Jerry Shannon

Education

Research

I'm a geographer studying how to make urban neighborhoods and food systems healthier and more equitable. My broad interests are in urban development and inequality, geographic information systems, political geography, and place effects on health. More specifically, my research focuses on the role of maps in shaping our understanding of hunger, housing, poverty, and neighborhood development.

I am an assistant professor in the Department of Geography and the Department of Financial Planning, Housing, and Consumer Economics at the University of Georgia. I also direct the Community Mapping Lab in the Department of Geography and am an assistant director of the Housing and Demographics Research Center on campus.

You can find more information on my specific research projects on my research page. Among other things, I am currently aiding in a participatory planning process with the Atlanta Community Food Bank, studying the local effects of changes to SNAP (food stamps) in Georgia during the Great Recession, doing participatory mapping of the housing landscape in several Georgia cities, and developing a data dashboard for open data here in Athens-Clarke County. I am currently seeking graduate students interested in open data, participatory research, data visualization, and community development.

Teaching

I teach courses in the Geography Department related to GIS, spatial analysis, and engaged research and teaching methodologies.

Outreach

I maintain working partnerships with multiple organizations in Athens and around the state of Georgia. One of those includes working with mostly rural communities around the state on housing issues through the Georgia Initiative for Community Housing.

Journal Articles

Wei, Y., Shannon, J., and Lee, J.S. (In press.) Impact of Grocery Store Proximity on Store Preference among SNAP-Ed Participants. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior.

Shannon, J., Borron, A., Kurtz, H., Weaver, A. (2021). Re-envisioning emergency food systems using photovoice and concept mapping. Journal of Mixed Methods Research. 15:1, 114-137. doi: 10.1177/1558689820933778

Shannon, J., Skobba, K., Durham, J., & Polak, C. (2020). “Really knowing” the community: citizen science, VGI, and community housing assessments. Journal of Planning Education and Research.

Shannon, J., Hankins, K., Shelton, T., Bosse, A., Scott, D., Block, D., Fischer, H., Eaves, L., Jung, J.K., Robinson, J., Solis, P., Pearsall, H., Rees, A., Nicolas, A. (2020). Community Geography: Toward a Disciplinary Framework. Progress in Human Geography. doi: 10.1177/0309132520961468

Shannon, J. (2020). Dollar stores, retailer redlining, and the geographies of precarious consumption. Annals of the American Association of Geographers. doi: 10.1080/24694452.2020.1775544

Poore, S., Grundstein, A., Cooper, E., & Shannon, J. (2020). Regional differences in exertional heat illness rates among Georgia USA high school football players. International Journal of Biometeorology. doi: 10.1007/s00484-019-01853-4

Shannon, J. and Walker, K. (2019). Ventures into viral cartography: Waffle House, educational attainment, and the social life of maps. The Professional Geographer. 72(1): 66-77 doi: 10.1080/00330124.2019.1653774

Shannon, J., Borron, A., Kurtz, H., Weaver, A., Otto-Wang, S., Gilliam, V. (2019). Translating across registers: The labor of pragmatist inquiry. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement. 23(2): 36-50

Kurtz, H., Borron, A., Shannon, J., Weaver, A. (2019). Community food assistance, informal social networks, and the labor of care. Agriculture and Human Values. 36(3): 495-505. doi: 10.1007/s10460-019-09943-0

Shannon, J., Bagwell Adams, G., Shannon, S., Lee, J.S., and Wei, Y. (2018). The mobility of food retailers: How proximity to SNAP authorized food retailers changed in Atlanta during the Great Recession. Social Science and Medicine. 209: 125-135. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2018.05.046

Straw, C., Thompson, J., Henry, G., Shannon, J. (2018). Athletes’ perceptions of within-field variability on natural turfgrass sports fields. Precision Agriculture.

Shannon, S., Bagwell, G., Shannon, J., and Lee, J.S. (2018). How Benefit Levels Affected SNAP Enrollment by Race, Ethnicity, and Urbanicity in Georgia Counties, 2007-2013. Journal of Hunger and Environmental Nutrition. doi: 10.1080/19320248.2018.1465002

Shannon, J., & Walker, K. (2018). Opening GIScience: A process-based approach. International Journal of Geographical Information Science. 32:10, 1911-1923. doi: 10.1080/13658816.2018.1464167

Shannon, J., Hauer, M., Weaver, A., and Shannon, S. (2018). The Suburbanization of Poverty: An Analysis of Projected Trends in the Atlanta Metropolitan Area. Professional Geographer. 70:1, 84-93.

Abraham, A., Andrews, C. and Shannon, J. (2017). Geographic Disparities in Availability of Opioid Use Disorder Treatment for Medicaid Enrollees. Health Services Research.

Shannon, J., Shannon, S., Bagwell, G., and Lee, J.S. (2016.) Changing SNAP enrollment and benefits increased the number of small SNAP retailers in Georgia during the Great Recession. Health Affairs. 35:11, 2100-2108.

Shannon, J. and Christian, W. J. (2016). What is the relationship between food shopping and daily mobility? A relational approach to analysis of food access. GeoJournal.

Shannon, J. (2016). Beyond the supermarket solution: Linking food deserts, neighborhood context, and everyday mobility. Annals of the American Association of Geographers. 106:1, 186-202.