Andrew Isserman

Andrew Isserman, a passionate scholar and devoted teacher whose work focused on urban and regional analysis, died recently following a heart attack suffered during a faculty basketball game at the University of Illinois, Urbana. Born in New York and raised on various army bases in Europe, Isserman studied economics at Amherst and earned his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania. He taught at the University of Iowa, West Virginia University, and the University of Illinois, focusing on urban planning and agricultural economics. He was well known for introducing new methods of forecasting economic and demographic change. In addition, his research on federal policy (he worked at various times with the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Energy, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, and Transportation) contributed to significant changes in several federal programs. At the University of Illinois, Isserman was Professor of Regional Economics, Planning and Public Policy with primary appointments in the departments of Agricultural and Consumer Economics and Urban and Regional Planning. He held affiliate appointments in the Institute of Government and Public Affairs and the Department of Geography. Isserman was the founding editor of the International Regional Science Review. He is listed as one of the 50 faculty members with the greatest number of citations in urban and regional planning. Isserman received numerous awards or fellowships from the American Planning Association, the American Statistical Association, the National Council for Geographic Education, and the Regional Science Association International. His activities in regional science were extensive. He served as President of the Southern Regional Science Association in 1991-1992. In 1999, he received the David Boyce Award for Service to Regional Science of the North American Regional Science Council, and in 2005 he was President of the North American Regional Science Council.

Andrew Isserman (Necrology). 2011. AAG Newsletter 46(2): 45.