UW-Madison Professor of Geography Matthew Turner received the 2023 Presidential Achievement Award from the American Association of Geographers (AAG). This is the highest honor bestowed upon Professional Academic Geographers. In a January 2023 letter to Professor Turner, past AAG President Emily T. Yeh explained, “In choosing you for the 2023 AAG Presidential Achievement Award, I recognize you, among other merits, for your extensive and profoundly interdisciplinary contributions to nature-society geography, particularly of arid and semi-arid regions of West Africa.”

The official award announcement goes on to state: “Prof. Matthew Turner, for his extensive and profoundly interdisciplinary contributions to nature-society geography, particularly of arid and semi-arid regions of West Africa. His research blends a deep understanding of place and cultural practices with expertise in biophysical geography and geospatial analysis.”

Bringing long-term ethnographic fieldwork together with household surveys, GIS, remote sensing, and soil analysis, Dr. Turner has made substantial contributions to political ecology, development geography, common property theory, the ecology of tropical savanna vegetation, and rangeland ecology. Moreover, through the integration of rigorous social theoretical engagement with mixed social science and ecological methods, Dr. Turner has fundamentally challenged dominant narratives surrounding environmental science and resource management in the Sahel and across semi-arid ecosystems more broadly. His scholarly interventions also include bringing political ecology together with Science and Technology Studies, and advancing geographical knowledge about pastoralism, gendered dimensions of food insecurity, and climate change and conflict.

Dr. Turner has served as department chair as well as director of the University of Wisconsin Land Tenure Center. Known as an extraordinarily generous mentor to students and junior faculty alike, Dr. Turner has advised 26 PhD students and 43 graduate students in total. He is the Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of Geography at the University of Madison Wisconsin.”

Professor Turner was presented with the award during the AAG Past President’s Address at the annual AAG conference in Denver, Colorado on Saturday, March 25, 2023. The UW-Madison Department of Geography wishes to offer our warmest congratulations to Professor Matt Turner for this amazing achievement!