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AAG Seeks Observers To Attend United Nations Climate Change Conference

June 7, 2016

The American Association of Geographers has been granted Observer Organization status to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). With this formal designation, the AAG is permitted to submit to the UNFCCC Secretariat its nominations for representatives to attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference that will take place from November 7-18, 2016 in Marrakesh, Morocco (COP-22/CMP12).

Prior to midnight Monday, July 25, 2016 persons interested in being nominated to attend by the AAG must be a current member of the AAG and provide the following information (in this exact format, please) via email to cmannozzi [at] aag [dot] org along with a copy of these instructions:

Note: All information must be as it appears in the official photo identification which the participant will present at the registration desk.

· Salutation (Mr. Ms. Dr. etc.):

· Given / First name:

· Family name:

· Functional title:

· Department:

· Organization:

· Date of birth (DD/MM/YYYY):

· Country which issued Passport:

· Identification document number (Passport number):

· E-mail address:

· Telephone where you can be reached for questions about your application:

· Dates within the range of November 7 – 18 for which you will be actually attending the COP sessions

· A very brief paragraph describing your interest and purpose for attending the COP sessions

· A statement agreeing with the terms of these instructions for nomination

Identification number, date of birth and name are for identification verification only and will not be made available to anyone outside of the AAG or the UNFCCC. Date of birth will also be used to signal nomination of minors.

AAG nominees will be provided with a copy of nomination documentation for eventual presentation at the Conference registration desk in Marrakesh, Morocco. The UN will provide a quota to the AAG which may restrict the number of participants or the dates for which nominees may be approved for attendance. This quota will be provided to the AAG after July 25, 2016.

All nominees must have their own source of financial support to attend and make all necessary travel, insurance, visa, and logistical arrangements for themselves; the AAG is not providing any funds or other support for travel or participation. Nominees also must release the AAG from any and all financial or legal liability during their period of participation and refrain from making proclamations, claims, announcements, or other statements as being the official position of the association or its membership. Attendees must also adhere to the codes of conduct and follow the guidelines for participation as outlined by the United Nations (see https://unfccc.int/files/parties_and_observers/ngo/application/pdf/coc_guide.pdf).

Upon return, attendees will submit a brief trip report to the AAG Executive Director, Doug Richardson, drichardson [at] aag [dot] org

We will share more information on schedules, logistics, and accommodation for COP-22 as soon as it is made available to us.

Journals

Consultation on sections in the ‘Annals of the AAG’

June 6, 2016

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

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

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

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

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

Bradley T. Cullen

Brad Cullen, professor emeritus in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of New Mexico, passed away unexpectedly on June 4, 2016 at the age of 65.

Bradley Thomas Cullen was born on February 8, 1951 and raised in Portola, northern California. He studied for his bachelor’s degree at Chico State University, California, then for his master’s degree at Miami University, Ohio.

Next he moved to Michigan State University for a PhD in geography. His doctoral dissertation, completed in 1980, was entitled “Wood products plants in northwestern California: changes in location and size” and examined the forestry industry.

Cullen moved to Albuquerque in 1979 to take up an assistant professor post in the Department of Geography at the University of New Mexico (UNM) where he was to stay until retirement in 2014. During his career at UNM, he served as department chair and was instrumental at one point in advocating for the department when its closure was under consideration. Without his major contributions, the important department of today would be significantly poorer and may not even exist.

Cullen’s work spanned social and economic geography, with his primary research interests being industrial geography and problems related to the environment and energy consumption.Among his many publications was a notable book Sustainable Development and Geographical Space: Issues of Population, Environment, Globalization and Education in Marginal Regions co-authored with Heikki Jussila and Roser Majoral (Ashgate 2002).

He became a member of the American Association of Geographers in 1979 and was actively involved in the Southwest Division, including serving as the Chair in 1992. In addition, he was a strong supporter of the Applied Geography Conferences, serving on the Board of Directors for many years and helping to organize numerous paper sessions. He was also involved in the International Geographical Union including serving on the Steering Committee of its Commission on Marginalization, Globalization and Regional and Local Response. Other service included being a member of the editorial board for the Scottish Geographical Journal.

Cullen had been teaching geography on a part-time basis at Sierra College, CA, since January this year. He had also recently gained certification to teach English as a second language, and had been preparing to serve with the Peace Corps in Mongolia until his health required a change in plans.

Away from his professional life, Cullen enjoyed performances of the New Mexico Philharmonic Orchestra and the Santa Fe Opera. He was an excellent cook reputed for his desserts but also loved eating out locally in Albuquerque. In addition, he loved dogs and was always seen driving around town in his Mini Cooper.

Cullen will be remembered as a consistently supportive and friendly colleague. Thousands of students he taught over the years will also remember his dry and wonderful classroom humor. He is survived by his older brother John, and sister-in-law Lorraine, and his beloved nephews and their families.

See All Memorials

Post

Maggie Busek Interns at AAG for Summer Semester

June 2, 2016

AAG intern Maggie Busek studied abroad in Spain for a semester in 2015. In this photo, she she’s pictured in Guadalest.

Maggie Busek is a junior at George Washington University pursuing a major in international affairs concentrating in contemporary cultures and societies, as well as minors in Spanish and cross-cultural communication. Maggie’s interests include anthropology, world health issues, and international politics. After graduation, Maggie intends to work towards a master’s degree in public health or international development and hopes to eventually work abroad. In her spare time, Maggie enjoys exploring DC, traveling, and kayaking.

communication, George Washington University, international affairs, Maggie Busek, Politics, public health, Spanish

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