Donald E. Vermeer
From deep California roots, Dr. Donald Eugene Vermeer’s passion for geography took him around the world. A world expert in geophagy—dietary uses of clays—he was an influential scholar and leader in cultural geography and African studies. Throughout his career, Don Vermeer was a prominent and perennial participant at the annual AAG national meetings. For decades, he could be easily spotted by his purposeful stride, joyful laughter, and classic bowtie.
A second-generation immigrant from the Netherlands, Vermeer was raised in a devout Dutch Reformed home in Oakland, California. Vermeer’s scholarly formation took place at the University of California, Berkeley when Carl Sauer and the Berkeley school of cultural geography was a dominant force in academic geography. Vermeer earned a B.A. in Geography in 1954 and was then called into military service as a Captain in the U.S. Army from 1954 to 1957, acting as the Officer-in-Charge of the Chemical, Biological, and Radiological Warfare School at Ft. Eustis, Virginia. Upon completion of his military service, Vermeer returned to Berkeley where he completed an M.A. in Geography and Geology in 1959. During his M.A. studies under Carl Sauer and James Parsons, Vermeer pioneered work on the geomorphology of Belize’s barrier reef and cays and their relationship to block faulting and the trade winds. He continued his studies at Berkeley, finishing his Ph.D. in Geography and Anthropology in 1964. While Vermeer’s training and commitment to fieldwork fell squarely within the Sauerian tradition, his dissertation on the agricultural and dietary practices of the Tiv, Ibo, and Birom in Nigeria was supervised by Clarence Glacken, author of the influential Traces on the Rhodian Shore. Vermeer’s dissertation was one of dozens by US-based geographers who focused on sub-Saharan Africa as “the winds of freedom” swept of across the continent in the 1960s.
Throughout his career, Vermeer continued in the Berkeley School tradition of grounded fieldwork, spending 4.5 years in West Africa, 14 months in Central America and the Caribbean and taking additional research trips to Afghanistan, Siberia, Turkey, and Bulgaria. His research led to multiple articles in the Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Science, Economic Geography, African Studies Review, Ethnology, Social Science Quarterly, Geographical Review, as well as environmental health and medical publications.
As a world-renowned expert in geophagy, Vermeer’s primary contribution was to demonstrate the nutritional and medicinal value of specific traditional practices of eating clay. His work on geophagy in both Africa and the American South received attention outside the social sciences in the Los Angeles Times, Gastronomica: the Journal of Food and Culture, and Places Journal. His expertise on swidden agriculture and indigenous food systems led to consulting work for the U.S. Agency for International Development, several private consulting firms, and the Islamic Republic of Mauritania. During the contentious debates over food scarcity and African population growth in the 1970s and 1980s, Vermeer’s research demonstrated the importance and adaptability of traditional, small-scale cultivation practices.
Vermeer’s teaching career began with a stint as Lecturer at the University of California-Berkeley. He then spent 1962-1968 as an Assistant Professor and Director of African Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He moved to Louisiana State University (LSU) where he spent two decades, holding roles as Professor of Geography and Anthropology, Department Chair, Associate Dean of the College of Agriculture, and Director of International Affairs. From 1988 to 1997, he served as Professor of Geography and International Affairs and Chair of the Department of Geography and Regional Science at George Washington University. In retirement, he served as a Research Adjunct Professor at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo where he helped create a new earth sciences major. In addition, he held visiting professorships at the University of Kansas, University of Cape Town, University of Ibadan, and the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
Don Vermeer was an active member of the American Association of Geographers and the International Geographical Union. Dedicated to professional service, he served as president of the Rocky Mountain Social Science Association, Association of Pacific Coast Geographers, and the Southwest Social Science Association. He held editorial board positions for the National Geographic Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and served as an adviser to the Geography Standards project team that produced the 1994 Geography for Life: National Geography Standards. With his longtime wife Carrie Vermeer, he created the Vermeer Scholarship in Geography and the Vermeer Professorship in Geography, both at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Prepared by Mark D. Bjelland, Ph.D., Calvin University, with the help of Johnathan Bascom and Jason VanHorn, also of Calvin University
One June 1, my lifelong companion and I bought a condo at The Philadelphian, right next to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. When I opened the mailbox of our unit guess what I found? A copy of the latest Annals of the AAG (American Association of Geographers) with the previous owner’s name on the label. The presence of that journal struck me like a message from Providence. It reminded me of my geography training and—now at age 76 and after nearly 55 years of work both within and outside of the field—made me wonder: could a discipline which I once thought had led me astray have actually been my lucky star? Here is my geography story.
The GIS Certification Institute (GISCI) Board of Directors has welcomed Jennifer L. Whytlaw, Ph.D., GISP, associate professor of Applied GIS at Old Dominion University, as the newest representative of the American Association of Geographers (AAG). She joins 
