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.

Explorer, Pwo Navigator, cultural revivalist, educator, and storyteller Charles Nainoa Thompson is this year’s Honorary Geographer, an award given annually by the American Association of Geographers to recognize an exceptional leader in the arts, research, teaching, and writing whose work addresses geographic topics.

Thompson is being recognized for his ground-breaking efforts in reviving ancestral wayfinding practices and policy-shifting advocacy on behalf of the health of our planet. Inspired by the ancient art of wayfinding, Thompson learned to sail across the vast Pacific Ocean from Mau Piailug, a legendary master navigator from Satawal, and learned lessons on astronomy from Bishop Museum Planetarium Lecturer Will Kyselka.

In 1980, he embarked on his first journey as navigator from Hawaiʻi to Tahiti, guiding the Hōkūle‘a with only the stars, the winds, and the waves. Since then, he has led many more voyages of Hōkūleʻa, a traditional double-hulled canoe, to reconnect with the diverse cultures and lands of Polynesia.

He currently serves as CEO of the Polynesian Voyaging Society, where he continues to pass down knowledge to students of navigation and voyaging.  Thompson is a former chair of the Board of Trustees for Kamehameha Schools and a former member of the Board of Regents for the University of Hawaiʻi. Thompson received his Honorary Doctorate from University of Hawai‘i in 2016.  His natural leadership skills have galvanized vast and diverse sectors throughout the community to realize the importance of caring for our planet and all of humanity. These efforts have earned him numerous awards including the 2015 Peter Benchley Ocean Award for Excellence in Marine Exploration, the 2001 “Unsung Hero of Compassion” award from his Holiness XIV Dalai Lama on behalf of Wisdom in Action, the Native Hawaiian Education Association’s Manomano Kaʻike Educator of the Year, the 2015 Asia Pacific Community Building Award from the East-West Center, the 2013 Visionary Award from the Maui Film Festival, the 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Marine Sanctuaries Foundation, the 2017 Hubbard Medal from National Geographic Society, and the 2017 Explorers Club Medal.

Rebecca Solnit, author and activist, is recognized for her consistent witness to shine light on possibilities for a better world, and her engagement in fighting for the planet’s future.

Nora K. Jemisin, novelist, for her exceptionally insightful and thorough treatments of human-environment relationships, including the ways that power relations unfold and are resisted. Jemisin’s work demonstrates and advocates for a keen geographical understanding of the world and of human societies.

Kathryn Sullivan, whose distinguished career includes being the first American woman to walk in space, serving as Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere, and NOAA Administrator. The direction in which Sullivan steered Administration and NOAA priority work in the areas of weather and water services, climate science, integrated mapping services and Earth-observing capabilities is immediately recognized and welcomed by geographers. That she also led NOAA with regard to satellites, space weather, water, and ocean observations and forecasts to best serve American communities and businesses resonates powerfully with the AAG. As a woman scientist and role model, Dr. Sullivan mirrors many of the values we also actively pursue in our discipline and our association.

Rita Colwell, University of Maryland College Park, for her distinguished career as the 11th Director of the National Science Foundation, her many important leadership roles in academia, and her many significant advisory positions in the U.S. Government, nonprofit science policy organizations, and private foundations, and in the international scientific research community.

James E. Hansen for his leadership and engagement in anthropogenic changes of the atmospheric composition, and for spreading broad awareness of global warming through his Congressional testimony on climate change and by disseminating NASA visualizations of our planet and its changing climate.

Warren Washington for his contributions as a pioneer in the development of coupled climate models and in recognition of him as a leading scientist in the area of climate variability and change.

Maya Lin for her impact on the way we look at the world and how we relate to it. AAG is impressed with the influence of her monuments on the world of architecture, and also for the way in which her vision integrates monuments into landscapes in new and dramatic ways.

Saskia Sassen for her far-reaching impact on the study of globalization and its influence on labor mobiity, global cities, and new technologies, spurring scholars and decision-makers to consider innovative responses to the challenge of sustainable development.

Nora Volkow for her groundbreaking and innovative work on drug addiction, demonstrating a geographic perspective and attention to geographical context, and for her significant influence on geography research and research agendas in the health sciences.

Paul Krugman 2008 Nobel Laureate in Economics, for his deep and abiding appreciation of a geographic perspective in economics, for his contributions to economic geography, for his exemplary writings that draw from and are inspired by geographic scholarship, and for bringing to bear geographic approaches to international trade theory and strategic trade policy.

Charles Mann for his deep and abiding appreciation of a geographic perspective through his exemplary writings that draw from and are inspired by geographic scholarship.

Jeffrey Sachs for his deep and abiding appreication of a geographic perspective and through his exemplary global leadership in confronting the challenges of economic development, poverty alleviation, globalization, and enivronmental sustainability

Barbara Kingsolver for her deep and abiding appreciation of the importance of place, culture, and the environment in her creative and inspiring writings.

Stephen Pyne for his pioneering and geographically-informed scholarship in the cultural ecology of fire and forest management

J. Keith Ord for his pioneering work in spatial autocorrelation, in the spatial diffusion of disease, and in the creation of spatially local statistics, and for his collaborations with prominent geographers and co-authorship of prominent texts of major importance to the discipline of geography.

Cynthia Enloe for her deep and abiding appreciation of geographic perspectives in her analyses of state practices and international politics and for her profound influence on feminist and political geography.

John McPhee for his appreciation of the importance of places in fostering understanding of the earth and its natural environments, and for his sensitive exposition of the uses people have made of those places.

John E. Gould for dedicated and effective leadership of the American Geographical Society and for his vigorous efforts to foster appreciation for geography in the wider community.

Calvin Trillin for humorous writing that is sensitive to localities and cultural environments as exemplified in Travels with Alice and other works.

Herman E. Daly for the freshness of insight and depth of critical thought he has brought to research and teaching in economics, ecology, and resource use.

Stephen Jay Gould in recognition of the sensitivity to location, place, and geographical relationships evident in his penetrating and perceptive writing for scientists and the public.