2024 ABS Lifetime Award

Dr. Victor Konrad

The recipient of the 2024 ABS lifetime achievement award is Dr. Victor Konrad, Adjunct Research Professor in the Geography and Environmental Studies Department at Carleton University. In 1990, Victor Konrad accepted the position as founding Executive Director of the Fulbright Program between Canada and the United States. Dr. Konrad has devoted his career to higher education advancement and development between these neighbouring countries. His research is centered on the transfer of culture across borders, and he has published extensively about Native American encounters with Europeans, cultural landscape transitions, and Canada-U.S. borderlands. Professor Konrad has taught at universities in the United States and Canada, and from 1980 to 1990 served as Director of the Canadian-American Center at the University of Maine.

Victor has had an outstanding long-term service to the ABS, has offered exceptional scholarly contributions to the advancement of borderlands studies, and has developed and taught many university courses on border and borderland studies. He has also served as a kind mentor and exemplary colleague for most, if not all, of us in the ABS, having also served on the ABS Board of Directors and as ABS President in 2014.

2023 ABS Lifetime Award

Dr. Irasema Coronado

Dr. Irasema Coronado, Director of the School of Transborder Studies at Arizona State University, is the recipient of the ABS Lifetime Achievement Award. Dr. Irasema Coronado has published extensively in US and international journals. Her research output includes co-authoring and editing important monographs on migration in the borderlands, culture, and applied policy, among others. Her leadership of the ABS and the US-Mexico border region has been remarkable. Dr. Irasema Coronado is also the Executive Director of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation of North America (CEC). She represented the United States and showed broad-impact leadership.

Dr. Irasema Coronado has been an active member of the Association for Borderland Studies (ABS), making her an ideal recipient of the ABS Lifetime Achievement Award. As an ABS member, Dr. Coronado has contributed significantly to the association’s goals of promoting research, teaching, and public awareness of borderland issues. She has served on the ABS Board of Directors and as Vice President/President, providing leadership and guidance to the association.

2020 ABS Lifetime Award

Dr. Stephen Mumme

The recipient of the 2020 ABS lifetime achievement award is Dr. Stephen Mumme, Professor of Political Science at Colorado State University. His distinguished career includes a prolific scholarship, mentorship, and promotion of border studies. “Stephen Mumme is one of the most prolific and well-respected border scholars we have been fortunate to have as an ABS member for many years. Whether it is to help students with their emerging research, direct MS and Ph.D. thesis, and work with peers in collaborative research”, said Dr. Chris Brown, Associate Professor at New Mexico State University. Through his work, Stephen has inspired and encouraged numerous scholars “from a vast number of institutions, to work on borderland issues. He is generous with his time, his intellectual thought, his connections, and his support,” added Dr. Donna Lybecker, Professor of International Relations at Idaho State University.

Professor Mumme specializes in comparative environmental politics and policy with an emphasis on the Mexican government and U.S.-Mexican relations. He is the author of various monographs and book chapters, author of Apportioning Groundwater along the U.S.-Mexico Border (UCSD 1988) and co-author with Alan Lamborn of Statecraft Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy Making (Westview 1988). His journal articles appear in many journals, including JBS, Policy Research Quarterly, Policies Studies Journal, and others. He has authored numerous book chapters and opinion pieces–some of the latter have appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Diego Union-Tribune, Denver Post, and the Arizona Daily Star. He has been the recipient of many awards, including Professor Laureate (2019-2021), Distinguished Service Award (2017), and Outstanding Teaching Award (2010). He was ABS President in 1978 and currently serves as a member of the JBS Editorial Board.

2019 ABS Lifetime Award

Dr. Kathleen Staudt

Kathleen (Kathy) Staudt, PhD (University of Wisconsin, 1976), Professor Emerita, University of Texas at El Paso, taught political science, border politics and women studies in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands for forty years, since 1977.  She published twenty books and edited volumes, over half of which focused on borderlands.  She founded and directed UTEP’s Center for Civic Engagement from 1998-2008 and served on many nonprofit and public boards. Kathy has also served on our Association for Borderlands Studies board of directors and in its various committees. She is active in many social justice community organizations. Kathy raised two now-adult children, son Mosi and daughter Asha.

She has been a very valuable member of the Association for Borderlands Studies. She has served on the board of directors and on several committees and conference program advisory groups. Kathy has been an external reviewer over many years and was North American editor for the Journal of Borderlands Studies in 2018. She has made multiple paper presentations and panel chair/discussant at ABS conferences over many years