Professor Rick Church and Affiliated Faculty member Frank Davis were recently elected as Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Election as a Fellow of AAAS is an honor bestowed upon members by their peers in recognition of their significant efforts to advance science or its applications. Seven UCSB scholars received the award this year; UCSB now has 47 AAAS Fellows, 7 of whom are/were in Geography: Oliver Chadwick, Rick Church, Frank Davis (Affiliated Faculty), Jeff Dozier (Affiliated Faculty), Reginald Golledge (who died this year), John Melack (Affiliated Faculty), and David Siegel.
The AAAS Section of Geography and Geology awarded Professor Church the distinction of Fellow “for innovative contributions to human geographic science and technology, including modeling location-based-services, forest conservation, health, fire and police services, environmental management, and network analysis.” The same AAAS Section made Professor Davis (Bren School for Environmental Science & Management) a Fellow “for distinguished scholarship in landscape ecology and contributions to public policy on protection of natural resources.”
“This year’s election of seven of our faculty members as AAAS Fellows is a remarkable testament to the caliber of research at UC Santa Barbara,” said Chancellor Henry T. Yang. “I am proud to salute my distinguished colleagues, and I know that our campus and community join me in applauding their achievement. This prestigious honor is a meaningful affirmation from their peers of the extraordinary contributions that each of these seven scholars has made to advancing the frontiers of science and serving our society.” The official AAAS award ceremony will take place on Saturday, February 20, from 8-10 a.m. at the AAAS Fellows Forum, during the 2010 AAAS Annual Meeting in San Diego. The complete UCSB Press Release concerning the awards can be found here.
“The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the world’s largest general scientific society, and publisher of the journal, Science. AAAS was founded in 1848, and includes some 262 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. Science has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world, with an estimated total readership of 1 million. The non-profit AAAS is open to all and fulfills its mission to ‘advance science and serve society’ through initiatives in science policy, international programs, science education, and more” (from the AAAS web site).
Editor’s note: The American Association for the Advancement of Science is often confused with the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, which has the same acronym. The latter includes artists; civic, corporate, and philanthropic leaders; as well as scholars and scientists. The Department of Geography has/had three members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences: Reg Golledge, Mike Goodchild, and Thomas Dunne (Affiliated Faculty).
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