fellow.

Emily Rosenman

Dr. Emily Rosenman is a committed and creative economic geographer with interests in urban political economy and geographies of humanitarian finance. These are exciting areas that are already advancing established geographic subfields. Her latest research applies economic geography to the US opioid epidemic, examining how pharmaceutical companies exploited health disparities for profit and identifying policy and regulatory interventions that could prevent future harm. Dr. Rosenman is the 2023-24 chair of the Economic Geography Specialty Group (having previously served as treasurer and vice chair), where she has prioritized advancing the causes of equity, diversity, and inclusion, focusing particularly on the contributions of early-career researchers. She has led the creation of an early-career keynote lecture in economic geography now held annually at AAG. She has also developed a program for undergraduate students of color from across the United States to receive mentorship on applying to graduate school in geography. These new initiatives are deeply integrated into her evolving program of scholarship, where she has written on the politics of representation and citations in economic geography, the limits of engaged pluralism, and a framework for economic geography to become more publicly engaged. With a defining interest in contemporary policy problems, Dr. Rosenman is not just a critic, but a builder of alternative ideas and institutions. The AAG is very proud to recognize Dr. Emily Rosenman as an AAG Fellow.

Rickie Sanders

Dr. Rickie Sanders is a trailblazer in feminist and anti-racist human geography. Dr. Sanders is now professor emerita in the Department of Geography, Environment and Urban Studies at Temple University. She has the distinction of being the first Black woman in the United States to earn a Ph.D. in Geography and the first Black woman to reach the rank of full professor in an American geography department. Dr. Sanders has had a distinguished career of making metamorphic contributions to human geography, urban studies, women’s, gender, and feminist studies, and Black studies. Through her scholarship, mentorship, and service at different levels, Dr. Sanders has advanced diversity, equity, and inclusion within the discipline and has promoted initiatives that have expanded geography education. Dr. Sanders has established persistent intellectual and political commitments that have contributed to the development and institutionalization of what we now call Black Geographies. As such, her scholarship has provided critical texts, methodologies, theoretical frameworks, and practices of community-engaged practice and that have been instructive for a wave of Black geographers and geographers studying race and place. Her mentorship and advocacy have been characterized by an energetic commitment to recruiting, charting paths for, and improving the retention of Black women, women of color, and Black men within geography. Tellingly, the Feminist Geographies Specialty Group of the AAG, created a named award in her honor, the Rickie Sanders Junior Faculty Award, in recognition of intersectional-anti-racist feminist geographies.

Jane Southworth

Dr. Southworth is a leader in land change, human-environment dynamics, geographic information science, and remote sensing; and more recently the thoughtful engagement with artificial intelligence and big data to address pressing environmental challenges. Her research exemplifies how scholarship can be performed by highly interdisciplinary research teams that involve both social and environmental scientists. She has worked to broaden diversity and inclusion in AAG, especially in terms of transforming remote sensing in the AAG and beyond to be more inclusive of women, and founding and directing the Women in Geography group at the University of Florida. She has served as a Department Chair for 9 years, where she built a track record of incorporating and implementing innovative ideas to expand geography’s standing within the college and beyond. She serves on the AAG task force on nurturing undergraduate geography education and is a past winner of the Association’s E. Willard and Ruby S. Miller Award. She is a sought-after mentor and has shepherded dozens of master’s and doctoral graduate students who have gone on to significant positions in academia, government, and industry. The AAG is very proud to recognize Dr. Jane Southworth as an AAG Fellow.

Robert Stewart

Robert Stewart is a Distinguished Scientist in the Spatial Statistics group at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and a professor in the Bredesen Center Data Science Track at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His research primarily centers on the geospatial dimensions of risk and decision-making under uncertainty, applying methods from spatial statistics, machine learning, and Bayesian reasoning. His research has made significant impact on a wide variety of applications including population dynamics, environmental risk, maritime safety, transport risk, built environment characterization, and change detection. He is chair of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society’s Government Activities Committee. He is an editorial board member of the Journal Transactions in GIS and the International Journal of Geographical Information Science. Robert serves as advisor to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Nuclear Energy Agency as well as the Alan Turing Institute’s Colouring Cities Research Program. He has also chaired the AAG’s Geographic Information Science and Systems Specialty Group at AAG and has served as ORNL liaison to the World Health Organization Chemical Risk Network. Robert remains passionate about mentoring and advising the next generation of geospatial scientists. He has mentored many early and mid-career scientists and served on a number of graduate committees located across multiple departments and universities. The AAG is very proud to recognize Dr. Robert Stewart as an AAG Fellow.

Fahui Wang

Dr. Fahui Wang, renowned GIScientist, has made seminal contributions to the development and application of spatial analysis methods for understanding spatial and social injustices in health, well-being, and access to services. He pioneered, and continues to advance, the field of spatial accessibility modeling through his work on ‘floating catchment’ methods, and their variants, that have become the gold standard in the field. Adopted by planners and analysts who evaluate health care workforce inequalities and disparities in access, his modeling approaches stand out for their policy relevance and broad impacts. Dr. Wang’s rigorous empirical research identifies communities lacking access to essential health services and informs where and how access can be improved. Organizations that have benefited from his leadership and his energy and passion for the discipline include the AAG’s Spatial Analysis and Modeling & Health and Medical Geography Specialty Groups and the International Association for Chinese Professionals in GIScience. As department chair, he led initiatives that have greatly increased the diversity of departmental faculty and provided supportive mentorship to students from underrepresented backgrounds who faced significant obstacles to success. The AAG is very proud to recognize Dr. Fahui Wang as an AAG Fellow.

Michael Widener

Dr. Michael Widener, professor of Geography and Planning at the University of Toronto, has made original and ground-breaking contributions to health and transportation geography and provided visionary leadership and disciplinary and community service. His research has significantly shaped understandings of the social, spatial, and temporal dimensions of inequalities in food access. Combining rigorous quantitative modeling with thoughtful critical analysis, his research challenges well-worn concepts in the food access literature such as “food deserts.” He has engaged students and researchers with community partners to improve food access and health outcomes for equity-deserving populations in Toronto and across Canada. In his university leadership positions, Dr. Widener has spearheaded initiatives to support and mentor junior faculty; developed innovative curricula in key areas; tackled barriers faced by underrepresented students; and expanded research and educational ties with diverse communities. His international leadership is reflected in his service to the AAG’s Health and Medical Geography Specialty Group; co-editorship of Health and Place; and extensive committee service. An engaged and passionate mentor, Dr. Widener has worked tirelessly to build community among his students, in his department, and across the discipline of geography. The AAG is very proud to recognize Dr. Michael Widener as an AAG Fellow.

Learn more about AAG Fellows

Presidential Achievement Award

Chosen by the AAG Past President recognizing individuals who have made long-standing and distinguished contributions to the discipline of geography.

Max Liboiron

Max Liboiron is recognized for their extraordinary work in developing participatory and anticolonial environmental science practices. Via careful critique of current academic norms and concrete examples of how we can do better, Dr. Liboiron has inspired students and scholars across Geography and the environmental sciences to change their lab manuals, citation practices, collaboration protocols, and research methods. Rather than simply calling researchers out for extractive science, Dr. Liboiron calls researchers in to participatory and reciprocal mentorship and research practices through academic publications, such as Pollution is Colonialism (2021, Duke University Press), online resources such as the CLEAR Lab Manual, and short films made in collaboration with Couple3 that “open the black box of what seem like mundane laboratory practices… that are the main vehicles for equity, humility, accountability, and the creation of a lab collective. Our goal: to do science differently, in ways that do not replicate existing power dynamics.”

Dr. Liboiron, a Red River Métis/Michif and settler raised in Lac la Biche, Treaty 6 territory, is a member of the Geography Department at Memorial University in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Their interdisciplinary, deeply community-engaged research brings together discard studies, environmental science, Geography, Indigenous Studies and Science and Technology Studies (STS) in the study of plastics.

Chérie Rivers

Chérie-Rivers Chérie Rivers is recognized for her radical interdisciplinary and participatory geographic work, which weaves together Black and Indigenous ecologies, decolonial pedagogy, and Africana studies. A scholar of many talents, Dr. Rivers has produced two monographs—To Be Nsala’s Daughter: Decomposing the Colonial Gaze (Duke University Press 2023), and Necessary Noise: Music, Film, and Charitable Imperialism in the East of Congo (Oxford University Press, 2016), as well as an edited volume, The Art of Emergency: Aesthetics and Aid in African Crises (Oxford University Press, 2020). She also founded and runs an educational biodynamic farm, Dandelions’, that integrates the legacy of freedom farming with Black and Indigenous earth practices. To integrate her work as a scholar and a farmer, she has developed important tools for decolonial pedagogy and land-based learning, including an interdisciplinary curriculum entitled Decomposing the Colonial Gaze. Throughout, her goal is to “interrupt… modern colonialism with the transformative power of imagination” asking both what sustains us, and what we want to sustain.

Dr. Rivers is a member of the Department of Geography and Environment at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. She earned a B.M. in film scoring from the Berklee College of Music, and an A.M. in Ethnomusicology and Ph.D. in African Studies from Harvard University.

Learn more about the Presidential Achievement Award

AAG Honorary Geographer

Recognizes excellence in research, teaching, or writing on geographic topics by non-geographers.

Gwendolyn C. Warren

Gwendolyn Warren She is recognized for her lifelong excellence in applying spatial thinking to the challenge of creating better lives and opportunities for people, starting in Detroit in the late 1960s.

At the age of 18, Warren was already a dedicated community activist when she became the co-director of the Detroit Geographical Expedition and Institute (DGEI). Founded in Detroit in 1968, DEIG was a radical geography research and education initiative that investigated the health, safety, and lived experiences of Detroiters, and became an enduring example of community-based and collaborative mapping for change.

Warren’s work shaped many of the DGEI’s mapping projects and led its extraordinary educational component, which made possible the training of more than 500 young women and men in applied geography with the collaboration of the Michigan State University and the State of Michigan. These “people’s geographers” then went into the field with mapping skills and tools, seeking to understand, document and map the spatial logics at work in Detroit.

As a community organizer and longtime public sector administrator, Warren has led efforts in the areas of education, health, social and community services for over 35 years. She has worked in executive-level capacities in city and county government in California, Florida, and Georgia with diverse populations that add unique and challenging issues to the provision of quality government services. She is known for her ability to leverage limited resources for innovative programs, services, and initiatives that can help people improve their wellness and self-sufficiency by accessing necessary services and building and supporting sustainable and safe neighborhoods. Her passion is to connect people, place, and resources creatively and effectively. We commend Ms. Warren for her career and this well-deserved recognition.

Previous AAG Honorary Geographer awardees have included authors Rebecca Solnit and N.K. Jemisin, philosopher Judith Butler, architect Maya Lin, Nobel Laureate in economics Paul Krugman, sociologist Saskia Sassen, economist Jeffrey Sachs, among others.

Learn more about the AAG Honorary Geographer Award

AAG Stanley Brunn Award for Creativity in Geography

Presented annually to an individual geographer or team who has demonstrated originality, creativity, and significant intellectual breakthroughs in geography.

Katherine McKittrick

Katherine McKittrick As a foundational voice for Black geographies and Black methods of knowledge creation, Dr. McKittrick has re-imagined scholarship to be both documentation and instigation in modes that are poetic, sonic, material, and rhetorical. In every new, surprising iteration, her work offers “curiosity, wonder, citations, numbers, playlists, friendship, poetry, inquiry, song, grooves, and anticolonial chronologies as interdisciplinary codes that entwine with the academic form,” according to Duke University Press.

Katherine McKittrick is professor of Gender Studies and Canada Research Chair in Black Studies at Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada. She is the author of Dear Science and Other Stories (Duke University Press 2021), which both analyzes and challenges scientific practice for its inherent ties to colonialism and anti-Blackness. Her 2006 book Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle has had a lasting impact on both Black and feminist studies since its publication by University of Minnesota Press. She has also contributed dozens of scholarly articles and edited and contributed to Sylvia Wynter: On Being Human as Praxis (Duke University Press, 2015).

McKittrick continually probes the boundaries and possibilities between scholarship and imagination, challenging conventionalized methods and demonstrating the range and collective power of all ways to knowledge creation, particularly Black knowledge creation. In 2023, McKittrick published Trick Not Telos, a boxed set of texts that takes its initial inspiration from Ruth Wilson Gilmore’s reading of McKittrick’s “Plantation Futures” (Small Axe 2013, 17: 3). Although the project was initially conceived as a modest response, it grew into a creative meditation—with designer Cristian Ordóñez, project curator Liz Ikiriko, and French translator Lyse Hébert—on the nature of reiteration, revision, bibliography, and translation. In 2024, she published Twenty Dreams (2024), a limited-edition hand-made book; and is preparing an installation honoring nourbeSe philip, A Smile Split by the Stars (2025).

Learn more about the AAG Stanley Brunn Award

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

Honors geographers who have served to advance the discipline through their research and had on impact on anti-racist practice.

Bronwen Powell

Dr. Bronwen Powell, associate professor in the Department of Geography at Penn State University, has an exceptional record in scholarship focused on Indigenous agrobiodiversity, food and nutrition systems, and international development, grounded in the principles of social justice and anti-racism. She’s been a strong public advocate for Indigenous food sovereignty through her interdisciplinary collaborations and scholarship engagement. As the associate head for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in her department, Dr. Powell spearheaded new initiatives that were centered around Indigenous geographies and was recognized for her leadership and commitment to promoting an inclusive academic environment for students and faculty. Dr. Powell has distinguished herself through her strong dedication to anti-racism scholarship and praxis that seems to center Indigenous and African voices and perspectives. The AAG is pleased to honor Dr. Powell with the Harold M. Rose Award for Anti-Racism Research and Practice.

Learn more about the AAG Harold M. Rose Award

Diversity & Inclusion Award

Honors geographers who have pioneered efforts toward or actively participated in efforts toward encouraging a more diverse discipline over the course of several years.

Jieun Lee

Dr. Jieun Lee, Associate Professor of Geography, GIS, and Sustainability at the University of Northern Colorado, is recognized for her deep and sustained commitment to increasing diversity and equity in geography at the departmental, institutional, and national levels. Dr. Lee is explicitly recognized for empowering foreign-born women working in U.S. academic institutions in geography and the geospatial sciences. Dr. Lee played a leadership role in creating the Golden Compass program, which provides a safe and supportive environment for international women scholars to share their experiences, build networks, and receive mentoring. Building on the early success of an inaugural workshop, she secured grant funding from the National Science Foundation, in partnership with the Association of American Geographers and the University of Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS), to expand the reach and impact of the program over the next four years. Her visionary initiative is putting inclusive excellence into practice and opening new leadership opportunities for diverse scholars in the discipline.

Besides her work on the Golden Compass program, Dr. Lee researches the intersections of geography, equity, and education, contributing to broader discussions on fostering more inclusive academic environments. She has also demonstrated leadership in promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion at her home institution as a Faculty Senator on the faculty welfare committee and as a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Fellow.

Learn more about the Diversity & Inclusion Award

Susan Hardwick Excellence in Mentoring Award

Given to an individual geographer, group, or department who has demonstrated extraordinary leadership in building supportive academic and professional environments in their departments, associations, and institutions and guiding the academic and or professional growth of their students and junior colleagues.

Leslie Duram

AAG’s Susan Hardwick Excellence in Mentoring Award acknowledges Dr. Leslie Duram’s remarkable mentorship and lasting impact on students and colleagues. Dr. Duram, Professor of Geography and Environmental Resources and Director of the Environmental Studies minor at Southern Illinois University, has advised numerous graduate students, including those from underrepresented backgrounds and helped them achieve career success. Her unparalleled dedication to mentoring students extends to undergraduate students in the Environmental Studies minor as she provides all aspects of professional development opportunities. Dr. Duram’s exceptional mentorship and unwavering support has reached many of her colleagues and contributed to fostering a vibrant and engaged community in her department, university, and the geography discipline. As the department chair, she has been a supportive and inspirational colleague and mentor to her faculty colleagues for personal and professional growth. Her remarkable mentorship was highly recognized by prestigious awards such as Teaching Excellence Award and University Women’s Professional Advancement (UWPA) Mentorship Award by her institution (SIU).

Students and colleagues of Dr. Duram have extensively shared the deep impacts of her genuine compassion for their personal well-being and continued growth into successful scholars, educators, and professionals. With an innate understanding of each individual’s strengths and potential, Dr. Duram has skillfully provided the tools and opportunities necessary for success. Her dedication to caring for varied needs, nurturing talent, and promoting a culture of continuous learning has made an indelible impact on her students and peers. Dr. Duram’s mentorship is a shining example of dedication and excellence.

Learn more about the Susan Hardwick Excellence in Mentoring Award

Glenda Laws Award

Recognizes outstanding early to mid-career scholars’ contributions to geographic research on social issues.

Lisa Bhungalia

Dr. Lisa Bhungalia has developed a socially engaged research agenda that bridges empirical observations on justice issues with innovative theory. The committee finds Dr. Bhungalia’s research to be at the forefront of what it means to blend theory and practice in pursuit of justice and the forging of a critical lens through which to examine and better understand social issues in the discipline of geography and global studies. Her book, Elastic Empire: Refashioning War through Aid in Palestine (Stanford University Press, 2024), an excellent example of bridging theoretical frameworks to practice, has earned prestigious honors, including the 2024 Albert Hourani Book Award and the Palestine Book Awards. Like Glenda Laws, for whom this award is named, Dr Lisa Bhungalia brings intellectual care, curiosity, enthusiasm, and empathy to a research project that centers those in the constant struggle for social justice and human rights across Palestine and beyond.

Pablo Mansilla Quiñones

Pablo Mansilla Quiñones is a decolonial scholar who works closely with Indigenous social, territorial, and environmental struggles throughout South America. He uses a combination of participatory methods (through research) and transdisciplinary engagement approaches in the support of grassroots organizing (through activism) across his projects. These practices (including mapping, geohumanities, and creative geographies) have contributed to successful struggles against mega-dam construction in Mapuche territory and to Wayuú, Añú, and Barí struggles against extractivism in their territories. He is currently leading the Climate Pluriverses project, which brings together researchers and social movement leaders from across the world to engage in a process of building different socio-environmental possibilities from the creative knowledges and grounds of involved groups. Dr. Mansilla Quiñones also contributes to decolonial knowledge production by co-authoring articles with his research collaborators across a career of productivity that merits distinction. For these reasons, Dr. Mansilla Quiñones should be recognized for continuing the legacy of Dr. Glenda Laws and her exemplary commitment to social justice and social policy.

Learn more about the Glenda Laws Award

E. Willard and Ruby S. Miller Award

Recognizing members of AAG who have made truly outstanding contributions to the geographic field due to their special competence in teaching or research.

James Tyner

James Tyner, professor, Kent State University in Ohio, is recognized for his distinguished career in political geography, particularly prolific contributions to our understanding of the political economy of violence in Southeast Asia and the US, and histories and geographies of 20th-century Marxism, dedicated mentoring of graduate students, and longstanding record of service to the discipline.

Loretta Lees

Loretta Lees, director of the Initiative on Cities, Boston University, is recognized for her distinguished career in urban geography through groundbreaking international research on the temporality and spatiality of gentrification, outstanding mentorship of postdoctoral scholars and PhD students; and as a Scholar-Activist for her steadfast commitment to collaboration with marginalized communities and in applying geography for social justice in cities.

Learn more about the AAG Miller Award

J. Warren Nystrom Award

Recognizes a distinguished paper based upon a recent dissertation in geography.

Yining Tan, University of Arizona, “Im/mobility of Skilled U.S. Migrants in China: A Capital-mobility and Intersectional Analysis”

Learn more about the J. Warren Nystrom Award

AAG Meridian Book Award for Outstanding Scholarly Work in Geography

Awarded for a book written by a geographer that makes an unusually important contribution to advancing the science and art of geography.

Shaina Potts

Book cover of Judicial Territory by Shaina Potts awarded the 2024 Meridian Book Award With Judicial Territory: Law, Capital, and the Expansion of American Empire (Duke University Press), Shaina Potts has provided an extraordinary work of scholarship, as well as a distinctly geographical contribution to critical understandings of the co-constitution of capital and empire in the liberal international order of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Tracing the territorial dimensions of Anglo-American dominance over international economic law, Potts demonstrates the ways that subtle jurisdictional questions have played a quiet but powerful role in establishing a global regime that favors private property rights and U.S. investments at the expense of national sovereignty, particularly in the Global South. Potts takes a subject which has typically been the exclusive domain of legal scholarship and convincingly demonstrates that it must be treated as a fundamentally geographic question, revealing a hidden map of legal rulings and capital flows which in many ways better explains the state of the world today than the political map of distinctly bordered sovereign nations. Potts adds rich human detail to this study of a system which is designed to be faceless and abstract, and in doing so she combines the synthetic, multi-perspectival and multi-scalar approach which is the hallmark of extraordinary geographical insight.

Honorable Mention: Sharad Chari

Apartheid Remains (Duke University Press) is a richly textured geographical monograph, the product of more than a decade of fieldwork, and sustained theoretical, political, and personal engagement with the industrial and residential landscapes of Durban, South Africa. Sharad Chari brings together a wide range of materials and methods, including documentary photography, music, archival materials, interviews, to investigate the layered remnants, legacies, and afterlives of apartheid and anti-apartheid struggles. Apartheid Remains, although a vibrantly interdisciplinary work, is rooted in geography, both in its commitments to and orientation to place, and in the clarity of Chari’s critical analysis, organized around a series of spatio-temporal conjectures. Over the course of the book, Chari attends to the sedimented accumulations of colonial relations, while remaining attentive to geographies of hope and livingness that exceed the constraints and toxicities of racial capitalism. Apartheid Remains represents significant theoretical and methodological contributions to geography, demonstrating the capaciousness of geographical writing as a critical orientation to possibility.

Learn more about the Meridian Book Award

AAG Globe Book Award for Public Understanding of Geography

Given for a book written or co-authored by a geographer that conveys most powerfully the nature and importance of geography to the non-academic world.

Christopher F. Meindl

Florida Springs: From Geography to Politics and Restoration (University Press of Florida) is this year’s recipient of the AAG Globe Book Award. Freshwater springs represent sparkling trifles to the casual tourist, cherished landscapes to neighboring residents, and sources of life-giving water for everyone else. Dr. Meindl’s Florida Springs systematically unpacks the immense depth and complexity of these features to expose “competing narratives about springs, what ails them, and how we might repair the damage.” A skilled geographic storyteller, Meindl writes in an engaging and approachable style, accessible to both lay readers and policymakers, while navigating across the breadth of geography in remarkable ways. Blending nuanced discussions of physical science, historical geography, and public policy, Meindl masterfully illustrates the unique power of geography to synthesize a wide range of subfields and concepts to produce clear and useful understandings of landscapes and ecosystems of vital importance to all.

Learn more about the Globe Book Award

AAG John Brinkerhoff Jackson Prize

Encourages and rewards American geographers who write books about the United States which convey the insights of professional geography in language that is both interesting and attractive to lay readers.

James Michael Buckley

Book cover of City of Wood by James Buckley awarded the 2024 Jackson Prize A deeply researched and well-written account of the connections between the lumber industry in northern California and the building of San Francisco, City of Wood: San Francisco and the Architecture of the Redwood Lumber Industry (University of Texas Press) draws on cultural and economic geography, as well as architectural and environmental history, to trace the links between redwood lumber camps and sawmills to lumber yards on the docks of San Francisco and construction of wooden housing in the city. Throughout the book, Buckley embeds his analysis in the lives and landscapes of production and consumption: the types of ordinary, everyday spaces and places that had fascinated writer, artist, and founder of Landscape magazine J.B. Jackson, for whom this award is named. Beautifully illustrated with newly drawn maps at different scales and historic photographs, City of Wood is a magnificent achievement, reminding us that city building depended on the bounty of nature, capitalist enterprise, and prodigious labor. The book informs and shapes our understanding of the construction of towns and cities across North America and beyond.

Yolonda Youngs

Book cover of Framing Nature by Yolonda Youngs awarded the 2024 Jackson Prize Based on an extraordinary amount of research in vast collections of postcards, Framing Nature: The Creation of an American Icon at the Grand Canyon (University of Nebraska Press) shows how the visual image of the Grand Canyon has been shaped and remade in the public mind. Youngs draws on cultural geography and landscape analysis to make her case, demonstrating her field knowledge of the dramatic physical geography of the Grand Canyon. Appropriately, her book is beautifully illustrated with many postcard views and historic images, as well as clearly drawn maps of viewpoints. In using postcards as evidence, the committee felt, Youngs reflected J.B. Jackson’s love of American popular culture. Framing Nature makes a substantive, informed, and novel contribution to cultural landscape analysis, and informs our understanding of the transformation of one of the world’s greatest natural landscapes into a national and environmental icon.

Learn more about the Jackson Prize

AAG Council Award for Best Student Paper at a Regional Division Meeting

Encourages student participation at AAG Regional Division meetings and supports their attendance at the AAG Annual Meeting.

Association of Pacific Coast Geographers

Sebastian Evans

East Lakes

Elizabeth White
Zihan Su

Middle Atlantic

George Dickerson
Rebecca Lee

Middle States

Michael Penn
Sonja Dahl

New England/St. Lawrence Valley (NESTVAL)

Cameron Wehner
Ana Araujo Raurau

Southwest Division (SWAAG)

Noah Stilwell
Easton Moore

West Lakes

Lacy Wright
Gyudae Kim

Learn more about the Council Award for Best Student Paper

AAG Best Paper Awards in Geography & Entrepreneurship

Sponsored by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, these two annual awards recognize promising research studying geography and entrepreneurship. Research that has direct practical implications and addresses pressing environmental, economic and/or social problems is especially appropriate for these awards. One award is given to a student, practitioner or faculty member, and one award is given to an undergraduate or graduate student.

Andreas Kuebart, Best Paper
Chinedu Nsude, Best Student Paper
Han Chu, Runner-Up Best Paper
Yimeng Yang, Runner-Up Best Student Paper
Xinyue Gu, Runner-Up Best Student Paper

Learn more about the Best Paper Awards in Geography & Entrepreneurship

Marble Fund Award for Innovative Master’s Research in Quantitative Geography

This award recognizes excellence in academic performance for the best research in quantitative geography leading to the master’s degree. Two awards will be issued each year. The award, which is not limited to degrees awarded in the United States, is named for Dr. Duane Marble, creator of the Marble Fund, and instrumental in the development of GIS as a scientific academic endeavor.

Mohammad Shahriyar Parvez
Jiahua Chen

Honorable Mention

Devin Yongzhao Wu
Zhongqi Zheng

Learn more about the Marble Fund Award

Marble-Boyle Undergraduate Achievement Award in Geographic Science

Recognizes excellence in academic performance by undergraduate students from the U.S. and Canada who are putting forth a strong effort to bridge geographic science and computer science as well as to encourage other students to embark upon similar programs.

Jorre Dahl

Learn more about the Marble-Boyle Undergraduate Achievement Award

AAG Darrel Hess Community College Geography Scholarships

Awarded to outstanding students from community colleges, junior colleges, city colleges, or two-year educational institutions who will be transferring as geography majors to four-year universities receive support and recognition from this scholarship program, provided by Darrel Hess of the City College of San Francisco since 2006.

Christian Umholtz, transferring from Central New Mexico Community College to University of New Mexico

Learn more about the Hess Community College Scholarships

AAG Research Grants

Supports direct costs for fieldwork and research.

Rebecca Clouser
Tianyu Li
Alana Rader
Joseph Palis
Jesse Andrews
Jordan Blekking

Learn more about AAG Research Grants

AAG Dissertation Research Grants

Supports for doctoral dissertation Research for Ph.D. candidates of any geographic specialty

Hao Yang
Elizabeth “Zoe” Alexander
Jill Thornton

Learn more about AAG Dissertation Research Grants

50 Year Members

AAG honors its members who have been active in AAG for 50 concurrent years.

Robert Bednarz
John Hayes
Aharon Kellerman
Russell Kirby
Elio Manzi
Richard Marston
Brenda Kaye Miller Thompson
Bruce Ralston
Douglas Richardson
Stephen Stadler
Sent Visser

Specialty and Affinity Group awards coming soon.

On the Map

Michigan Central Station: “The Sublime Object” of Detroit

October 8, 2024

An exterior panoramic view of Michigan Central Station and surrounding areas in Detroit. Credit: Stephen McGee

In 2019, as the renovation of Michigan Central Station (MCS) in Detroit was getting underway, geographer Lucas Pohl captured some of the mythology and mystery that arose around the station in its more than forty years of decline:

One of the ﬁrst lessons I learned while visiting Detroit is that you cannot speak about the city without facing its past. While this could be said of most places, it is a particular obsession of Detroiters to point to the city’s history in order to explain its present (and future). If you base Detroit solely on ‘what you see’, you do not get the ‘whole thing’.”

—Lucas Pohl, “The sublime object of Detroit,” in Social and Cultural Geography (2021, Vol. 22, No. 8)

In 2015, Detroiters had described to Pohl the special place that the 1913 Beaux Arts-style Michigan Central Station has occupied in their minds—reflections of awe that speak from the last decade to its era of grandeur, its painful descent into ruins, and its 2024 reopening as a community and commercial hub once more:

Michigan Central Station is a special case. We have lots of skyscrapers that were empty for a long time, but the train station has a special place in the people’s hearts.”

“It’s just the One.”

“It’s a thing for everyone . . . I see it and I’m like, ‘Oh, I love Detroit.’”

People walk through the interior hall of Michigan Central Station in Detroit. Credit: Stephanie Rhoades Hume, Michigan Center

New Life for the MCS

The recent renovation of the Michigan Central Station focuses on its future as a tech and mobility hub on 30 acres, with 1.2 million square feet of public and commercial space. Ford Motor Company was the lead on its renovation, with partners like Google and Newlab joining the State of Michigan and the City of Detroit. Yet this building also lives within more than 100 years of shared memories and history. Its presence in the public imagination remains a central element in its new life.

Just as there is plenty to remark on in the rebirth of the station, from the craftsmanship brought back to life to the careful planning for a mix of uses and inclusion of skills and jobs programming, Detroit historian Jamon Jordan also sheds light on the many reasons the station’s history is important to the city’s life.

On the grand reopening in June 2024, Jordan shared an op ed published in the Detroit Free Press, detailing the rich history of Michigan Central. From his childhood memories of the station in 1977, about a decade before it closed—many believed for good—Jordan traces back to the people, events, and stories that made Michigan Central a nerve center of city and Black history long before it became an emblem of decay during Detroit’s tough years at the end of the 20^th century.

When the Erie Canal opened in 1825, Jordan recounts, it sparked a mass migration from the East Coast, either with Detroit as their destination, or through the city to Chicago. Starting in the 1830s, the railroad became a feature of the landscape, and the Michigan Central Railroad became a fixture by 1846.

One of the most consequential figures Jordan brings to life is Elijah McCoy, an African American engineer who began working for the Michigan Central Railroad in 1866. Born in Ontario, Canada, in 1844 to parents who escaped on the Underground Railroad, McCoy was trained in Scotland, but was “allowed only to be a lubricator and fireman on the railroad” because he was Black, says Jordan. This talented engineer was relegated to oiling the train’s moving parts and shoveling coal.

Undeterred, McCoy invented “an automatic lubricator that could oil the train’s moving parts as it was moving, eliminating the need for trains to make frequent stops,” says Jordan, thus gaining the last laugh and transforming the capacity of the railroad industry.

An era came to an end when the old 1884 Central Station was destroyed in a fire in 1913. The present building occupies a different site at 14^th and Michigan. Until it closed in 1988–due to declining rail ridership nationwide and the attrition in both employers and residents in Detroit–its vast grandeur greeted thousands of travelers, including the hopeful members of the African American Great Migration. Many of them, migrating from the segregated South, had only dreamed of an arrival like this one, into a public train station without a single set of discriminating signs for “Whites” and “Coloreds.”

Jordan brings together touchstones of history through the station’s life, from international fame to personal connection: from Ossian Sweet to Joe Louis to Lucinda Ruffin—Jordan’s own grandmother.

Once, Michigan Central Station had 10 gates for trains, and its 18-story tower held 500 offices. In the station’s heyday in the 1940s, more than 4,000 passengers passed through each day. The six-year renovation preserves many of the original structures exterior and interior architectural details, and also addresses renovations at two nearby buildings, which will now house an innovation space called NewLab, and a mobility hub that incorporates greenspace, pedestrian, and bicycle connections. The result may well be a new Detroit place that is still worthy of Jacques Lacan’s somber definition of a “sublime object,” as Pohl describes it: “a remainder of loss that triggers a strong nostalgia,” yet that also can contribute to the city’s future.

Find out more about Detroit history from Black Scroll Network. Read an analysis of the fall and rise of Michigan Central in this article by Wayne State University’s Mila Puccini and Jeffrey Horner.

President's Column

Getting to Know Our AAG

October 1, 2024

Patricia Erhkamp introduces facts about AAG, its headquarters and council in a special video

Like many of you, my initial encounter with the AAG was through attending an Annual Meeting. Others first learn about the AAG through one of our nine regional division meetings or the set of journals that AAG publishes. It is often only after being a member for a while that we pay more attention to what the AAG is and does on a regular basis, and how it is run. This is why I want to use this column to talk a bit about governance, introduce you to the AAG’s wonderful staff, and to the association’s new headquarters in Washington, DC.

My recent visit to the AAG’s headquarters for the September AAG Council meeting reminded me how important it is for members to know what we do. AAG is governed by the AAG Council, whose members are elected to serve three-year terms. There are six national councilors and nine regional councilors, and membership on the board is staggered to make sure that not everyone rotates off at the same time. One student councilor and one international councilor round out the board. The AAG’s Executive Director, Gary Langham, serves ex officio as a non-voting member of the Council, and AAG Council activities are supported by AAG staff.

On the occasion of AAG Council’s first in-person meeting of the 2024/25 academic year I thought I’d take you behind the scenes to let you see who your elected council members are. These include, of course, our Executive Committee, which consists of Vice President Bill Moseley, immediate Past President Rebecca Lave, secretary Dydia DeLyser, treasurer Antoinette WinklerPrins and myself as president. The Executive Committee reviews and refines agendas, suggests policy, and oversees the work of standing committees and task forces.

AAG Council meets four times a year. The September meeting is the first of two in-person meetings; the second of these meetings takes place in conjunction with the Annual Meeting of the AAG. We do meet virtually two more times during the year because our tasks can no longer be accomplished in just two annual meetings. For a recent perspective on AAG governance and Council meetings, see this article by past President Emily Yeh.

It was exciting for Council to meet for the first time in the AAG’s new headquarters at 1701 Pennsylvania Avenue. The AAG’s move to this recently renovated building is part of our commitment to reducing GHG emissions. In addition to downsizing significantly from over 7,200 square feet to a space that is 3,900 square feet, the building is accessible and also LEED Gold certified, in contrast to the Meridian Place which was built in 1890 and in need of updates. Between divesting all of our assets from fossil fuel industries and moving into the new headquarters, AAG is committed to continue reducing emissions from our operations. Staff continue to contribute to these goals by using public transportation and through hybrid work arrangements. While we still have a ways to go and must work on further reducing our climate impacts, this progress is no small feat.

AAG’s Emily Frisan captured some of the highlights of the September Council meeting in a brief video I hope you’ll watch. If you are ever in DC, we invite you to drop by to visit the headquarters of your AAG.