2009 GFDA Workshop Directory
Stephen Aldrich, aldrichsteve@gmail.com
Steve is a newly appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography, Geology, and
Anthropology at Indiana State University, and will be teaching GIS, Cartography, and
Quantitative Methods. His research sits firmly in the human-environment/nature-society tradition
of Geography, and has focused on the environmental impacts associated with the interactions of
largeholder and smallholder farmers in the Brazilian Amazon. Steve’s dissertation research was
in the Department of Geography at Michigan State University, and was a mixed-method
exploration of the connection between deforestation and land conflict in one of Brazil’s most
notorious badlands, the South of Pará. Though Steve enjoys geographic analysis techniques (and
is looking forward to continuing to use them, learn them, and teach them), he also has interests in
environmental policy, social theory, historical geography, mixed-method research, and regional
geography.
Eric Boschmann, Eric.Boschmann@du.edu
Eric is an assistant professor of geography at the University of Denver, where he teaches courses
in introductory, urban, and economic geography. His research interests center around issues of
employment accessibility, transportation, equity/social justice, urban sustainability, and urban
form. Additionally, his work is highly motivated by the potentials of mixed-method research
approaches – using a breadth of techniques, including spatial statistics, GIS, sketch mapping, and
interviews. He received his PhD from the Ohio State University. Current ‘hobbies’ include
hiking, appreciating art, and jogging.
Jeremy Glen Bryson, jgbryson@maxwell.syr.edu
Jeremy is a PhD candidate in the geography department at Syracuse University. His research
interests focus on the historical and contemporary urban environments of the American West.
Jeremy is currently writing his dissertation that examines the relationship between environmental
amenities and urban redevelopment in the cities of the Inland Northwest. His research combines
the nature-society theories of urban environmental history and urban political ecology to explore
the ‘nature of gentrification’ in Coeur d’Alene, ID and Spokane, WA. While a graduate student
at Syracuse, Jeremy taught Geography 103: America and the Global Environment through
University College. Jeremy completed his BS in Planning and Resource Management from
Brigham Young University and his MS in Earth Sciences from Montana State University.
Kirsten Valentine Cadieux, cadieux@umn.edu
Valentine uses ethnography, land use analysis, historical and contemporary policy analysis, and
science studies frameworks to research the cultural geography of land use change and the politics
of planning processes at the urban-rural interface. This research focuses on relationships between
land use and landscape ideologies as they can be understood through everyday material and
representational practices. Concentrating on intersections of urbanization, nature conservation,
and agriculture activism, this work serves to help translate between different positions in land
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use management processes, particularly around the concepts of place, landscape, and nature, and
around epistemological issues involved in political ecology and other disciplinary studies of
nature-society relations.
Jamison Conley, Jamison.Conley@mail.wvu.edu
Jamison is an assistant professor of geography at West Virginia University, with MS (2004) and
PhD (2008) degrees in geography from Pennsylvania State University, where he worked in the
GeoVISTA Center. His work there focused on cluster detection and analysis, spatial analysis of
epidemiological data, and developing GUIs for editing map symbols. His current research is
centered on statistical and computational issues in cluster analysis, particularly of disease
clusters, shape analysis, and combining visualization with spatial analysis.
Mona Domosh, Mona.Domosh@Dartmouth.edu, Leader
I am a professor of geography at Dartmouth College, with research/teaching interests in cultural,
urban and feminist geography. I write and conduct research on three interconnected topics: 1)
the cultural processes and practices of early (pre 1920) United States-based globalization and the
makings of American empire, 2) the connections between gender, class and the cultural
formation of large American cities in the 19th century, 3) feminist perspectives, theory, and
methodology in relationship to matters of space and place. Most of my research has been funded
by the National Science Foundation. In addition to my scholarly books and articles, I also cowrite an introductory human geography textbook, The Human Mosaic. I was the co-founding
editor of Gender, Place and Culture and am just now stepping down as co-editor of Cultural
Geographies after a six-year term. Before coming to Dartmouth in 2000, I taught at Florida
Atlantic University for 10 years, and before that, I had five (!) one-year visiting appointments
around the country. I published a short essay (“Unintentional Transgressions and Other
Reflections on the Job Search Process”) about my academic nomadism in The Professional
Geographer in 2000.
Ken Foote, k.foote@colorado.edu, Leader
I'm a professor of geography and former department chair at the University of Colorado at
Boulder. I am interested in: 1) cultural and historical geography focusing on American and
European landscape history and issues of public memory and commemoration; 2) geographic
information science and related computer and Internet technologies; and 3) learning and teaching
geography in higher education, including instructional technology and issues of professional
development for early career faculty. I have served as president and vice president of the
National Council for Geographic Education, a national councilor of the AAG, editor of NCGE
Pathways series of publications for geography educators, and North American editor of the
Journal of Geography in Higher Education. I received the Association of American
Geographers' J.B. Jackson prize for Shadowed Ground: America's Landscapes of Violence and
Tragedy in 1998 and Gilbert Grosvenor Honors in Geographic Education in 2005. I will serve as
AAG vice-president for 2009-10.
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At the time a became a geography professor, I had had far more experience teaching music than
geography and wish I had more time to perform early music on flute, recorder, and viola da
gamba. My wife and I have twin boys born in February 2003. When we can manage it, we
foster and adopt ex-racing greyhounds and whippets.
Lucius Hallett, IV, lucius.hallett@wmich.edu
Lucius is an Assistant Professor of geography at Western Michigan University, where he focuses
on the geography of food networks. He received his Ph.D. in geography from the University of
Kansas. He is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, receiving an Associate Degree in
Culinary Arts in 1993. Dr. Hallet is the author of articles "Not Necessarily Better Simply
Because It's Local: Investigating the Geographies of Local Food and the 'Local Trap'" and
"Different Geographies for Different Folks: Narratives on What Gets Eaten." He is currently
working with faculty at the University of Kansas on a project that examines the distances
consumers will travel to shop for food, and what influences those decisions.
Hillary Hamann, hhamann@du.edu, Leader
Hillary is a permanent lecturer in the Department of Geography at the University of Denver.
Prior to my appointment at DU, I held positions as an assistant professor at the University of
Colorado at Colorado Springs and a visiting scholar at the Colorado College. I received my BA
in Environmental Science from Wesleyan University and my MA and PhD in Geography from
the University of Colorado at Boulder. My research has focused on runoff flowpaths, water
quality and the effects of natural and anthropogenic disturbance—pollution, climate change and
deforestation—in alpine and tropical watersheds. Most recently I have been examining the
effects of wildfire on the physical and chemical nature of water and sediment erosion in forested
watersheds of the Rocky Mountain West. Outside of research, I have a real passion for teaching
and have a diversity of experience ranging from teacher workshops, environmental education
and extended field courses, to large physical geography lecture classes (I even participated in the
very first GFDA workshop in 2002!). I try to keep balance in my life by spending plenty of time
outside— gardening, hiking, mountain biking, kayaking, doing triathlons and, of course, skiing.
James W. (“JW”) Harrington, jwh@u.washington.edu, Leader
JW is a Professor of Geography at the University of Washington. June 2009 will be his fifth
year as a GFDA leader, a highlight of each year! An economic geographer, JW, teaches, writes
and researches regional economic development, occupational attainment and workforce
development, and has recently gained an interest in Chinese regional development. He served as
department chair from 2000-05, now represents the UW Faculty in Washington State legislative
and educational policy matters, and will serve as vice-chair and then chair of the UW Faculty
Senate. He’s served as AAG Secretary and as executive director of the North American
Regional Science Association, and spent three years directing the Geography and Regional
Science Program at the National Science Foundation.
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JW’s abiding interests are in organizational and leadership development, and his hobbies include
cooking/entertaining and vocal music (as a trained baritone). He’s been very active in UnitarianUniversalist churches in Buffalo NY, Reston VA, and Seattle WA.
Ziying Jiang, zjiang3@uno.edu
Ziying Jiang is a Ph.D student in geography at Clark University. She joined the Department of
Geography at University of New Orleans in August 2008. Her research focuses on simulating
the road extension using GIS to enhance the land change modeling. Ziying developed the
dynamic road development module in IDRISI. This module is a component of the Land Change
Modeler for Ecological Sustainability, which was released in the IDRISI Andes edition in 2006.
Ziying teaches a variety of geography courses such as world regional geography, fundamental
mapping and GIS, GIS concept and theories, and GIS application.
Wen Lin, wenlin@uwm.edu
Wen Lin is joining the Department of Geography and Earth Science at the University of
Wisconsin-La Crosse as an assistant professor this fall. She received her PhD from the
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee this spring, after receiving her BS in geography from
Peking University, China. Her research interests reside in geographic information science and
urban geography, particularly in two areas: implementation and usage of GIS in urban
governance and GIS applications in environmental studies. During her PhD study at UWMilwaukee, she has taught several courses including World Regional Geography, Introduction to
GIS, and Geography of Asia. She will be teaching an online course of Introduction to
Environmental Geography this coming summer at UWM.
Ben Mosiane, nbmosian@syr.edu
Ben Mosiane is a PhD candidate at Syracuse University, Geography Department. His dissertation
uses the ideas of livelihoods and superfluity to explore the transformative potential of cities. A
dynamic South African city, Rustenburg, is used as a case study for his research. During his
affiliations with the South African North-West University (as lecturer) and Syracuse University
(as PhD student), he has developed teaching and research interests in the fields of urban, cultural,
and development geography. Ben Mosiane is currently a research manager in the Research and
Planning Department of the Royal Bafokeng Nation, South Africa.
Jeremia Njeru, Jeremia.Njeru@mail.wvu.edu
I am an assistant professor at the Department of Geology and Geography at West Virginia
University. My teaching and research interests are in the area of urban geography. In particular,
my research focus is on urban development and urban environmental change in both North
American and African settings. I use a combination of political ecology and political economy
frameworks in my research. The courses I teach include introduction to Urban Geography, Urban
and regional planning, and Urban Political Ecology (graduate seminar).
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Trushna Parekh, t.parekh@uky.edu
Trushna is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Geography at University of Kentucky.
Her research is in urban geography and cultural landscape studies, with a focus on gentrification,
racialized identity and cultural memory in the U.S. South.
Anouk Patel-Campillo, aup20@psu.edu
Anouk received her doctorate in August 2008 in the Department of City and Regional Planning
at Cornell University under the supervision of economic geographer Susan M. Christopherson.
Anouk was a recipient of a 2006-2007 National Science Foundation (NSF) Doctoral Dissertation
Research Improvement grant (DDRI) in Geography and Regional Science. She was a selected
participant in the 2008 Summer Institute in Economic Geography (SIEG) in Manchester
University. Anouk is a recently appointed assistant professor in the Department of Agricultural
Economics and Rural Sociology at the The Pennsylvania State University (PSU) where she
teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in international development and international rural
change. Anouk’s research interests fall into three broad areas: (1) the comparative political
economy of development, (2) regulation and economic restructuring, and (3) institutional change
and planning.
Parama Roy, geoprr@langate.gsu.edu
I am an Assistant Professor at the Department of Geosciences in Georgia State University. I
completed my PhD in geography from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2008. My
research and teaching interests are in urban environmental geography. Funded by NSF’s
Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant my PhD research focused on the publicprivate production and management of existing unequal green spaces in the city of Milwaukee.
More specifically, I engaged in ethnographic study of a predominantly African-American innercity community-garden effort to examine the role of such historically marginalized communities
in greening urban neighborhoods within the neoliberal political economy. Presently, I am
embarking on a new project related to present urban collaborative planning processes and their
implications for community empowerment in Atlanta.
Michael Solem, msolem@aag.org, Leader
Michael Solem is Educational Affairs Director at the Association of American Geographers.
Since 2003, Dr. Solem has served as principal investigator or co-principal investigator on over
$3 million in federally funded projects aimed at enhancing the teaching and learning of
geography in postsecondary education.
Dr. Solem currently directs the Enhancing Departments and Graduate Education in Geography
(EDGE) project and the Center for Global Geography Education (CGGE) initiative funded by
NSF. EDGE is a research and action project designed to improve the preparation of geography
graduate students for academic and non-academic professional careers. CGGE is an initiative
supporting online international teaching and learning collaborations in undergraduate geography
courses.
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Dr. Solem is the external evaluator for the University of Colorado¹s Geography Faculty
Development Alliance and Oregon State University¹s Graduate Ethics Education for Future
Geospatial Technology Professionals project. He currently serves as the North American
coordinator of the International Network for Learning and Teaching Geography in Higher
Education (INLT), is associate director of the Grosvenor Center for Geographic Education at
Texas State UniversitySan Marcos, and leads the AAG¹s efforts with the Carnegie Academy for
the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning program.
Dr. Solem received the Journal of Geography in Higher Education¹s biennial award for
promoting excellence in teaching and learning for his research with Ken Foote on faculty
development in postsecondary geography. He is co-editor of Aspiring Academics and Teaching
College Geography, two AAG books for graduate students and early career faculty.
Kate Swanson, kswanson@mail.sdsu.edu
Kate is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at San Diego State University.
She is an urban geographer specializing in poverty, exclusion and Latin America. Her areas of
interest include: urban restructuring, informal sector strategies, labor migration, childhood,
racialization of indigenous peoples, and gender and public space. After completing her PhD at
the University of Toronto in 2005, she spent two and a half years as a postdoctoral research
fellow at the University of Glasgow. She joined the faculty at SDSU in 2008.
Su-Yin Tan, sy2tan@uwaterloo.ca
Su-Yin Tan is a Lecturer at the Department of Geography and Environmental Management,
University of Waterloo, Canada. She specializes in geographic information systems, remote
sensing, and spatial data analysis methodologies. She currently teaches undergraduate courses in
the GISciences, digital image processing, and photogrammetry at the University of Waterloo and
the International Space University. Su-Yin received her PhD in Geography from the University
of Cambridge (UK) and Master degrees from Oxford University (UK) and Boston University
(USA). She obtained her BSc in Environmental Science from the University of Guelph
(Ontario). Su-Yin is originally from Edmonton (Alberta), but grew up overseas in Papua New
Guinea. She is interested in spatial data analysis methodologies in a range of application areas,
such as climatology, medical geography, ecosystem modeling, and remote sensing. In her free
time, Su-Yin enjoys reading, practicing martial arts, and playing the piano. She is passionate
about exploring and learning about the world through adventure and travel.
Daoqin Tong, daoqin@email.arizona.edu
Daoqin Tong is an assistant professor in the Department of Geography and Regional
Development at University of Arizona. Dr. Tong received M.S. in Civil Engineering and Ph.D.
in Geography from the Ohio State University. Dr. Tong's research interests include spatial
analysis, GIS, spatial optimization, geocomputation and location analysis.
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Anna Versluis, averslui@gustavus.edu
Anna is an Assistant Professor in the Geography Department at Gustavus Adolphus College, a
liberal arts college about an hour south of the Twin Cities, Minnesota. Her research interests
include land change, remote sensing, disasters, Haiti, and human interactions with the
environment. The 2008-09 academic year was her first full-time year of teaching. She teaches
Introduction to Physical Geography, Sustainability, GIS and People and Environment. Anna
received her PhD from Clark University, Massachusetts, and her MS, also in Geography, from
Oregon State University. Her undergraduate degree is in Biology from Eastern Mennonite
University in Virginia.
David Walker, david.walker.w@gmail.com
David is Assistant Professor in the Department of Geology and Geography at Ohio Wesleyan
University. Walker focuses on contemporary
urban issues and has conducted extensive research
in Oaxaca, Mexico City and Tijuana. He teaches
Urban Geography, Economic Geography, Cultural
Geography, and a course on Neoliberal Spaces in
Latin America. Professor Walker's current
research interests incorporate a theoretical
approach to urbanization and spaces of resistance
vis-à-vis neoliberalism and the restructuring of
urban spaces within the milieu of Mexican Cities.
His research concerns the neoliberalization of
space and gentrification as economic and cultural
globalism in the Historic District of Downtown
Mexico City. Dr. Walker's interests in Latin
America and the neoliberalization of space are long standing. He received a BA from the
University of California at Berkeley in Latin American Studies with a minor in Spanish and
Portuguese, and earned an MA in Latin American Studies from San Diego State University.
While at SDSU Walker wrote his thesis on changes to Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution
and the privatization and urbanization of the Ejido sector in Mexican Border cities. Aside from
working in the urban realm, Dr. Walker also conducted a year-long National Science Foundation
funded research project into the interconnectivity of NGOs vis-à-vis indigenous agency in the
Global South where he worked as volunteer for the WWF in Oaxaca, Mexico.
Guangxing Wang, gxwang@siu.edu
Dr. Wang received his Ph.D. in remote sensing of forest resources from the University of
Helsinki, Finland, and did his postdoc at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is
an assistant professor at the Department of Geography and Environmental Resources, Southern
Illinois University. He teaches Intro to Geographic Information Systems; Intro to Remote
Sensing; Advanced Remote Sensing; and Cartographic Design. His research interests focus on
development and application of image processing, analysis, classification, image-based spatial
simulation algorithms, and spatial uncertainty analysis methods for natural resources, ecological
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and environmental systems, especially for human-environment interaction, vegetation
disturbance, soil erosion, landscape and land degradation, global change, and forest carbon. Dr.
Wang is an author of more than 40 peer-reviewed journal articles.
Jessica Wilczak, wilczakj@geog.utoronto.ca
Jessica is pursuing her PhD in Geography at the University of Toronto. She comes to the
discipline via Economics and Urban Planning, and has a deep appreciation for Geography’s
ability (or at least its faithful attempts) to bring empirical science and its social counterpart
together. She has worked as a teaching assistant for courses in qualitative and quantitative
research methods. Her dissertation looks at the politics of post-earthquake reconstruction and
development in Sichuan, China. Her work is broadly political economic, but other keywords that
she might associate with herself with include political ecology, agrarian change, and area studies.
Jim Wilson, wilsonja@ecu.edu
I recently accepted an assistant professor position in the department of geography at Northern
Illinois University. I received my Bachelor’s degrees in Anthropology and Geography from the
University of Washington and my Master’s and Doctorate at the University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill. My primary interest is in the field of medical/health geography with a recent focus
on the geographic disparities of health outcomes as measured by mortality, morbidity, healthcare
workforce, and social determinants. I am also interested in disease ecology,
demography/population, evolution, and immunization. My secondary interests are in
environmental and agricultural history, domestication of plants and animals, and conservation.
About a year after receiving my doctorate in 1991 I taught geography, intensively, for four years
at East Carolina University after which I detoured into health services research at the same
university with a two year hiatus as GIS manager at NC’s State Center for Health Statistics. So,
this is a not very radical mid-life career course correction for me.
My spouse, Kristen Borre, is an anthropologist and we have three children. The oldest is a sous
chef in New York City and the younger two—twins--will be seniors at Appalachian State
University in Boone, NC. My hobbies are martial arts, studying science and natural history—
especially the work of 19th century naturalists, and tending to my native and tropical fish
collections.
Bo Xu, bxu@csusb.edu
Bo is an Assistant Professor of Geography at California State University, San Bernardino. She
received her PhD at the University of Georgia in 2008. She teaches classes related to GIS,
remote sensing, and spatial analysis. Her research interest includes object-based image
classification and public health.
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Li Yang, li.1.yang@wmich.edu
Li Yang is an assistant professor in the Department of Geography at Western Michigan
University. Her research career has focused on tourism planning, marketing, cultural tourism,
ethnic tourism, tourism analysis and forecasting, and applied statistics. Her research interests are
interdisciplinary as she has a diverse background in tourism, planning, statistics, and economics.
She has been involved in many tourism research projects and has obtained university and
governmental research grants and awards. She received her PhD in Planning from the University
of Waterloo, Canada and MSc in Statistics from Yunnan University, Yunnan, China
Other contacts:
Marcia Signer, Geography Office, GUGG 108, signer@colorado.edu, 303-492-8312
Darla Shatto, Geography Office, GUGG 110, darla.shatto@colorado.edu, 303-492-2631
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