New York City, NY — The American Geographical Society (AGS) announced the recipients of the 2026 AGS Council Fellowships to support master’s and doctoral research. Among the recipients is Matthew Hiett, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign. Masters and doctoral students from American universities are eligible to apply for the Fellowships. Established in 2013, each recipient receives a $2,000 award for their graduate research project. AGS will recognize the four Fellows during its annual Fall Symposium, Geography 2050, to be held November 19-20, 2026, in New York City.
Mr. Hiett will use the fellowship to fund his research project, Urban Morphology and Neighborhood Delineation in Chicago’s Real Estate State. He wrote, “Streets, plots, and buildings cohere into a durable urban morphology that sorts accessibility, capital flows, and opportunity. My dissertation asks whether the physical characteristics of urban form create neighborhood boundaries that organize patterns of investment, displacement, and gentrification.”He remarked, “I am grateful to the American Geographical Society for supporting this work. The fellowship will directly fund fieldwork and data acquisition in Chicago, connecting the computational analysis central to my dissertation to the material city. Understanding how physical urban form and policy interact to produce neighborhood change has real implications for how we study and govern cities, and I am both glad and honored to pursue that question with the AGS Council's support.”
Dr. Marie Price, President of AGS and Chair of the Selection Committee, remarked, “The Council of the American Geographical Society is pleased to award four research grants to student members of the society. In our effort to support the next generation of scholars and practitioners we began the Council Fellowships ten years ago. We have awarded 49 Council Fellowships since 2014. Our intent is to expand the program in coming years to fund more awards through partnering with the AGS Champions program. Congratulations to this year's winners.”
The AGS is a 21st-century learning society dedicated to the advancement of geographic thinking, knowledge, and understanding across business, government, academe, social sectors, and most importantly with teachers and students. The vision of AGS is to be the foremost champion of geography for the benefit of society. The mission of AGS is to convene a diverse global community of innovators, thinkers, and practitioners; create and curate geographical knowledge, learning, and exploration; and advance geographic knowledge and technologies to address society’s challenges and opportunities. Established in 1851, AGS is the oldest professional geographical organization in the United States and is recognized worldwide as a pioneer in geographical research and education. AGS seeks to engage the American public, from its youngest to its oldest citizens, with new and amazing ways to understand and characterize our changing world. The Society maintains its headquarters in New York City.