Association of American Geographers Lifetime Achievement Honors awarded to Anne Buttimer#
The AAG
will confer AAG Honors, the Association’s highest honors, to nine individuals and one publishing press for their outstanding contributions to the advancement or welfare of geography. Each year, the AAG invites nominations from the membership, which are then presented to the AAG Honors Committee for consideration. The AAG Honors will be presented at the upcoming AAG Annual Meeting in Tampa, Fla., during a special awards luncheon on Saturday, April 12, 2014.
Anne Buttimer, member of the Academy and Chair of the Social Sciences section was awarded the AAG Lifetime Achievement Honors.
AAG Lifetime Achievement Honors#
Anne Buttimer is awarded the Association of American Geographers 2014 Lifetime Achievement Honors in recognition of her five decades of distinguished and prolific scholarship as well as extraordinary dedication, service, and perseverance in the name of the geographic profession. In addition to being a stellar research scholar, Anne has served the field in a number of capacities, recently as President of the International Geographical Union (IGU) and most as Vice-President of Academia Europea, the first geographer to be so elected. She has also played an active role in the AAG, serving on Council, on the Annals editorial Board, and on the Long-Range Planning Committee.Anne’s distinguished career reflects major achievements in all three areas—research, teaching, service—generally recognized as constituting the role and duty of academic scholars. In addition, her special linguistic abilities combined with her intellectual talents place her at the forefront in international geographical activities…a fact attested to, when, on 27 January 2012 she became the first woman to be awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Grenoble, France.
Professor Buttimer has also played an important role as a faculty member in geography—first at Clark University in the 1970s, then at Lund in the 1980s, and more recently at University College Dublin. She has been a leader at these institutions, most notably heading the University College Dublin Department of Geography for twelve years. She has also influenced countless students at the places where she has held long-term appointments, as well as at a number of other institutions where she has held shorter-term visiting positions. Her effectiveness as a lecturer can be seen in the wide range of invitations she has received to share her ideas with others. Over the years she has traveled all over Europe, North America, and beyond, giving featured and named lectures at a wide range of institutions of higher education.
Professor Buttimer is a highly respected geographer whose reputation is truly global in scope. In the early part of her career, she was at the forefront of efforts to expand beyond the quantitative approaches that were highly influential at the time. She went on to produce a body of scholarship that explored important philosophical themes at the intersection of the bio-physical and human sciences, that shaped research directions in social geography, and that served as a model for the ways in which geographers can bridge the theory-practice divide. On the latter front, Professor Buttimer chaired an EU-funded research network on sustainable development that had a significant influence on EU policy debates; her work provided important insights into the ways in which communication between scientists and planners can be improved. The extent of her scholarly impact can be seen in the many honors she has received from different universities and professional associations. (Source: http://news.aag.org/2013/11/aag-announces-recipients-of-2014-aag-honors-2
