Career Achievement Award Honors Dean of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences School

Brian J.L. Berry, dean of the UT Dallas  School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences, has received a prestigious award recognizing him for a career of significant work in the field of regional science.

The Walter Isard Award for Scholarly Achievement is named for the field’s founder and is presented by the North American Regional Science Council annually at its conference, which was held this year Nov. 7-10 in Savannah, Ga.

The award honors scholars who have made significant theoretical and methodological contributions to regional science.

Berry’s contributions to regional science extend over 50 years and date to the beginnings of the field.  In addition to serving as dean, he is the Lloyd Viel Berkner Regental Professor.

One of his first publications was a paper that was read in 1957 at one of the first regional science meetings and published in Papers in Regional Science in 1958, the year he received his Ph.D.

Later, Berry wrote the first book in the Regional Science Research Institute’s monograph series and was vice president of the Regional Science Association in 1966.  His work helped precipitate a “quantitative revolution” in geography, led by new forms of spatial analysis and nascent geospatial information science.  The resulting new paradigm helped structure the emerging field of urban studies.

Berry spent the first part of his career at the University of Chicago (1958-76). He moved to a chair in city and regional planning and directorship of the Laboratory for Computer Graphics and Spatial Analysis at Harvard University (1976-81) and then to the deanship of the Heinz School of Public Policy and Management at Carnegie-Mellon University (1981-86).

He joined the UT Dallas faculty in 1986.  During his 50-year career he has published more than 500 scholarly books, articles and other professional publications, chaired the dissertation committees of close to 100 successful Ph.D. candidates and advised many more.

He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1975 and later, among others, a Fellow of the British Academy and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  Most recently, he was named the 2005 Lauréat du Prix International de Géographie “Vâutrin Lud,” geography’s “Nobel” prize.