Week of March 29, 2004
Vincent Del Casino, Jr., an assistant professor in the Geography and Liberal Studies departments at California State University, Long Beach, has been selected as the first recipient of the Glenda Laws Award by the Association of American Geographers (AAG).
The annual award recognizes outstanding contributions to geographic research on social issues, with preference given to researchers who have received their Ph.D. within the last five years. Del Casino, who received his Ph.D. in 2000 from the University of Kentucky, will receive the award this week at the 2004 AAG Annual Meeting in Philadelphia.
Administered by the AAG and endorsed by members of the Institute of Australian Geographers, the Canadian Association of Geographers and the Institute of British Geographers, the award is named after Glenda Laws, a geographer who brought energy and enthusiasm to her work on issues of social justice and social policy.
"I know there are a number of newer scholars working in the areas of social justice and social activism in the field of geography. So, I was quite surprised when I found out that I had won the award," said Del Casino, who joined the CSULB faculty in fall 2000. "I am a big fan of Glenda Laws' work, so that made (being selected for the award) all the more exciting for me."
Del Casino is a researcher in the area of social justice and social policy, specifically the social and medical geography of HIV/AIDS in Thailand and Southern California, the social geography of sex tourism, feminist geography and the social construction and impacts of mental maps.
Described as a "prolific researcher" and "passionately committed," Del Casino was nominated for the award by Christine Rodrigue, professor and chair of the CSULB Geography Department, and Dennis Fisher, psychology professor and director of the CSULB Center for Behavioral Research and Services.
"More than simply researching these social issues as an academic pursuit, he is passionately committed to action in the world to ease the suffering of people with AIDS and HIV and help in the prevention of these diseases, especially in the marginalized and vulnerable communities in which they are making the most rapid headway," Rodrigue and Fisher stated in their nomination letter.
Those same qualities were echoed and added to in a supporting letter from John Paul Jones III, Del Casino's Ph.D. advisor at the University of Kentucky who is currently a professor and head of the Department of Geography and Regional Development at the University of Arizona.
"In addition to both the social commitments that drive this young scholar and the excellence and quantity of his work, I might also point out that his research was profoundly influenced by Glenda's own writing in medical geography," Jones wrote in the letter. "Vinny's contributions follow on in her efforts to rethink the traditional canon of medical geography, with an equal commitment to using the theories and methods of critical human geography for the improvement of people's lives."
In addition to his Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky, Del Casino earned his bachelor's degree from Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Penn., and his master's degree from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Founded in 1904, the Association of American Geographers is a scientific and educational society whose more than 7,500 members share interests in the theory, methods and practice of geography and geographic education.