The 2026 AAG annual meeting was in San Francisco this week and represents something like coming full circle for me. My very first AAG meeting was in SF 10 years ago while I was a grad student at Berkeley. I didn’t really know what I was doing. It was one of the first conferences I’d ever attended, and really I just enjoyed wandering around spotting geographers I admired.

Fast forward to the present and I had a packed slate all week. Before the conference started, I got to attend the Spatial Data Science Symposium hosted by the Berkeley Institute for Data Science and Serge Rey’s PySAL team. At AAG proper, I organized three sessions on urban spatial analytics with Elizabeth Delmelle, gave a talk in one of them, and spoke on one of Serge’s open-source spatial software panels.

But now I’ve buried the lede. The most exciting thing for me was that AAG SAM (the spatial analysis and modeling group) awarded me their 2026 Emerging Scholar Award. What I like best about spatial analysis is how it bridges disciplines and brings together so many different people, questions, and ideas. Most of my research is about (urban) geography and is often in collaboration with geographers, and being an urban planner often feels like being an honorary geographer. I’m really grateful to this group for always making me feel welcome as a member of this community.

See you all in New York next year!