Recognition

Creator of ICE Tracker Receives Activist-Scholar Award

March 3, 2026 115

The creator of an interactive ICE Detention Tracker will receive the 2026 Marilyn J. Gittell Activist Scholar Award co-sponsored by Sage and the Urban Affairs Association.

AJ Kim is an associate professor of city planning, with affiliations in the Graduate School of Public Health and LGBTQ+ Studies, at San Diego State University. Focusing on minoritized and diverse communities, their work interrogates the challenges of disenfranchised and invisible groups within the practice and field of planning. Kim deploys that in explaining the genesis of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) tracker:

While I am primarily a qualitative researcher—my area of expertise is in deep participatory ethnography in close partnership with immigrant workers centers across the country—I saw the need for a broader, nationwide, accessible visualization of the re-opening of detention centers and where they are located. Maps, particularly counter-maps, are uniquely powerful community and participatory tools that offer an alternative narrative: counter-maps can challenge narratives of criminalization by documenting policing (instead of crime, for example). I recently created the ICE Detention Center tracker as my response to such a moment.

The tracker provides information on the locations and number of detainees along with additional resources for those impacted by ICE activities.

Kim also directs and is the principal investigator for the “Geospatial Mapping for Alternative Health Assets” project funded by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and leads research teams for health equity with non-governmental partners, nationwide. They worked with immigrant rights and environmental justice organizations nationally and internationally for more than 20 years.

In selecting Kim for the award, the Urban Affairs Association’s (UAA) Activist Scholar Award Committee cited:

The quality and relevance of their work illustrates a scholarly agenda of outstanding contributions to the pursuit of social justice. The profound integration of Dr. Kim’s experiences and
identities with their pedagogy and research results in teaching and publications with exceptional impact. Focusing on issues impacting minoritized and diverse communities, Dr. Kim’s work considers the challenges of disenfranchised and invisible groups within the practice and field of planning. From championing
legislative progress to centering the narratives of immigrants and refugees, Dr. Kim has a robust record of advocacy and a multi-pronged approach to achieving substantive social change. Rather than cataloging the obstacles created by the persistent status quo, Dr. Kim’s scholarship argues why and how such communities are better sources to inform “best practices” than normative and “top down” methods.

The Gittel award, given annually, highlights field-based urban scholarship and promotes the dissemination of work by activist urban scholars whose research record melds activism, scholarship, and engagement with community. The inspiration for this award is the career of the late Marilyn J. Gittell, former director of the Howard Samuels Center and professor of political science at The Graduate School at City University of New York. Gittell was founding editor of Urban Affairs Quarterly, (now known as Urban Affairs Review), which was the first publication ever produced by Sage.

The formal presentation of this award will be made at the International Conference on Urban Affairs in Chicago, Illinois in late April. The theme of this year’s conference is “No Little Plans: Realizing Urban Futures in Times of Crisis.”