Prof Mei-Po Kwan Received 2021 AAG Wilbanks Prize for Transformational Research in Geography
Congratulations to Prof. Mei-Po Kwan on receiving the 2021 Wilbanks Prize for Transformational Research in Geography conferred by the American Association of Geographers (AAG).
This award recognizes geographers whose research has made transformational contributions to the fields of Geography or Geographic Information Science.
Award citation at website of AAG
Mei-Po Kwan, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Mei-Po Kwan has had transformational impacts on how transportation specialists and geographic information scientists think about accessibility and activity-travel patterns analysis; how feminist geographers understand quantification and GIS; how geographers and geographic information scientists integrate quantitative and qualitative methods and insights from different theoretical traditions; and how health geographers, public health researchers, and scholars in other disciplines think about environmental exposure and the significance of the neighborhood.
Employing feminist perspectives, Dr. Kwan has dramatically altered geo-visualization, the inclusion of qualitative data through geo-narratives, and she has broadened geographic information science beyond a narrow “objective” standard to more humanistic standards that include perceptions, emotions, and behavior as core concerns. She has also advanced conceptualization of concepts like uncertainty and bias by promoting more dynamic perspectives that examine spatial contexts as rooted in everyday behaviors and experiences rather than as containers fixed in space and time.
Both the significant substance and impact of Dr. Kwan’s work have transformed the discipline of geography and geographic information science and infused the broader community of researchers and practitioners with more robust geospatial understanding, thereby making her a highly deserving recipient of the Wilbanks Prize.
