Introductory Remarks (Trudy Ann Cameron, AERE President, 2007-2008)
The AERE Fellows program has now been running for three years. It was instituted to recognize outstanding contributions to the field by candidates with at least ten total years of AERE membership. Any current member of AERE can nominate a candidate for Fellow. Current AERE Board Members, however, are ineligible until their term of service has concluded. A nomination packet should include a vita of the nominee, three letters of support, and a two-page nomination letter outlining what contributions the individual has made that warrant the award. The deadline to submit nominations is June 1. Any nomination from a prior year can also be re-activated by contacting the AERE President before the nomination deadline (to ensure that a complete file is still available). Remember, any prospective Fellow needs a champion to lead the nomination process.
The Fellows Program is still very new. In the first three years, up to six Fellows could be selected. In all subsequent years, the number will be “up to three.” The 2005 (inaugural) Fellows—Maureen Cropper, Michael Hanemann, Karl-Goran Maler, Wally Oates, Kerry Smith, and Tom Tietenberg—were inducted at the January 2006 AERE Luncheon in Boston. Last year's 2006 Fellows, inducted at the January 2007 AERE Luncheon in Chicago, included Richard Bishop, Nancy Bockstael, Ron Cummings, Tony Fisher, Geoffrey Heal, and Cliff Russell.
The selection process continues to be very difficult. Board members are free to assign their own subjective weights to the many (very different) types of contributions. If someone you think should be an AERE Fellow has not yet been selected, I heartily encourage you to nominate (or renominate) them. I don’t think we are anywhere near having a steady-state supply of just three worthy new Fellows each year.
In this year’s ceremony, I will borrow liberally from the various nomination materials which were received by AERE’s Board of Directors. It has been truly wonderful, each year, to learn of the exceptionally high regard in which AERE Fellows are held.
I will announce the new 2007 AERE Fellows one at a time, in alphabetical order. But before we start, we must note that almost nobody accomplishes great things entirely alone. The fact that we today celebrate the achievements of these six new Fellows in no way diminishes the value of the assistance and indulgence they have received in order to do their work so well. In honoring each new Fellow, we also honor their families, their collaborators and research assistants, referees and editors, discussants, seminar and conference audiences, their colleagues and support staffs, university administrators, alumni donors, proposal review panels and funding agencies, and so on. Our thanks to all of these individuals for the assistance they have given, large and small, that has helped our Fellows contribute so much to our profession.
