Anne Buttimer#

Original article

Glenville lady is world renowned

Published in The Avondhu, 20.08.09

Rubbing shoulders with the world’s most famous of people is nothing new to Glenville lady, Proffessor Anne Buttimer who has recently been honoured by the Swedish Society for anthropology and geography. A world renowned geographer, she has the distinction of being the first woman and the first Irish person to be elected president of the International Geographical Union.

Professor Buttimer, who came to live in Glenville when she was just eight years of age, was Professor and Head of the Department of Geography in UCD from 1991 – 2003. She has made significant academic contributions to the history and philosophy of geographical thought and practice; to human and cultural geography, particularly the temporal and spatial aspects of everyday life and, to the understanding of the interactions between science and policy. She has published 50 academic articles in peer-reviewed journals, and is the author or editor of 18 books.

In August 2000 Professor Buttimer was elected president of the International Geographical Union. In her role as president of the IGU she was invited to meet Pope John Paul II in the Vatican and had the honour of awarding the International Geographical Union’s Planet and Humanity Medal to Mikael Gorbachev in June 2004 and one month later, made the same presentation to Nelson Mandela in Durban, South Africa.

She was presented with the Johan August Wallberg gold medal by King Carl Gustaf of Sweden in recognition for her contribution to humanistic geography and the development of geography in Sweden. Professor Buttimer has a long association with Sweden, visiting Fulbright Professor of Social Ecology at Lund University in 1976 having been a full time researcher there between 1977 and 1979 and again from 1982 to 1988.

Her association with Swedish geography continues to this day and her book with Bom Mels ‘By Northern Lights’ on the making of geography in Sweden, provides a comprehensive account on developments in science and society over several centuries. The book is now used in courses in vetenskapsteori throughout Scandinavia. The August Johan Wahlberg Gold Medal is only one in a long line of awards and honours Professor Buttimer has received over her career that include an Association of American Geographers Honours Award 1986; Honours Award, Taiwan Geographical Society 1990; Ellen Chuchill Semple Award, University of Kentucky 1991; Royal Geographical Society (UK) Murchison Award 1997; Royal Scottish Millennium Award 2000; Membre D’Honneur, Societe de Geographie 2001; Socio D’onore Societa Geografica, Italiana 2006; and Honorary doctorates from University of Joensuu, 1999 and Tartu University 2004.