The Michael Breheny Prize is awarded annually for the most innovative paper in
Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science
during the preceding year. It is awarded in recognition of the contribution of Michael Breheny, who was a co-editor of the journal from 1989 until his untimely death in 2003.
The paper is chosen by the editors. This year Michael Batty, Daniel Arribas-Bel, Seraphim Alvanides, Richard Harris, Linda See and Sarah Williams made the choice, agreeing that the best paper published in 2018 be awarded to Joseph Gibbons, Atsushi Nara and Bruce Appleyard for their paper “Exploring the imprint of social media networks on neighborhood community through the lens of gentrification,” published in
Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science
, 2018, Vol.
45
(3) 470–488, DOI: 10.1177/2399808317728289.
Dr. Joseph Gibbons
is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Associate Director of the Human Dynamics in the Mobile Age Center at San Diego State University. He received his PhD in Sociology from the University at Albany, SUNY. He is an urban sociologist interested in how neighborhoods affect the well-being of their residents. His research centers on how forces of ethnoracial inequality in the form of residential segregation and gentrification affect individual health and healthy behaviors. A key component of this dynamic is how segregation and gentrification uniquely impact one's sense of connection to their local community. To study these phenomenon, Dr. Gibbons draws on a number of data sources, including in-person interviews, demographic analysis of census data, electronic health records like cancer registries, and the use of “big data” new media sources like Twitter.
Dr. Atsushi Nara
is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Associate Director for the Center for Human Dynamics in the Mobile Age at San Diego State University. He received his PhD in geography from Arizona State University. He worked as a post-doctoral research scientist at the Center for Spatial Analysis at the University of Oklahoma. His research interests focus on Geographic Information Science, spatiotemporal data analytics, geo-computation approaches, agent-based modeling and complex adaptive systems, applied to study human mobility, urban dynamics, and interdisciplinary fields. In recent years, he has worked on multiple interdisciplinary projects to apply GIScience and geo-computation for: supporting spatial decisions under emergency evacuation; examining spatial disparities in public health and cancer epidemiology; understanding the impacts of air pollution in the California-Mexico border region; and identifying strategies to build capacity for geo-computational thinking in preK-14 education.
Dr. Bruce Appleyard
is an Associate Professor of City Planning/Urban Design at San Diego State University (SDSU) where he helps people and agencies make more informed decisions about how we live, work and thrive. Working from the human to regional/ecosystem scale, he is an author of numerous peer-reviewed and professional publications, and is a renowned expert on urban quality, street design, active & green travel, the future of transport, as well as how to coordinate housing, land use, urban design and transportation to help places become more sustainable, livable and equitable through planning support tools (PSTs) like his online Smart Growth Equity Calculator (http://bit.ly/SmartGrowth Equity)—designed to help people take action to coordinate transportation, housing, and climate action planning. In 2006, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation named Dr. Appleyard, alongside Barack Obama, as one of their Top Ten “Active Living Heroes” for his work helping communities. Dr. Appleyard holds a Doctorate (as well as a Masters and Bachelors) from the University of California at Berkeley where he grew up.
