Frank Magilligan Receives Distinguished Career Award for Geography

Geography professor Frank Magilligan, the Frank J. Reagan '09 Chair of Policy Studies, will be recognized by the American Association of Geographers for his distinguished career.

On March 26, Magilligan will receive the 2025 Melvin G. Marcus Distinguished Career Award, which honors individuals who have made significant, career-long contributions to geomorphology—the study of how landforms evolve. Magilligan was nominated for his contributions to fluvial geomorphology research and unwavering dedication to mentoring students throughout his career.

"I was incredibly surprised and delighted to receive this nomination," says Magilligan. "To be recognized by this group just makes me realize what a great community it's been for me for the past 40 years."

In his 35 years at Dartmouth, Magilligan has studied how water systems shape the Earth in various contexts—from analyzing the impacts of natural disasters including glacial outbursts and hurricanes, to reconstructing climates from 20,000 years ago using ancient flood data.

He's also endeavored to incorporate the human, political angle into his research and teaching by investigating how river systems respond and recover from acute disturbances, such as floods, and chronic disturbances, such as logging, agriculture, and dam construction and removal.

"Sometimes I can't tell if I'm a scientist or an ambulance chaser," says Magilligan. "I've always walked this bridge, no pun intended, between the science and policy of water writ large."

In addition to his considerable contributions to the science of fluvial geomorphology, Magilligan has always dedicated himself to mentoring junior scientists and "helping them to climb up the ladder of success." At Dartmouth, this involved assisting undergraduates with their senior theses and mentoring graduate students through his adjunct position in the Department of Earth Sciences. He also makes a concerted effort to support students and early-career researchers at conferences and while visiting other universities.  

"Graduate students and recent PhDs often need some help navigating the academic world, and I've always done my best to provide opportunities for other people," says Magilligan.

Although Magilligan will retire from teaching this summer, he has no plans to give up research or writing anytime soon.

"I'm not going to take up golf or gardening on July 1, that's for sure," says Magilligan. "My brain is still working, so I'm trying to take advantage of that to finish this book and to finish some of these projects."

He spends much of this time writing a Guggenheim fellowship funded book that "pulls together various threads to weave a story of how river restoration has evolved over the past 50 years."

"The way we talk about river restoration has changed dramatically over the past 100 years," says Magilligan. "One hundred years ago, if I were to say we're going to do some river improvements, usually that meant putting in a levee or a dam, or channelizing the river—anything that had an economic or social benefit was considered an improvement—whereas now we think those things that are part of river degradation, and 'improvement' now means ways of restoring river systems. I'm exploring, in my view from 30,000 feet, how those shifts in language and paradigm inform how we deal with rivers."

Magilligan expresses gratitude for the institutional and collegial support he's received at Dartmouth.

"These things don't happen in a vacuum, and the great institutional support along the way has certainly launched and benefited my professional trajectory," says Magilligan. "Having tremendous support from my colleagues in a great department has also made this thing called a career fun and achievable."