New Books for Geographers

New Books: May 2016

May 15, 2016

Every month the AAG compiles a list of newly-published books in geography and related areas. Some are selected for review in the AAG Review of Books.

Publishers are welcome to send new volumes to the Editor-in-Chief (Kent Mathewson, Editor-in-Chief, AAG Review of Books, Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803).

Anyone interested in reviewing these or other titles should also contact the Editor-in-Chief.

May 2016

Beyond the City: Resource Extraction Urbanism in South America by Felipe Correa (University of Texas Press 2016)

British Urban Trees: A Social and Cultural History, c. 1800–1914 by Paul A. Elliott (White Horse Press 2016)

City Design: Modernist, Traditional, Green and Systems Perspectives by Jonathan Barnett (Routledge 2016)

Climate Change and the Future of Cities: Mitigation, Adaptation, and Social Change on an Urban Planet by Eric Klinenberg (ed.) (Duke University Press 2016)

Defying Dystopia by Ed Ayres (Transaction 2016)

Disrupted Landscapes: State, Peasants and the Politics of Land in Postsocialist Romania by Stefan Doronel (Berghahn Books 2016)

Dwelling in Conflict: Negev Landscapes and the Boundaries of Belonging by Emily McKee (Stanford University Press 2016)

Ecuadorians in Madrid: Migrants’ Place in Urban History by Araceli Masterson-Algar (Palgrave Macmillan 2016)

El Mall: The Spatial and Class Politics of Shopping Malls in Latin America by Arlene Davila (University of California Press 2016)

Geographies, Mobilities, and Rhythms Over the Life Course: Adventures in the Interval by Elaine Stratford (Routledge 2015)

The Geographies of Social Movements: Afro-Colombian Mobilization and the Aquatic Space by Ulrich Oslender (Duke University Press 2016)

Hitler’s Geographies: The Spatiality’s of the Third Reich by Paolo Giaccaria and Claudio Minca (eds.) (University of Chicago Press 2016)

The Jefferson Highway: Blazing the Way from Winnipeg to New Orleans by Lyell D. Henry Jr. (University of Iowa Press 2016)

Latin America and the Caribbean in the Global Context: Why Care About the Americas? by Betty Horwitz and Bruce M. Bagley (Routledge 2016)

Living Memory: The Social Aesthetics of Language in a Northern Italian Town by Jillian R. Cavanaugh (Wiley-Blackwell 2012)

Manifestly Haraway by Donna J. Haraway (University of Minnesota Press 2016)

A Nice Place to Visit: Tourism and Urban Revitalization in the Postwar Rustbelt by Aaron Cowan (Temple University Press 2016)

The Pandemic Perhaps: Dramatic Events in a Public Culture of Danger by Carlo Caduff (University of California Press 2015)

People and Places: A 21st Century Atlas of the UK by Danny Dorling and Bethan Thomas (Policy Press 2016)

The Political Biography of an Earthquake: Aftermath and Amnesia in Gujarat, India by Edward Simpson (Hurst Publishers 2014)

The Routledge History of American Foodways by Michael D. Wise and Jennifer Jensen Wallach (Routledge 2016)

Shantytown, USA: Forgotten Landscapes of the Working Poor by Lisa Goff (Harvard University Press 2016)

Shaping a World Already Made: Landscape and Poetry of the Canadian Prairies by Carl J. Tracie (University of Regina Press 2016)

South Pole: Nature and Culture by Elizabeth Leane (Reaktion Books 2016)

Touring the West with Leaping Lena 1925 by W.C. Clark, David Dary (ed.) (University of Oklahoma Press 2016)

What the Rest Think of the West: Since 600 AD by Laura Nader (University of California Press 2015)

Karl W. Butzer

Karl W. Butzer, a geographer, cultural ecologist and environmental archaeologist, who was a world-class scholar and particularly known for his fieldwork in countries across the world, passed away on May 4, 2016, at the age of 81.

Funeral information:

Visitation – Thursday, May 12th, 6-7pm, at Weed-Corley-Fish Funeral Services, 2620 S Congress Ave, Austin, TX 78704
Rosary – Thursday, May 12th, 7pm, at Weed-Corley-Fish Funeral Services, 2620 S Congress Ave, Austin, TX 78704
Funeral mass – Friday, May 13, 11am, at St. John Neumann Catholic Church, 5455 Bee Cave Rd, West Lake Hills, TX 78746

A full obituary will follow soon.

See All Memorials

New Books for Geographers

New Books: April 2016

May 2, 2016

Every month the AAG compiles a list of newly-published books in geography and related areas. Some are selected for review in the AAG Review of Books.

Anyone interested in reviewing these or other titles should also contact the Editor-in-Chief.

May 2016

Beyond the City: Resource Extraction Urbanism in South America by Felipe Correa (University of Texas Press 2016)

British Urban Trees: A Social and Cultural History, c. 1800–1914 by Paul A. Elliott (White Horse Press 2016)

City Design: Modernist, Traditional, Green and Systems Perspectives by Jonathan Barnett (Routledge 2016)

Climate Change and the Future of Cities: Mitigation, Adaptation, and Social Change on an Urban Planet by Eric Klinenberg (ed.) (Duke University Press 2016)

Defying Dystopia by Ed Ayres (Transaction 2016)

Disrupted Landscapes: State, Peasants and the Politics of Land in Postsocialist Romania by Stefan Doronel (Berghahn Books 2016)

Dwelling in Conflict: Negev Landscapes and the Boundaries of Belonging by Emily McKee (Stanford University Press 2016)

Ecuadorians in Madrid: Migrants’ Place in Urban History by Araceli Masterson-Algar (Palgrave Macmillan 2016)

El Mall: The Spatial and Class Politics of Shopping Malls in Latin America by Arlene Davila (University of California Press 2016)

Geographies, Mobilities, and Rhythms Over the Life Course: Adventures in the Interval by Elaine Stratford (Routledge 2015)

The Geographies of Social Movements: Afro-Colombian Mobilization and the Aquatic Space by Ulrich Oslender (Duke University Press 2016)

Hitler’s Geographies: The Spatiality’s of the Third Reich by Paolo Giaccaria and Claudio Minca (eds.) (University of Chicago Press 2016)

The Jefferson Highway: Blazing the Way from Winnipeg to New Orleans by Lyell D. Henry Jr. (University of Iowa Press 2016)

Latin America and the Caribbean in the Global Context: Why Care About the Americas? by Betty Horwitz and Bruce M. Bagley (Routledge 2016)

Living Memory: The Social Aesthetics of Language in a Northern Italian Town by Jillian R. Cavanaugh (Wiley-Blackwell 2012)

Manifestly Haraway by Donna J. Haraway (University of Minnesota Press 2016)

A Nice Place to Visit: Tourism and Urban Revitalization in the Postwar Rustbelt by Aaron Cowan (Temple University Press 2016)

The Pandemic Perhaps: Dramatic Events in a Public Culture of Danger by Carlo Caduff (University of California Press 2015)

People and Places: A 21st Century Atlas of the UK by Danny Dorling and Bethan Thomas (Policy Press 2016)

The Political Biography of an Earthquake: Aftermath and Amnesia in Gujarat, India by Edward Simpson (Hurst Publishers 2014)

The Routledge History of American Foodways by Michael D. Wise and Jennifer Jensen Wallach (Routledge 2016)

Shantytown, USA: Forgotten Landscapes of the Working Poor by Lisa Goff (Harvard University Press 2016)

Shaping a World Already Made: Landscape and Poetry of the Canadian Prairies by Carl J. Tracie (University of Regina Press 2016)

South Pole: Nature and Culture by Elizabeth Leane (Reaktion Books 2016)

Touring the West with Leaping Lena 1925 by W.C. Clark, David Dary (ed.) (University of Oklahoma Press 2016)

What the Rest Think of the West: Since 600 AD by Laura Nader (University of California Press 2015)

Awardees

2016 Annual Specialty and Affinity Group Awards

April 15, 2016

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

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

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

Special distinctions

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

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

Awards for publications

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

Thesis and Dissertation Awards

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

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

Student Paper Awards

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

China Geography Specialty Group

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

Cultural and Political Ecology Specialty Group

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

Economic Geography Specialty Group

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

Ethnic Geography Specialty Group

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

European Specialty Group

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

Geographic Information Science and Systems Specialty Group

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

Political Geography Specialty Group

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

Population Specialty Group

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

Qualitative Research Specialty Group

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

Regional Development and Planning Specialty Group

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

Remote Sensing, GIS and Cartography Specialty Groups

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

Remote Sensing Specialty Group

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

Spatial Analysis and Modeling Specialty Group

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

Sexuality and Space Specialty Group

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

Awards for research and field study

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

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

Other Awards

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

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

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

Member News

NSF Appoints Daniel Sui as Division Director, Social and Economic Sciences

April 14, 2016

The National Science Foundation has announced the appointment of Dr. Daniel Sui as Division Director, Social and Economic Sciences, Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE), effective as of July 25, 2016.

Sui is currently Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor and Professor of Geography at The Ohio State University, where he served for four years as the Department Chair of Geography. Sui also has courtesy appointments in OSU’s College of Public Affairs, College of Public Health, and City and Regional Planning in the School of Architecture. He has directed OSU’s Geographic Analysis Core in the Institute of Population Research and previously directed the Center for Urban and Regional Analysis at OSU.

Prior to joining Ohio State in 2009, Sui was a faculty member at Texas A&M in the Geography Department, inaugural holder of the Reta A. Haynes Endowed Chair in the College of Geosciences, and an administrator, serving as Assistant VP for Research and Director for Geospatial Information Science and Technology.

Professor Sui has authored approximately 120 books, monographs, articles, reviews, and reports. On numerous occasions he has been an NSF reviewer—in the SaTC, Geography, and IBSS programs, among others—and has been awarded four NSF grants. Additionally, he has provided service to international and association communities from the German Research Foundation to AAAS. He was a Woodrow Wilson Center Public Policy Scholar in 2015, and a Guggenheim Fellow in 2009. He also has served as visiting senior research scientist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2007, and at the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) from 2000-2001. Daniel earned his doctorate in Geography at the University of Georgia, after receiving his master’s from Beijing University’s Institute of Remote Sensing and GIS.

Member News

Three Prominent Geographers Honored with Guggenheim Awards

April 11, 2016

Mei-Po Kwan, Katharyne Mitchell and Laura Pulido have been named 2016 fellows by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Mei-Po Kwan, a professor of geography and geographic information science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, was selected for her ground-breaking contributions to the discipline of geography in fields spanning environmental health, sustainable cities, human mobility, socio-economic issues in cities, and GIScience. As noted in a recent award citation: “One of the defining characteristics of her research is that it transcends and eschews boundaries” both within geography and beyond.

Kwan plans to use the Guggenheim fellowship to deepen understanding of the uncertain geographic context problem (UGCoP) and to conceive possible methods for mitigating the problem in social science and health research. Read more information about Kwan’s Guggenheim fellowship.

Katharyne Mitchell, a professor of geography at the University of Washington, was selected for her research on xenophobia, citizenship, and the meaning and practices of belonging.

In her time as a Guggenheim Fellow Mitchell will look at the nature of sanctuary and the role of faith-based movements in migration policy and human rights discourse in Europe. Read more information about Mitchell’s Guggenheim fellowship.

Laura Pulido, a professor of American studies and ethnicity at the University of Southern California: Sangre en la Tierra: Towards a Methodology for Engaging with Foundational Racial Violence.

As a Guggenheim Fellow, Pulido will work on a project called, Sangre en la Tierra (Blood in the Soil), which attempts to develop a methodology for encouraging cities to grapple with their histories of foundational racial violence. Read more information about Pulido’s Guggenheim fellowship.

Kwan, Mitchell and Pulido were among 178 scholars, artists, and scientists selected to receive a 2016 Guggenheim fellowship. Guggenheim Fellows are chosen from more than 3,000 highly accomplished applicants “on the basis of prior achievement and exceptional promise.” Guggenheim Fellows “represent the best of the best.”

Guggenheim Fellowship Awards, Katharyne Mitchell, Laura Pulido, Mei-Po Kwan

Member News

Scott Carlin of LIU Post to Co-Chair UN Conference

April 11, 2016

Dr. Scott Carlin, an associate professor of geography at Long Island University Post, has been named Co-Chair of the 66th United Nations Department of Public Information/Non-Governmental Organization Conference to be held in the city of Gyeongju, Republic of Korea from May 30 – June 1, 2016. The theme of this year’s conference is “Education for Global Citizenship: Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals Together.” This will be the first UN DPI/NGO Conference held in Asia.

The Conference will take place in the first year of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the United Nations Member States in September 2015 to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure human rights and prosperous and fulfilling lives for all, as part of a new sustainable development agenda to be achieved by 2030.

About his Co-Chair responsibilities, Dr. Carlin feels that his lifelong work in education, with a focus on geography and climate change, has prepared him to serve: “My sense of this conference is that we have reached a critical threshold, where global citizenship has transitioned from something we might do as individuals to something that we must do as individuals. In this new era of climate change what happens to one, happens to all. The SDGs are a natural extension of this new perspective. With the SDGs, the world affirms that we are all safer and more prosperous when we attend to the wellbeing of all citizens and the planet. The Republic of Korea, the conference setting, highly values education and its transformative impact on individuals, communities and sustainable development. While in 1945, the literacy rate in ROK was 22%, today it is 98%. Education has played a vital role in creating economic development and stability in this country. Education partnered with global citizenship offers the clearest path toward a world of greater economic equality, gender empowerment, sustainability and the peaceful resolution of conflicts.”

Dr. Carlin added: “This Conference will provide an opportunity for non-governmental organizations, governments, educational institutions, business leaders and lay institutions to come together to develop partnerships and more sustainable institutions. Education is a human right, a shared global value, one that we can all improve to help create a world that is more prosperous, peaceful and sustainable, where everyone can fulfill his or her dreams of education.”

Dr. Carlin was chosen as Conference Co-Chair through a global online nomination process. He teaches at LIU Post’s new master’s program in environmental sustainability and coordinates their Campus Sustainability Committee. He has been active in civil society initiatives at the UN for nearly a decade. For the past two decades, Dr. Carlin has worked on a variety of sustainable development projects on Long Island, including breast cancer and environmental mapping, green buildings, wastewater management, climate change and renewable energy. Dr. Carlin is also national advisor to the Graduation Pledge Alliance (of Social and Environmental Responsibility) which is offered at colleges and universities around the world.

Guido Weigend

Guido Weigend, who had a long career as a professional geographer, college dean and professor, and spy, passed away on April 1, 2016, at the age of 96.

Guido Gustav Weigend was born on January 2, 1920, in the small Austrian town of Zeltweg but grew up in Vienna and attended school there. In 1938, at the age of 18, he watched as the German army marched into Austria and annexed his country. Soon afterward, he found himself drafted into the German army. Naturally alarmed by this prospect, his father – then living in Chicago – encouraged him to travel to America.

Like most European refugees of the period, his route was circuitous. He first went to Sofia, Bulgaria where his mother co-owned a coffee shop. There he spoke to someone in the American consulate who successfully helped manage the difficult feat of getting him an exit visa. He left Europe by passing through Italy and North Africa, eventually making his way to the United States.

Weigend was a linguist with facility in several European languages, so his transition to life in America was relatively painless. He took advantage of his good fortune, timing, and location by soon enrolling at the University of Chicago, graduating in 1942. He became a US citizen in 1943.

His talent for languages (he spoke eight) and his familiarity with European geography and cultures was put to quick use by his adopted country. Between March 1943 and December 1945 he served in the US Army in the office of the OSS (forerunner to the CIA), going on several missions behind German lines during the war. It was long suspected, although never completely confirmed by him until late in his life, that he continued with clandestine activities long after the war.

Returning to the University of Chicago after 1945, Weigend completed a master’s degree with a thesis entitled “Water Supply of Central and Southern Germany.” Soon afterward, he began doctoral work, completing his dissertation on “The Cultural Pattern of South Tyrol” in 1949. His dissertation was published by the University of Chicago as Research Paper, No. 3. He proudly considered himself a professional geographer for the rest of his life.

After his return to Chicago, he met and married Areta Kelble after a six week courtship. They had a common link – both had been in Europe during the war, she in the Red Cross. Their long marriage ended with the passing of Areta in 1993.

While working on his doctoral dissertation he taught at Beloit College, Wisconsin, but upon completion of his Ph.D. he accepted a job at Rutgers University, New Jersey, where he spent 27 years on the geography faculty, teaching students, researching and writing. He wrote scholarly articles on many topics, most of them on Europe, and on ports and shipping in general. Two of the articles were published in French, and he reviewed several French and German books in major American journals.

Weigend rose steadily through the ranks at Rutgers from Assistant Professor to Professor. He chaired the Geography Department for 16 years between 1951 and 1967, and he then served as Associate Dean from 1972 to 1976.

In 1976 he headed west to Arizona State University (ASU) where he assumed the position of Dean of Liberal Arts and Professor of Geography. His leadership skills and personal style as Dean of the largest college on campus were especially appreciated during the next eight years as the university continued its transition into a major research institution.

During his years as Dean and afterward, the Weigends frequently hosted parties at their home a few miles from ASU. These gatherings were joyous, entertaining, and stimulating affairs. Invitations were a pleasant and coveted perquisite of their friendship and generosity.

Stepping down from the Dean position in 1984, Weigend took a one-year sabbatical in southern Africa, producing additional scholarly papers, including two on Namibia. Upon his return to Arizona, he re-entered the Geography Department full time, mentoring students, doing research, and providing a living example of how to be a scholar, an administrator, and a gentleman all at the same time. He retired from ASU in 1989, and lived in Phoenix the rest of his life.

Guido and Areta Weigend are survived by the three children that they welcomed into the world: Kenneth Weigend is national sales manager at WR Lynch in the San Francisco Bay Area; Nina Wilkey-Olejarczyk is a physician in Glendale, Arizona; and Cynthia Buness is an attorney in Paradise Valley, Arizona now focused on patient advocacy work.

Written by Malcolm Comeaux, Martin J. Pasqualetti, and Cynthia Buness

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Chris Mayda

Chris Mayda, a Professor in the Department of Geography and Geology at Eastern Michigan University, who was a champion for sustainability and alternatives ways of thinking and living, passed away in March 2016 after a long-term illness.

Mayda’s entry into academia came as change of career and life-direction in her mid-forties. At the time she was investing in real estate in California but realized that it wasn’t for her.

In her own words, “I went back to school so that I could be who I really am, a geographer. I live it and breathe it every day.” She was interested in the intersection of humanities and science, particularly how people deal with their land.

She studied for a master’s degree in geography at California State University, Northridge, graduating in 1994, followed by a PhD in geography at University of Southern California, with a dissertation entitled “Passion on the Plains: Pigs on the Panhandle” examining the commercial hog industry. She completed this in 1998 at age 50, the same time her son graduated from high school.

While many institutions may not consider offering a 50-something year old their first a tenure-track position, the Department of Geography and Geology at Eastern Michigan University (EMU) took her on in Fall 1999 as an Assistant Professor. It was a decision that they did not regret: it was once claimed that she accomplished the work of three faculty members in her fifteen years at EMU.

She was hired to teach in the department’s Historic Preservation and Geography programs, including her signature approach to the American Cultural Landscapes course, as well as a course in Settlement Geography.

Within a few semesters, she also began teaching the course on the Regional Geography of the United States and Canada, which ultimately became the most popular upper division regional course in the recent history of the geography program, especially among College of Education students and Geography majors.

Moreover, this teaching assignment initiated a ten-year investment of her time developing and writing A Regional Geography of the United States and Canada: Toward a Sustainable Future which was published by Rowman & Littlefieldin 2012. In the course of researching this book, she visited all 50 U.S. states and the provinces of Canada looking at rural and agricultural geography, and also undertook a six-week, 600-mile trek along the U.S./Canadian border. The book discussed of the physical and human geography of the United States and Canada while weaving in the key themes of environment and sustainability. It demonstrated the diversity and richness of each region as well as the fundamental connections that link the continent. This book remains the only regional geography text with a focus on sustainable human-environment interaction.

She took a holistic and ecological perspective, believing that humans needed to re-evaluate their goals and adopt a more sustainable mindset. She utilized systems thinking to conceptualize this. Her personal and research interests in sustainability led to the development of a General Education course titled Thinking Sustainably, and she spearheaded the development of a sustainability minor for the Environment & Society component of the Interdisciplinary Environmental Science and Society (IESS) degree program.

She also collaborated on special topics courses including Sustainable Cities and Unthinking Consumerism. During a recent two semester sabbatical leave she wrote a new book on sustainability: Think: The Renaissance of the Ecological Age, which was under review for publication at the time of her death.

She also sought to live out a more-sustainable and less-consuming lifestyle in practice. She was known for her efforts to make the EMU campus and community more green, promoting bike riding and the more efficient use of energy resources on campus.

Mayda was a prolific scholar in terms of her numerous publications, professional and public presentations, and will be both long remembered and missed for her abundant energy and passion for teaching and mentoring her students. In the words of a recent graduate of the Historic Preservation program: “She definitely changed my life. She was unique and I especially appreciated that she embraced change, reinventing herself along the way.”

With thanks to Eastern Michigan University for most of the material in this obituary.

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Awardees

2016 AAG Research Grants

March 18, 2016

Every year the AAG provides small grants to support research and fieldwork that address questions of major importance to the discipline. Three recipients were chosen this year from among 15 applicants and will each receive $500.

Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern is Assistant Professor of Food Studies in the Department of Public Health, Food Studies and Nutrition at Syracuse University, as well as an Affiliated Faculty in the departments of Geography, and Women’s and Gender Studies. She has received support for a project entitled “The New American Farmer: Immigration, Race, and the Struggle for Sustainability.” This research explores the transition of immigrant Latinos from farmworkers to farm owners, looking at racial discrimination, agrarian identity, and inclusivity in food and farming in America. She is comparing four sites across the United States, each of which has a significant and unique group of Latino farmers who have struggled against multiple levels of inequality to start their own farm businesses. The funds from the grant will be used for travel to her final fieldwork location of Yakima, Washington in spring 2016 to conduct interviews.

Margaret Sugg is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and Planning at Appalachian State University. She has received support for a project entitled “A multiscale approach to assessing heat-health vulnerability.” With a large number of hospitalizations and deaths each year related to heat exposure, this research seeks to identify individual to regional patterns of heat-health vulnerabilities and the thermal environments that control these patterns. The funds from the grant will be used to purchase 12 Maximum Integrated thermocron ibutton Devices which measure the ambient temperatures experienced by wearers both indoors and outdoors. Students from Appalachian State University will test the devices before they are given to heat-vulnerable populations such has outdoor laborers and high school athletes.

Sophie Webber is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Geography at University of California, Los Angeles. She has received support for a project entitled “Climate Service: Commercializing science for urban adaptation and infrastructure planning.” This research explores the relations between states, markets, and science in the context of climate change, particularly the commercialization of climate science through ‘climate services.’ She will be looking at major global climate service governance organizations such as the World Bank and the Climate Services Center, conducting key informant interviews, analyses of policies and documentation, and participant observation at conferences and meetings. The funds from the grant will be used for travel to Washington DC and New York City to study these organizations that produce climate services.

The AAG Research Grants are competitively awarded to scholars to provide direct expenses for research or fieldwork, excluding master’s or doctoral dissertation research.

AAG Research Grants