Karen R. Polenske (1937--): A Journey from Rural Idaho to MIT

Karen R. Polenske has been a very important and influential contributor to regional and interregional modeling in both the USA and China. Her work has extended to a whole range of regional growth and development issues, as well as to the extension of socio-economic modeling to embrace environmental linkages. The latter work was heavily focused on China with the novel use of enterprise accounts for an iron and steel plant that was further elaborated to address production systems at different technological and spatial scales and to consider the health implications of these operations. In this chapter, Geoffrey Hewings chronicles the remarkable perseverance that Polenske exhibited in launching and sustaining her career and then becoming an internationally acclaimed intellectual leader. She had a major influence in the creation and success of the North American Regional Science Council, and she became one of the first group of scholars to be recognized as Fellows in the International Input--Output Association, for which she also served as President. Her continuing influence in the organization of science extended to the training and mentoring of hundreds of Chinese scholars at MIT. A prize in her name, funded by her alumni, bears eloquent testimony to her remarkable commitment to fostering both Chinese regional economic development and successor generations of highly skilled regional scientists.