Royal Holloway researcher receives award from ....

04 June 2009, 5:27pm

Dr Katie Willis at the Royal Geographical Society with IBG Annual General Meeting in London

Royal Holloway researcher receives award from Royal Geographical Society with IBG

Dr Katie Willis, from the Department of Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London, was awarded the Gill Memorial Award by the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) with the Institute of British Geographers (IBG).

The Gill Memorial Award, which acknowledges great potential and achievements in geographical research, was presented to Dr Willis at the RGS-IBG's Annual General Meeting on Monday 1 June 2009.

Dr Willis was commended for her tremendous achievements across all aspects of academic life, including publications on gender, identity and migration, and a text book on 'Theories and Practices of Development', which have had a significant impact on geographical studies.

Dr Willis was one of 17 people honoured by RGS-IBG for their achievements in geographical research, fieldwork, teaching and public engagement; including climate change expert Lord Nicolas Stern, television presenter Neil Oliver and natural history cinematographer Simon King.

Dr Rita Gardner CBE, Director of the RGS-IBG, said: 'We are delighted to recognise Katie's work with the prestigious Gill Memorial Award. She is an outstanding colleague who brings unstinting generosity of time, energy and
commitment to all her professional roles and relationships'.

She added, 'With an aptitude for empirically rich field-based work that stretches across regions including China, Latin America and the West, her recently published book on development geography promises to challenge the
discipline even further'.

Dr Willis commented, 'I was delighted to receive the Gill Memorial Award. I have been working on issues around gender and development, migration, urbanisation and health in Latin America and East Asia for over fifteen years. This work has been conducted in collaboration with colleagues in Mexico, Peru and Singapore and it was a real honour to have this work recognised by the RGS-IBG'.

RGS-IBG and this year's award winners

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