Dr. Rachel Goffe is a human geographer whose work sits at the intersection of social reproduction, carceral geographies, Caribbean Studies and Black Geographies. In a time when these issues are absolutely vital, Dr. Goffe is concerned with the state regulation of dispossession from life and land. While her work is situated in her native Jamaica, the work applies to us all, particularly via the global ramifications of considering racial capitalism, gentrification, placemaking, boundary writing, and how policy and the state help shape claims to the idea of home. Dr. Goffe also has a strong record of community engagement and service both in and out of the academy, including organizing writing circles for graduate students from conflict zones and supporting grassroots organizations that fight for Justice in Jamaica.  As someone emphasizing the effects of today’s inequities and fighting to lessen them, Dr. Rachel Goffe should be recognized for continuing the legacy of Dr. Glenda Laws and her exemplary commitment to social justice and social policy.

Dr. Xiao Huang is a data and environmental scientist who combines these two interests into work on disaster mitigation, human-environment interactions, disaster remote sensing, urban studies, and other areas. Rather than study data for data’s sake, he wants to put data to work studying and solving human problems. He shows that research, public service, and community engagement are not mutually exclusive endeavors. His research dossier advocates that “computational urban science needs to go beyond computational”: he considers how human mobility affects people’s lives how we can map floods in real time with social media, heat risk assessment in urban areas, and much more. His work has been featured in the popular media, showing the public how important geography is for solving social problems. Dr. Huang also has an extensive record of leadership in and service to the discipline. A true public scholar, Dr. Xiao Huang should be recognized for continuing the legacy of Dr. Glenda Laws’s exemplary commitment to social justice and social policy.

Dr. Lisa Bhungalia has developed a socially engaged research agenda that bridges empirical observations on justice issues with innovative theory. This award recognizes Dr. Bhungalia for research that is 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, 2023), is an excellent example of bridging theoretical frameworks to practice. It 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. 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.

Dr. 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 leads the Territorios Alternativos Research Group (www.territoriosalternativos.cl) and the Climate Pluriverses project (www.pluriversosclimaticos.cl), 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.

Mohammed Rafi Arefin, assistant professor of geography at the University of British Columbia, is recognized both for his outstanding research on political ecologies of urban waste in the global North and South and for his unwavering commitment to environmental and climate justice. Dr. Arefin embodies the spirit of the Glenda Laws Award in his efforts to help establish a Centre for Climate Justice (CCJ) at UBC that connects the university with communities on the front lines of climate disruption. In addition to putting the university’s resources in service of diverse communities in British Columbia, the CCJ provides an activist network to advocate for substantive policy changes around issues of housing, sovereignty, and political freedoms. Dr. Arefin must also be recognized for his tireless efforts to bring international attention to the incarceration of political activists in Egypt ahead of the UN’s COP27 climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh.

Shiloh Krupar’s work combines scholarship on nuclear politics and policy with performance-based community activism.  Her creativity and her commitment to public scholarship are remarkable.  Among her many noteworthy projects are the National Toxic Land/Labor Conservation Service, a faux government agency that enlists artists-activists to propose projects focused on the environmental legacies of American militarism to actual government agencies. In addition, her A People’s Atlas of Nuclear Colorado invites the public to learn about, and to engage with, the history of the Cold War and nuclear landscapes in Colorado. This interactive digital atlas, which tackles Colorado’s nuclear military-industrial complex, represents stunningly innovative, interdisciplinary, collaborative and public facing scholarship that stretches the political and social scope of what it is that an atlas can do. In receiving this award, Dr. Krupar wishes to acknowledge her long-term collaborator on these projects, Sarah Kanouse.  She is affiliated with Georgetown University.

Willie J. Wright has made his mark in the discipline with his scholarship on Black geographies and urban studies.  He is committed to social justice and to community engagement while also embarking on creative partnerships with cultural institutions.  His current project (with Dr. Sage Ponder) on the Jackson People’s School, funded by the Antipode Foundation, and his year-long Galveston Artist Residency are all worthy of note and praise. He is deeply committed to advancing the fight and struggle for justice in communities long written out of mainstream geographic scholarship. Dr. Wright is also a board member of the Cooperative Community of New West Jackson, Mississippi, a grassroots resident-led community development organization.

As an Assistant Professor at the University of Florida, Dr. Wright has made vital contributions to social justice teaching, including a dedicated course on Social Justice in the City and a graduate course on Black Geographies. He is committed to community-oriented scholarship and bridging the gap between the academy and knowledge that exists within communities. This is crucial because knowledge creation is not a one-way street but is reflected in the intersection between the ‘Ivory Tower’ and community activists and organizers working to transform communities.

Rebecca Torres, University of Texas at Austin for her steadfast advancement of social justice through scholarship and community bridge building.

2021 Jen (Jack) Gieseking, University of Kentucky, for scholarship that combines critical urban theory, GIS, and digital humanities to study queer, feminist, and trans geographies

2021 Pavithra Vasudevan, University of Texas at Austin for her feminist-inspired, participatory action research calling attention to environmental racism, and also for her inspirational pedagogy.

2020 Martina Angela Caretta, Lund University,  works on the human-environment interactions of women and water, but that does not adequately describe the depth, breadth or impact of her work. She has been asked to serve as a Coordinating Lead Author of the 6th UN Intergovernmental Panel on the Climate Change Assessment Report. Caretta is as dynamic a teacher as she is a researcher.

Farhana Sultana, Maxwell School, Syracuse University for her work as a courageous scholar/activist and public intellectual

2018 Sharlene Mollett from the University of Toronto Scarborough is recognized for her outstanding work as a critical social geographer, who has made a significant impact on feminist political ecologies. She has been influential in establishing the study of postcolonial intersectionality through her work on Latin America. Dr. Mollett intends to inspire justice-orienhted debates in geography and contribute to on-the-ground change in development practice.

2017 Sarah Hunt from the University of British Columbia is recognized for her committment to knowledge mobiliztion, social justice, and super scholarship.  She explores geographies of resistance  and resurgence in the intimate, everyday relations of indigenous people and communities. Dr. Hunt’s writing has been published in numerous books and scjholarly jourbals, as well as in popular media outlets such as mediaINDIGENA, decolonization.org, and Op Eds for The Globe and Mail and CBC Aboriginal.

2015 Joshua Inwood from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville for signifiicantly advancing the ideas of social justice, anti-racism, and peace from a geographic perspective in his article, “Critical pedagogy and the fierce urgency of now: opening up space for critical reflections on the U.S. civil rights movement.”

2014 Juanita Sundberg from the University of British Columbia for her commitment to social justice, which is deeply embedded in both her teaching and scholarship.

2012 Minelle Mahtani, University of Toronto for her outstanding research in the area of minority representation in geography, her contributions to the Geography Faculty Development Alliance and her use of multimedia to enhance diversity initiatives, demonstrating her oustanding efforts to encourage a more diverse discipline. Dr. Mahtani initiated a tradition, together with the editors of Social & Cultural Geography for an article celebrating the AAG Glenda Laws Awardee.  Her inaugural article citation is: Minelle Mahtani (2014) Toxic geographies: absences in critical race thought and practice in social and cultural geography, Social & Cultural Geography, 15:4, 359-367, DOI: 10.1080/14649365.2014.888297

2010 Nik Heynen, University of Georgia for his work which has helped to define and advance the academic agenda in geography and cognate disciplines in a number of areas, particularly related to hunger, environmental justice, globalization, and emancipatory social struggles.

2007 James Tyner, Kent State University for his “long-standing and steadfast commitment in research and teaching to social justice,” including work on the geographies of race, religion, economics and labor, geopolitics and the morality of war

2006 Michael Brown, University of Washington for his research focusing on the intersection of political, cultural, urban and health geographies, and particularly for his leadership in geographies of sexuality and the body.

2005 Karen Bakker, University of British Columbia for her uncompromising commitment to advance understandings of the nature of governance, the significance of natural resources, and the importance of distributive justice in contemporary societies.

2004 Vincent Del Casino Jr., California State University, Long Beach,  for his passionate commitment to ease the suffering of people with AIDS and HIV and to help in the prevention of these diseases, especially in marginalized and vulnerable communities.