WKU News

Dr. David J. Keeling, University Distinguished Professor of Geography, was recognized with the Alan Hay Award on Wednesday (Aug. 28) by the Transport Geography Research Group at the annual meeting of the Royal Geographical Society in London.

The Alan Hay Award in Transport Geography is named in honor of Professor Alan Hay (Sheffield and Canterbury Christchurch) who had an outstanding research record in the sub-discipline. It is presented annually to a researcher who has made significant long-term contributions to Transport Geography. 

At the conference, Dr. Keeling presented “Restructuring the Argentine Airline System: Low-Cost Carriers, Global South-North Connections, and the Reorganization of Network Interactions” as part of a collection of papers given at the RGS conference and to be included in a Special Issue on Global South Aviation scheduled to appear in the Journal of Transport Geography in 2020.  He also participated in the annual editorial meeting of the Journal, for which he serves as an Associate Editor for the Americas.

The London conference capped off an extremely busy summer research and travel season for Dr. Keeling who, since the end of the Spring semester, has circumnavigated the planet three times, traveled about 80,000 miles, and visited 15 countries.

In late May, he completed survey work on the Lincolnshire (UK) rail line that is the focus of research on regional transport poverty. In June, he lectured on cultural, political and transport geography on an around-the-world expedition to Japan, Singapore, China, Nepal, Khazakhstan, Denmark and France. Following this expedition, he joined a second around-the-world expedition lecturing on geopolitics, climate change and resource management, and visited Japan, Mongolia, Russia, the Svalbards (Arctic), Iceland and Greenland. Then he headed to the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean, with a stopover in Kenya, to research small island mobility challenges. His final summer trip was to London for the annual RGS conference.

For information about Dr. Keeling’s research, teaching and travel, contact him at david.keeling@wku.edu or (270) 745-5985.