David Kaplan, a geography professor, will be the new president of the American Association of Geographers (AAG).

Kaplan has been a part of the American Geographical Society (AGS) since 1984 and served as the vice president last year. His term as president will start July 1 and run until 2020.

“One thing that made me especially proud is that the presidents are almost always from very, very large universities, big state flagship universities or an Ivy League school,” Kaplan said. “I’m probably the first president to come from a place that’s more like a research university like Kent State.”

The theme of Kaplan’s presidency is “expanding the community of geography” by making the AAG a more welcoming organization to the smaller colleges and inviting more geographers into the organization.

“One thing I am doing is I am working on putting together a variety of panels and task forces on how do we better represent the interests of geographers in places like a community college or, what we call, stand-alone geographers,” Kaplan said.

Kaplan has written about 60 peer-reviewed articles and chapters. He is also the editor of AGS’ flagship journal, “Geographical Review,” according to the press release.

“David has been part of the leadership of AGS for several years and will make an excellent president of our sister organization, the AAG,” John Konarski, the chief executive officer of AGS, said in the press release. “We congratulate him and look forward to continued collaboration with the AAG.”

Correction: The initial story incorrectly stated that Kaplan is a geology professor. The story is corrected to state that he is a geography professor.  

Kimberly Fisher is a general assignment reporter. Contact her at [email protected].