The articles in this section come from the 2020 Nystrom Competition. The competition, sponsored by a fund established by J. Warren Nystrom, Executive Director of the American Association of Geographers (AAG) from 1966 to 1979, awards annual prizes for papers based on recent dissertations in geography. Participation in the competition is restricted to persons who have received their doctorates within the previous three years and were AAG members during those years.
The competition occurs in two stages. Applicants who wish to participate in the competition submit papers to the AAG’s Nystrom Award Review Committee. The 2020 Committee was chaired by Dydia DeLyser. Committee members included Pablo Bose, Yongwan Chun, Christina Dando, Sara McLafferty, and Ronald Schumann. The Committee selected a group of finalists whose papers were judged meritorious for presentation in special sessions at the 2020 annual meeting. Finalists’ papers were then judged on the following criteria: originality of ideas and potential contribution to the advancement of knowledge in particular subfields of the discipline, clarity and effectiveness of the written paper, and quality and effectiveness of the oral presentation.
After the meeting all of the presenters were invited to submit their papers for possible publication in The Professional Geographer. Two papers were submitted for peer review, following the same procedures as all submissions to The Professional Geographer. Two revised papers were accepted for publication in this Focus Section. We are pleased to continue the tradition of presenting these Nystrom papers in The Professional Geographer.