Report of the Honors Committee, 2007

The Honors Committee of the Southeastern Division of the Association of American Geographers (SEDAAG) each year recognizes outstanding student and faculty achievements. Serving on the 2007 committee were: Scott Curtis, chair (East Carolina University); Joby Bass, chair-elect (University of Southern Mississippi), Michael Harrison (University of Richmond), Ronald Kalafsky (University of Tennessee), and Robert Yarbrough (Georgia Southern University). The 2007 Honors Committee congratulates the following individuals who received awards at the recent annual SEDAAG meeting in Charleston, South Carolina.

Lifetime Achievement Award

The Lifetime Achievement Award honors individuals with an extensive record of research and publication, excellence in teaching and advising, service, and lasting contributions to the geography profession. The Honors Committee designated Professor Stephen J. Walsh for the 2007 award.

Dr. Walsh received his Ph.D. from Oregon State University. Upon graduation in 1977 he was hired as an assistant professor at Oklahoma State University. He was promoted to associate professor in 1981 and joined the faculty at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in 1986. Dr. Walsh was promoted to full professor in 1991 and in 1995 established the Carolina Population Center. His research is focused on geographic information science applications of human-environment interactions and land use change. His productivity is nothing short of amazing, having published over 200 refereed articles. His recent first-author credits include three chapters in the Encyclopedia of Environment and Society, and two articles in Geo-Forum on the application of complexity theory in human-natural systems. In the last five years alone he received over 2 million dollars in grant funding from agencies such as NASA, NSF, NIH, and the Mellon Foundation. Dr. Walsh has received numerous awards and honors in his distinguished career. In 2006 he was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for “substantive landscape characterization and spatial analysis through remote sensing and geographic information science.” He is a strong proponent of SEDAAG, serving as President from 2003–2005. Dr. Walsh was previously awarded SEDAAG’s Research Honors Award (1999), and was recognized by the Association of American Geographers (AAG) with the National Honors for Distinguished Scholarship (2001). Finally, Dr. Walsh is praised as the model researcher-teacher. One of his referees notes that his “students [affectionately known as Labrats] publish regularly, get grants, win awards, get jobs at major universities, and perhaps most important, they become well-trained and successful scientists who ask the right questions.”

Research Honors Award

Recipients of the Research Honors Award demonstrate abundant evidence of quality publications and research leadership at both the institutional and organizational level. The 2007 recipient of the award is Professor Ann M. Oberhauser.

Dr. Oberhauser received a BA from Carleton College and MA and Ph.D. in Geography from Clark University. After a brief time at the University of Toledo as an adjunct professor, Dr. Oberhauser has spent the majority of her career at West Virginia University (WVU), where she is now a full professor. Dr. Oberhauser has over 40 publications and book reviews; she is the first or sole author of the majority of these. Included among these publications are several book chapters in important edited volumes such as Geography in America at the Dawn of the 21^st Century and A Companion to Economic Geography. She has won NSF research grants, and multiple WVU research and teaching awards. Further, Dr. Oberhauser has presented her work at nearly 50 regional, national, and international conferences and educational institutions. Dr. Oberhauser is cited as “one of the leading feminist geographers of the AAG” and “among the most important scholars of feminist geography in the world today.” As one referee notes, “her research interests are also woven into the courses she teaches, the way in which she mentors students, and her feminist activism within Geography.” Evidence for this can be found in her service as Chair of the AAG Committee on the Status of Women in Geography, membership on the Committee on the Status of Women in Geography in SEDAAG, membership on WVU’s Advisory Council for the Center for Women’s Studies, contributions to the feminist pedagogy literature, and the quality of...