Each Spring, thousands of geographers from around the world gather to share research, educational information, and discuss policy initiatives at the American Association of Geographers (AAG) annual conference: AAG Annual Meeting 2025. The conference is so large that it rotates among select locations in the United States with meeting space large enough for the group. This year, the conference will be held in downtown Detroit at Huntington Place from March 24 to March 28. Past conferences have taken place in New Orleans, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Chicago and Boston. The conference uses multiple means of sharing the state of science in the discipline, ranging from workshops, poster presentations, paper presentations, and panel discussions. The scope of research presented at the conference demonstrates the breadth of topics and methods investigated by geographers. Examples of the type of presentations that one can find at this conference include: “Climate Research in Geography,” “Waste(d) Ecologies and Toxic Geographies,” Spatializing Uncertainty: Critical Geographies of Insurance,” and “Account for Space 1: Following money and power across financial infrastructures”.
Many of the sessions at the conference are sponsored by one of the specialty groups that represent groups of researchers and educators interested in a particular topic. There are over 80 AAG specialty groups (Full List of AAG Specialty Groups), each of which has a meeting at the annual conference. Examples of some of these specialty groups include Biogeography, Economic Geography, Human Dimensions of Global Change, and Geographic Information Science & Systems. These groups are a wonderful way for early career scholars to develop professional networks and leadership skills. Several geography departments also host receptions for alumni and friends at the conference. The MSU department is no exception; a reception will be held at the Firebird Tavern on Thursday, March 27 and we hope to see you there. Click here for more details.
The department is also excited to announce that Professor Jiquan Chen will receive the 2025 American Association of Geographers Distinguished Scholarship Award at the conference in recognition of his transformative impact on geography and environmental science. With over 600 publications and more than $30 million in research funding, Dr. Chen has made significant advances in understanding global ecosystems and the interactions between humans and nature. His groundbreaking SESometry framework has provided a new approach to measuring and analyzing the socioecological impacts of climate change, influencing both policy and scientific research worldwide. Click here to learn more.
The department has a long history of involvement in the AAG. Professor emeritus Judy M. Olson served as AAG president between 1995-1996. Professor emeritus Julie Winkler served as AAG president between 2013-2014. The department also has several AAG Fellows, who are people who have made significant contributions to advancing geography. The list of MSU AAG fellows includes Joe T. Darden (2018), Julie Winkler (2020), and Judy Olson (2021).
At the conference in Detroit, several members of the department will be participating in panels, paper and poster sessions, and workshops. Below is a list of activities by students and faculty in the department in alphabetical order.
Leo Baldiga
Panelist: Agro-industrial transformation and crises
Katie Brown
Paper Presentation: Residents changing perceptions of gentrification across time and their mental health in Detroit, Michigan
Session Organizer: Exploring Rural-Urban Health Disparities
Guo Chen
Lead Organizer, chair, and introducer, AAG Detroit Symposium Celebrating Book How to Foster Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice in Geography Plenary
Lead Organizer and co-chair, AAG Detroit Symposium Celebrating Book How to Foster Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice in Geography Author Conversation I
Organizer and chair, AAG Detroit Symposium Celebrating Book How to Foster Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice in Geography Author Conversation II
Co-organizer and panelist, Publishing in Geography
Co-organizer and introducer, Dialogues on Global Waste Geographies
Jiquan Chen
Paper presentation: Silk Road Cities through the Lens of Urban-Rural Continuum: Concept, Evidence and Modeling, will take place in the session “Land Use and Social Issues.”
Joe Darden
Webinar: Detroit After Bankruptcy: Were There Measurable Changes in the Quality of Life of the Residents?
Black Geographies Specialty Group Plenary Session: Honoring Black Geographers: Past, Present, and Future of the Field
AAG Detroit Symposium Celebrating the Book, How to Foster Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice in Geography (E Elgar 2024) Plenary
Mehmet Eroğlu
Paper Presentation: Mining Their Own Business: Everyday Power Struggles Between Informal Miners and State Officials in Turkey
Paper Presentation: Blurred Lines Underground: Entanglements of Formal and Informal Mining in Turkey
Panel Presentation: Transforming Global Drug Economies: Responsive Geographic Research and Repair in the Face of Criminalization and Corporatization
Organized Session: Revisiting Labor Geography: Reflections and Future Pathways
Organized Session: Drugs: Past and Present Geographies
Sue Grady
Paper Presentation: Children’s Blood Lead Levels in Detroit: A Medical Geography Assessment
Geoffrey Henebry
Paper presentation: Henebry GM, MA Tomaszewska, Sîrodoev, A Schvab. 2025. Rapid characterization of cropland seasonality through leveraging high cadence time series. This talk will be presented in the session: Advancing agricultural monitoring through remote sensing
Yousef Khajavigodellou
Paper session: Transboundary River Basin Water Diplomacy 1: Navigating Water Scarcity and Geopolitical Tensions
Panel session: Transboundary River Basin Water Diplomacy 2: Advancing the Water-Energy-Food Nexus
Xin Lan
Virtual Paper Presentation: Process-Guided Deep Learning Models for Predicting Lake Temperature Profiles
Arika Ligmann-Zielinska
Paper Presentation: Global Sensitivity Analysis for Improved Understanding of Mechanisms Underlying Spatial Simulation Models of Coupled Human and Natural Systems
Session: AAG 2025 Symposium on Spatial AI & Data Science for Sustainability: Advances & Approaches in Coupled Human and Natural Systems Science
Hyunseo Park
Paper Presentation: Determinants of Demographic Shifts Pre-to-Post-COVID-19 in the San Francisco Bay Area:
Ryan Shadbolt
Virtual Panel: The Importance of Early Career Mentorship
Poster Presentation: Geography Education Poster Presentation
Panel Presentation: Charting New Paths: Amplifying Voices of Emerging Pathway Student
Panel Presentation: Future Leaders in Action: Insights from Award-Winning GIS Pathway Students
Brennan Pascal Standel
Paper Presentation: Fodder, Fruit, and Forests: A Political Ecology Examination of Senegalese Pastoral Perspectives
Ethan Theuerkauf
Mapping social trails along Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore using Apple Lidar in the “General Geomorphology Paper Session.
Vasya Tolmanov
Paper presentation: Quantitative Analysis of Soil Moisture and Temperature Effects on Active Layer Formation in Kuparuk Basin, Northern Alaska
Angelique Willis
Paper Presentation: Investigating the Association Between Geological Features and Chemical Contamination in Georgia’s Private Wells
Jeffrey Wilson
Author Meets Critic: Jeffrey Wilson and Bambi Kramer’s We Live Here: Detroit Eviction Defense and the Battle for Housing Justice