Dr. Nik Heynen Named 2023 AAG Fellow

University of Georgia professor Nik Heynen has been selected as a 2023 Fellow of the American Association of Geographers. The AAG fellow program recognizes geographers who have made significant contributions to advancing and strengthening the discipline of geography through research, teaching, service and mentorship. Dr. Heynen will join a diverse group of sixteen other geographers who have been named recipients of the AAG fellow honor. The honorary title of AAG fellow is conferred for life.

According to the AAG, Heynen has been awarded this honor for his "sustained and exemplary record of research, mentorship, and service [which] has left an enduring impact on the discipline of geography. Dr. Heynen's scholarship has been transformational and field-defining in the areas of urban political ecology, abolition geographies and ecologies, and geographies of neoliberalism and racial capitalism." A focal point of Heynen's work has centered Black scholars and scholarship in order to produce rigorous, social-justice centered theoretical research, alongside pragmatic justice oriented advocacy.

Heynen has made significant contributions to the scholarship and literature in the field of Geography through his role as founding chair of the Institute for the Geographies of Justice, as co-founding editor of the publication Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, as editor for Annals of AAG and his contributions to the editorial collective Antipode.

Nik Heynen is also known for his longstanding service and research relationship with the Gullah-Geechee community of Sapelo Island, GA (pictured at the header). There, he supports the mission of activist and Save Our Legacy Ourself non-profit founder/CEO, Maurice Bailey, in restoring and preserving traditional Gullah-Geechee agricultural practices and culture. The AAG notes that "despite his over 100 publications, millions of dollars in external grant funding, and abundant service commitments, Dr. Heynen finds time to be a patient, caring, and selfless mentor within the discipline as well."