ENERGY LUMINARY Award

AAG EESG Guidelines for Energy Luminary Award

In 2024, the "Professional Geographer Award" was renamed the "Energy Luminary Award." 

At the 2015 EESG business meeting, we voted to modify the selection process. The award will be given based on a review of published papers in peer reviewed journals, which will be nominated for consideration by the EESG community. This document outlines eligibility, selection criteria, and a timeline for the award. 

Candidate Eligibility:

• Candidate must have completed graduate school (i.e. currently holds a Master’s or PhD degree)

• Candidate must be the primary author of the paper

• Candidate must attend the AAG and give the plenary talk 

• Candidate must be willing to serve as a judge for the Energy Luminary Award for at least the next year

Paper Eligibility: 

• Papers will be nominated by the EESG membership

• Self-nominations are accepted

• Paper must have been published in a peer-reviewed academic journal within the last three years

• All treatments (theoretical, conceptual, methodological) of energy geography topics will be considered

Review Criteria:

• Papers will be evaluated using a 1-4 scale (1: poor, 4: outstanding) for the following criteria:

  • Originality

  • Significance of the topic

  • Contribution to energy geography literature

  • Theoretical engagement

  • Potential impact beyond academia

Nomination Process:

• Submit your nomination by following this link

Timeline:

• Nomination deadline: February 3rd, 2025 at 11:59 PM ET

• Winner announcement at the EESG Business Meeting

Current Winner:

2025: Jennifer Baka, Penn State University: "Cracking Appalachia: A Political-Industrial Ecology Perspective. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2025.2452554 

Past Winners:

2024: Alida Cantor, Portland State University: "Energy Storage and Environmental Justice: A Critical Examination of a Proposed Pumped Hydropower Facility in Goldendale, Washington" Antipode, https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12994

2023: Ankit Kumar, University of Sheffield: "Energy geographies in/of the Anthropocene: Where now?" (2022) Geographic Compass 16(10) e12659

2022: Benjamin Sovacool, University of Sussex Business School: "Dispossessed by decarbonization: Reducing vulnerability, injustice, and inequality in the lived experience of low-carbon pathways." (2021) World Development 137: 105116 

2021: No contest

2020: Michael Simpson, University of St. Andrews: “The Annihilation of Time by Space: Pluri-Temporal Strategies of Capitalist Circulation.” Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space 2, no. 1 (March 2019): 110–28.

2019: Julia Haggerty, University of Montana, and Adrianne Kropesch, Colorado School of Mines: “Geographies of Impact and the Impacts of Geography: Unconventional Oil and Gas in the American West.” The Extractive Industries and Society 5 (4): 619–33.

2018: No Applicants

2017: Mónica Salas Landa, Cornell Unviersity, "Crude residues: The workings of failing oil infrastructures in Poza Rica, Veracruz, Mexico." Environment and Planning A 48 (4): 718-735.