Dr. Keith Debbage (Geography, Environment, and Sustainability) received the American Association of Geographers (AAG) 2020 Media Achievement Award for his efforts in finding the right voice to bring geographic scholarship to the public sphere.
Debbage’s research spans local-scale urban planning, regional economic decline and recovery, and the impacts of creative economies. The AAG notes that Debbage “breaks the complexity down into jargon-free and readable packets of knowledge.”
“Debbage draws on his scholarship, extensive professional service, including his appointment as a Coleman Foundation Fellow, and his lived experience when communicating with the public, such as in his recent columns on the power of local-scale entrepreneurialism and the role of higher education in the economic and cultural life of North Carolina,” the Association’s award announcement continues. “A disarming folksiness is underlain by decades of applied scholarship, much of it completed with external grant and contract funding.”
