Outstanding paper in energy geographies award

This award recognizes an outstanding article in a peer-reviewed journal in the field of energy geographies. Submissions will be evaluated for originality, significance, contribution to the energy geographies literature, and potential for impact beyond academia. Award winners will be invited to give the EESG plenary talk at a future AAG Annual Meeting, a keynote talk at the EESG annual conference, or a talk in the EESG speaker series. 

Eligibility 

• The primary author must have a terminal degree 

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

• The nominee must be a current member of AAG and EESG at the time of application, or become an EESG member upon or prior to receipt of the award 

Self-nominations are accepted. All aspects of energy geography topics — theoretical, conceptual, methodological, and pedagogical — will be considered. 

Submission instructions 

Submit your nominated paper and a 300-word narrative explaining the significance of this paper by following this link. 

Submission Deadline: Sunday, December 6, 2026 at 11:59pm ET (USA) 

Incomplete applications or applications arriving after the announced closing date will not be considered. EESG will notify the winners as soon as possible, and will make every reasonable effort to do so by one month before the meeting. The results will be announced in the EESG Business Meeting at the AAG Annual Meeting. Attendance at the conference is not a condition of this award. Papers submitted in any given year may also be considered for the award in future years if they remain eligible. 

Questions? Contact Johanna Engström (joem@ufl.edu; Co-Chair) or Tiffany Grobelski (grobelski@gustavus.edu; Co-Chair)

About this award 

This award has carried three names. It was the Professional Geographer Award until 2024, the Energy Luminary Award in 2024–25, and is now the Outstanding Paper in Energy Geographies Award. 

The current name describes what the award actually recognizes. From the beginning it has honored a single published article, not a body of work or a career, and the earlier names did not make that clear. The new name states the criterion plainly. 

Past recipients under all three names are listed below.

Current Winner:

2026: Dr. Tom Ptak, Texas State University,  "Repositioning energy geographies in a time of crisis: Arguments from a subdiscipline on the margins of geography" Dialogues in Human Geography, 20438206251316024. https://doi.org/10.1177/20438206251316025.

Honorable Mention:

Chinedu Nsude, University of Oklahoma, "Renewables but unjust? Critical restoration geography as a framework for addressing global renewable energy injustice" Energy Research & Social Science https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2024.103609

Past Winners:

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 

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.