Mark Monmonier (’67, ’69 EMS) distinguished professor of geography, Syracuse University, and writer, has been awarded the 2007 Charles L. Hosler Alumni Scholar Medal by the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences at Penn State for his important contributions to the advancement of knowledge through research, scholarship, and exceptional leadership.
 
Monmonier has made exceptional accomplishments in the field of cartography. His academic career started at University of Rhode Island and carried him to the State University of New York at Albany, before accepting a position at Syracuse University in 1973. Monmonier’s research interests include geographic information and society, the history of cartography in the Twentieth Century, map design, and environmental cartography. He executes critical examinations of maps as analytical and persuasive tools in homeland security, journalism, politics, public administration, and science, legal and ethical issues of geographic information in intellectual property, liability, privacy, public access including mapping policy at the state and national levels, and risk mapping of natural and technological hazards.
 
Monmonier’s ability to communicate this geographic scholarship to a lay public through his writing and teaching, his exemplary service to his science, as well as his numerous writings and presentations have earned the respect of his colleagues and geographic community at large. His achievements have been recognized by the Guggenheim Foundation, Pennsylvania Geographical Society, American Geographical Society, Association of American Geographers, Canadian Cartographic Association, and both Penn State and Syracuse University.