Peilei Fan Earns William J. Beal Outstanding Faculty Award
May 25, 2023
Dr. Peilei Fan, a core faculty member of the Center for Global Change and Earth Observations, is an internationally recognized scholar of urban sustainability, global change, and innovation studies. She has investigated the co-evolved relationships between urbanization, landscape and environmental changes, and economic development under climate change, institutional transformation, and globalization in transitional economies (China, Mongolia, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Vietnam, Russia, and Romania); in the Global South; and on a global scale.
Dr. Fan has served as PI/Co-PI on numerous external grants totaling $4.5 million (more than $2 million as PI) from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Agency for International Development. In 2019, the National Committee on U.S.–China Relations selected her as one of 20 Public Intellectual Fellows.
Dr. Fan was the recipient of the Cross-disciplinary Faculty Research Award from MSU’s College of Social Science in 2019 and a Core Fulbright U.S. Senior Scholar for 2017-18. She has been a prolific and collaborative scholar, publishing two books, numerous peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, and guest (co)editing special issues of high-impact academic journals, including as lead author in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and a co-author of Nature Communications.
Dr. Fan has taught for the past 15 years and advised numerous graduate students, postdocs, and research associates. Under her supervision, her mentees have obtained prestigious national and international awards.
Dr. Fan has provided exceptional leadership and services at local, national, and international locations. She was the elected secretary general of the International Association of Landscape Ecology from 2019-2023. She also serves as the deputy director of the Landscape Ecology Working Party of the International Union of Forest Research Organizations and as an associate editor of Landscape and Urban Planning.
Dr. Fan is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in her professional and personal life. She has conducted research on the inequality of access to resources and opportunities, been a teacher and a mentor for students from underrepresented minority groups, and advanced DEI in her own unit and professional communities. She currently serves on the college’s DEI Working Group.
For her excellent research, her commitment to mentoring and student learning, and her service to her professional and MSU communities, Dr. Peilei Fan is highly deserving of the Michigan State University William J. Beal Outstanding Faculty Award.