Two University of Georgia faculty have been awarded 2023 Guggenheim Fellowships by the Board of Trustees of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, according to a press release from UGA Media Relations.
Andrew Herod, a distinguished research professor of geography and Sonia A. Hirt, dean of the College of Environment and Design are among the 171 writers, scientists, artists and scholars honored across 48 fields. The fellowship is awarded annually to those “who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts,” the release said.
Herod is an economics geographer and serves as director of UGA á Paris study away program. He focuses on the nature and spatial dynamics of economic transformation and his research has had broad focuses, ranging from exploring the impact of containerization on the labor process to how the collapse of communism affected worker organization in the former Eastern bloc, according to the release.
Herod’s Guggenheim project is about the US and international poultry industry and includes a planned book, titled “Chicken: A Geographical Political Economy,” which will explore the industry’s growth and contemporary global development.
“I want to thank the Guggenheim Foundation for this recognition, together with the many people at UGA who have helped me during the course of my career and whose support has enabled me to achieve this honor,” Herod said in the release.
Besides being the dean of the CED, Hirt is also Hughes Professor in Landscape Architecture and Planning. She studies the intersection of society, culture and space to understand the relationship between cultural values and urban forms, and to create opportunities to make cities more equitable, prosperous and sustainable, the release said.
Hirt trained as an architect in her hometown of Sofia, Bulgaria, and earned a master’s and PhD in urban planning from the University of Michigan. Her 90 publications have garnered more than 3,000 citations and support from many organizations, including the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Foundation of University Women, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Fulbright Program, according to the release.
Hirt’s Guggenheim project will explore how ideas of space and time have evolved through U.S. history and how they impact how Americans design and live in spaces today, as well as continuing work on her sixth book “America’s Hurry: Making Sense of Time and Space in My Adopted Country,” according to the press release. Her work will look at the U.S.as a “land of plenty” but with a unique way of considering time, stating that Americans are “space-rich but time-poor.”
“Even in my wildest dreams I have not imagined winning a Guggenheim,” Hirt said in the release. “It is an incredible honor to be part of the Guggenheim community and an equally great honor to represent UGA.”
