Previous Honorees
RESEARCH EXCELLENCE AWARDees
The Research Excellence Award was established in 2017 and recognizes a mid-career scholar for specific research contributions that advance fundamental understanding of the human dimensions of global change.
Zhao Ma (Purdue University) 2023 For her contributions to our understanding of how people perceive, experience, and adapt to social-ecological change, which have had a profound influence on human-environment scholarship.
Robin Leichenko (Rutgers University) 2022 For her contributions to the understanding of climate impacts, vulnerability, and adaptation, particularly in cities and coastal areas, and for the emphasis she has placed on equity in her work.
Tracey Osbourne (UC Merced) 2021 For her contributions in the area of social dimensions of climate change mitigation, particularly the relationship between livelihoods, land access and local development and forestry-based carbon offset projects in Chiapas, Mexico.
Susanne Moser (Susanne Moser Research & Consulting) 2020 For her groundbreaking work in climate change adaptation, communication, and the larger topic of transformations to sustainability.
Karen O'Brien (Durham University) 2019 For her research on adaptation and vulnerability, which has significantly advanced the concept of transformation while pushing human-environment scholarship in interesting and provocative new directions.
Hallie Eakin (Arizona State University) 2018 For her empirical work on the political and institutional dimensions of vulnerability, adaptation, and resilience.
Karen Seto (Yale School of Forestry) 2017 For her contributions to earth land systems science.
HDGC Lifetime achievement awardees
The Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes an advanced career scholar for cumulative contributions in research, teaching, and service that have shaped the field of human-environment geography.
Susan Cutter (University of South Carolina) 2019 For her pioneering work developing the field of hazards and vulnerability research, which has profoundly influenced human-environment scholarship and the careers of countless geographers.
Neil Adger (University of Exeter) 2018 For his foundational scholarship in the field of global environmental change, especially his frameworks and empirical contributions to understanding vulnerability and adaptation to climate change and service human-environment geography and international interdisciplinary organizations.
Robert Kates (Emeritus, Clark and Brown) 2017 For his pioneering work creating the field of sustainability science.
First Annual Awards Ceremony (2017)
AAG Honors Dr. Robert Kates and Dr. Karen Seto in first Annual Awards Ceremony with Keynote address by Dr. Bill Clark
"The central question of my scientific work has been, what is and ought to be the human use of the earth?"
-- Dr. Robert Kates
Dr. Bill Clark
On 6 April 2017, the HDGC specialty group held the first Annual Awards Ceremony honoring Dr. Robert Kates for Lifetime Achievement for his pioneering work creating the field of sustainability science and Dr. Karen Seto for Research Excellence for her theoretical and empirical contributions to urban land system science. After the awards, Dr. Bill Clark gave a keynote address honoring the work of Dr. Kates and reflecting on the state of sustainability science, the field both he and Dr. Kates have helped to create. The event was co-sponsored by the Land System Science symposium and drew a crowd of the honorees' colleagues, including current AAG president, Dr. Glen MacDonald, many of whom were also formative in the land system science and sustainability science fields.
Dr. Darla Munro (Ohio State) presented Dr. Seto with the award, after which Dr. Seto spoke of the importance of Geography to her career and her insistence on keeping the title of Geographer in her post at Yale, which does not have a Geography Department.
Dr. Billie Turner II (Arizona State) presented Dr. Kates with the award, noting that he considered Dr. Kates a "second mentor" in his career. Both Dr. Turner and Dr. Clark admired Dr. Kates' scholarship as well as his role in pushing forward the sustainability science agenda , institutionalizing it in important forums like the National Academies and the National Science Foundation.
Dr. Clark then delivered a homage to the Dr. Kates' work on sustainability science, providing the intellectual and personal backstory to each of the tenets of sustainability science articulated in the landmark Kates et al. Science publication. He asserted that scholars have had a "preoccupation with flows…but that sustainability must be about stocks" and "bending future trajectories."
Dr. Robert Kates
Dr. Karen Seto
From left to right: Dr. Bill Clark, Dr. Robert Kates, Dr. Billie Turner II, Dr. Karen Seto, Dr. Darla Munro.
HDGC student research awardees
Ana Zepeda (UC Davis) 2023 “Food Security and Compounded Disaster Resiliency in a Community Kitchen in Merida, Mexico.”
Matthieu Ahouangbenon (University of Delaware) 2022 for his research on the spatial distribution of crop production within the West African subcontinent.
Emily Melvin (University of South Mississippi) 2021 “The Wake of The Storm: The Impacts of Disaster on Tourism-Dependent Cultural Seascapes in the Bahamas.”
Alana Rader (Rutgers University) 2020 "Beyond Deforestation: Dynamics of tropical forest regeneration and land use in the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor, Mexico."
Sylvia Cifuntes (University of California, Santa Barbara) 2019 "Living Forests: A Multi-Scale Analysis of Indigenous Knowledge(s) and Ontologies in a Pan-Amazonian Climate Initiative.”
Olivia Molden (University of Oregon) 2018 "Responding to water scarcity: the cultural politics of household water practices in urbanizing Nepal."
Sara Meerow (University of Michigan) 2016 “A Green Infrastructure Spatial Planning (GISP) model for building urban resilience in Los Angeles.”
Kelly Jean Anderson (University of Maryland College Park) 2016 "Contextualizing Drivers and Outcomes of Rural to Urban Migration in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Case of Mozambique."
Christina Green (University of Arizona) 2015 "Drought and Food Insecurity among Farmworkers in California."
Nicolena von Hedemann (University of Arizona) 2015 "Payments for Ecosystem Services: Governance and Subjects in the Guatemalan Highlands."
Mindy Butter (University of Arizona) 2012
Kelly Turner (Kent State University) 2012
HDGC Student Initiatives for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Awardees
Sara Ghebremicael (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) 2023 “Intersections of Climate and Conflict on Food Security, Ethiopia.”
Siya Aggrey (Makerere University) 2021 for his work on enhancing mountain community resilience to emerging and reemerging infectious diseases.