Nominator: Dr. Jacob Bendix

Distinguished Professor Mark Monmonier of the Syracuse University Geography Department is more than worthy of the Sigma Xi Senior Award for Research Excellence, based on his outstanding career as a researcher, writer, and mentor of young scholars.

Professor Monmonier has made a career studying, writing, and teaching about maps. His work goes far beyond the technical details of mapmaking (though those are important) to consider the societal contexts and implications of map design and use. He has published his findings in both top-ranked scholarly journals and widely admired books. Monmonier’s work is so voluminous that it defies quantification – I gave up counting at 14 books and 100 journal articles and book chapters! Nor are these dry treatises gathering dust on the shelf – his books written in accessible language, and are regularly reviewed in venues ranging from the New York Times through Scientific American and the Harvard Law Review to the Sunday Telegraph of London.

Monmonier’s definitive analyses have covered a wide array of map related topics, as may be recognized simply from a limited sample of his book titles:

• Maps with the News: The Development of American Journalistic Cartography
• How to Lie with Maps (this one’s been published in translation in 5 languages)
• Cartographies of Danger: Mapping Hazards in America
• Air Apparent: How Meteorologists Learned to Map, Predict, and Dramatize Weather
• Bushmanders and Bullwinkles: How Politicians Manipulate Electronic Maps and Census Data to Win Elections
• Spying with Maps: Surveillance Technologies and the Future of Privacy

Each of these (and his other books as well) combines a meticulous compilation of technical detail with clear expository writing that illuminates the social importance of his topics. It’s this gift for combining rigorous research with clear-headed explanation of relevance that accounts for the range of plaudits Monmonier’s already received – not just awards from the Association of American Geographers, the American Geographical Society, the Canadian Cartographic Association, etc., but also glowing comments from the likes of political columnist David Broder.

In addition to the accomplishments described above, Monmonier is also the editor of Volume 6 of the History of Cartography, a massive multi-decade project creating the definitive history of map-making.

Any one of Professor Monmonier’s books, and several of his articles would serve alone to justify this award. Taken together, his many accomplishments epitomize the concept of “Research Excellence” and make him a most worthy recipient of the Sigma Xi Senior Award for Research Excellence.

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