RIPTON — Susan Hanson of Ripton, Distinguished University Professor Emerita, former director of the Graduate School of Geography at Clark University, and member of the National Academy of Sciences, has been awarded the Association of American Geographers’2015 AAG Stanley Brunn Award for Creativity in Geographyfor her intellectual breakthroughs in geography.
The AAG recognizes Hanson for scholarship that “challenged the field of transportation geography by bringing to the fore how difference — understood as gendered, classed and racialized — matters in people’s mobility, job opportunities and access to services. By so doing, her research literally re-wrote the textbook on urban transportation geography. She has deepened these insights by extending her research into the gendered character of local labor markets, women’s entrepreneurship and the role of networks in enabling and constraining women.”
Hansonis among five GSG faculty members named to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences while appointed at Clark. Others include: Robert Kates, Roger Kasperson, B.L. Turner and Anthony Bebbington.
Hanson received a B.A. in geography from Middlebury College and her Ph.D. in geography from Northwestern University. She was a Peace Corps volunteer in Kenya before attending graduate school.
She has edited four geography journals — Urban Geography, Economic Geography, the Annals of the Association of American Geographers, and The Professional Geographer — and has been the geography editor for the International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, first and second editions. She serves on the editorial boards of several journals including Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
Hanson is a past president of the Association of American Geographers and has served as director of Clark’s School of Geography (1988-1995; 2002-2004). She serves as division chair of the Transportation Research Board (one of the six divisions of the NRC of the National Academies) and as a member of the advisory boards of the NRC’s Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education and of the National Academies’ Koshland Museum of Science.