In April 2000, MRD Founding Editor Jack D. Ives received two distinguished awards from the American Association of Geographers (AAG), a scientific and educational association founded in 1904. AAG has 6500 members who share a common interest in the theory, methods, and practice of geography. The Association holds well-attended annual meetings, publishes two scholarly journals (the Annals of the Association of American Geographers and The Professional Geographer) and a monthly Newsletter, and organizes activities through its nine regional divisions and 53 specialty groups. AAG also carries out educational and research projects to advance its interests and its programs.
The first award was bestowed by AAG's Mountain Geography Specialty Group. This group attempts to “foster communication, promote basic and applied research, enhance education, and encourage service related to mountain peoples and mountain environments and their interactions.” The “Distinguished Career Award” given to Jack by the Mountain Geography Specialty Group cited him as a person “whose leadership and enthusiasm for geographic inquiry in mountain regions have fostered, encouraged, achieved and enriched nearly half a century of geographical research in mountains.”
The second award was bestowed by AAG's Geomorphology Specialty Group, whose aim is to “foster better communication among those working in the geomorphic sciences, especially in geography.” Jack received the Group's “Melvin G. Marcus Distinguished Career Award” for his “extraordinary contributions to geomorphology in geography as field researcher, institute director, mentor, author, editor, challenger of conventional wisdom, and promoter of collaborative efforts to better understand high latitude and high altitude environments.” The late Melvin Marcus, for whom the award is named, died several years ago while doing winter fieldwork in the San Juan Mountains of southwest Colorado. Marcus was a close friend of Jack's and a long-time supporter of IMS/MRD.
Mountain Research and Development is particularly proud that its founding editor has been honored with these two distinguished awards. Both awards testify to the quality of Jack's work, the wide range of methods he has explored, and the scientific vision that he has exemplified through many decades of dedicated involvement in multidisciplinary approaches to mountain geography.
