Janet Franklin inducted into National Academy of Science; joins the other NAS members at Arizona State University

April 25, 2015 saw the induction of Janet Franklin, professor of geography at Arizona State University, into the National Academy of Sciences, following her election in April 2014. This was a memorable week for Dr. Franklin, who two days later was informed that she had been named a Fellow of the Ecological Society of America. The title of Fellow is given to a select number of ESA members each year to honor those who are recognized by their peers as distinguished for their contributions to the discipline.

As a member of the National Academy of Sciences, Janet Franklin joins three other ASU geographers: Luc Anselin and B.L. Turner II, and Stewart Fotheringham.

Janet Franklin’s research focuses on the dynamics of terrestrial plant communities at the landscape scale. Her work addresses the impacts of human-caused landscape change on the environment.  She is the author of Mapping Species Distributions: Spatial Inference and Prediction, and co-edited the newly-published second edition of Vegetation Ecology.  Franklin has published more than 130 refereed papers in a wide variety of scholarly journals.  She served as co-editor of The Professional Geographer and Associate Editor for the Journal of Vegetation Science, and has served in editorial roles for 18 other journals.  Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, NASA and the National Geographic Society.

Luc Anselin is one of the principal developers of the study of spatial econometrics, and is an innovator in many realms of spatial data analysis and development of appropriate methods, their implementation in software and application in empirical studies. Stewart Fotheringham’s research expertise is in the analysis of spatial data and in particular the local modelling of spatial relationships with geographically weighted regression. B. L. Turner II is internationally-recognized for his work researching human-environment relationships and land-use change.

“It’s exciting and wonderful to see geographic research continuing to receive recognition among the academy of sciences,” commented Elizabeth Wentz, director of ASU’s School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning.