Pennsylvania State University Professor Amy Glasmeier Named John D. Whisman Scholar December 2005

WASHINGTON, December 13, 2005—The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) has selected Amy K. Glasmeier, E.Willard Miller Professor of Economic Geography at Pennsylvania State University, to serve as John D. Whisman Scholar for fiscal years (FY) 2006 and 2007. As ARC's John D. Whisman Scholar, Glasmeier will engage in research on critical concerns and issues facing the Appalachian Region.

Glasmeier's work will involve leveraging ARC program research and boosting economic development in the Appalachian Region, with special consideration of the needs of economically distressed counties. She will also advise the Commission on the strategic use of universities in increasing the knowledge base of the Region.

Glasmeier succeeds Mark L. Weinberg of Ohio University, who served as the Whisman scholar in FY 2004 and FY 2005. The John D. Whisman Scholar program honors John Whisman, a longtime aide to Kentucky governor Bert Combs, who is widely credited with energizing President John F. Kennedy's vision of a regional approach to combating chronic poverty in Appalachia.

In addition to her current role as professor of economic geography, Glasmeier has served as director of the university's environmental inquiry minor; editor of Economic Geography; director of the Center for Regional Research and Industrial Studies, and the Center for Trade, Technology, and Economic Growth, at the Institute for Policy Research and Evaluation at Pennsylvania State University; and acting department head of the university's Department of Geography. She previously served as the Whisman scholar from 1996 to 1998.

Her publications include: An Atlas of Poverty in America: One Nation, Pulling Apart, 1960–2003; A Commonwealth or a Digital Divide: Broad Band Capability in Rural Pennsylvania; Manufacturing Time: Global Competition in the World Watch Industry, 1795–2000; Global and Local Challenges to Theory, Practice, and Teaching in Economic Geography; Branch Plants and Rural Development in the Age of Globalization; and The High-Tech Potential: Economic Development in Rural America.

She is the North American and book editor of Regional Studies and the past chair of the Economic Geography Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers.