2010 GFDA Workshop Directory Pablo Bose, pbose@uvm.edu Dr. Bose's teaching and research focuses on the study of culture, space and power, transnationalism and diaspora, urban and cultural geography, political economy and ecology, India and South Asia. He has three research projects currently under way. Dr. Bose is completing a multi-year, multicountry study of various forms of international development, population displacement and ecological degradation, with a forthcoming book on the project to be published in 2010 by Cambridge University Press. He also has an ongoing project in conjunction with the Transportation Research Center at UVM and several community groups and service providers on mobility and access issues for refugees in Vermont, from the perspective of environmental justice. Dr. Bose also has an ongoing research project on the lives of transnational South Asians in the US, Canada, and India, based on fieldwork in so-called "global cities" including Vancouver, New York, and Mumbai. This work grows in part out of his earlier study of luxury condominium development on the fringes of the metropolis of Kolkata and the environmental degradation and socio-economic displacements caused by this new housing construction. The dissertation he produced out of this research won the Urban Geography Specialty Group of the American Association of Geographers Dissertation Award in 2007. In this work, he argues that the idea of diasporic Indians and transnational lifestyles is an important influence on local civic leaders, city planners, private capital, and social movements alike, and a crucial catalyst for transforming both the political and physical landscape of the region. Dr. Bose teaches an introductory course in "Race and Ethnicity in the U.S." and special topic introductory courses including "Development, Displacement and the Environment" and "The Immigrant Experience." At the intermediate level, he teaches courses titled "Political and Cultural Geography of South Asia" and "Political Ecology" and at the advanced level, a seminar course titled "Migration Mobility and Transnationalism. He holds a B.A. in English from University of British Columbia (1995), a P.B.D. in Communications (1997) and an M.A. in Communications (2000) from Simon Fraser University, and a Ph.D. in Environmental Studies from York University (2006). Michelle Brym, brym1mj@cmich.edu Michelle Brym is a newly appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of History and Geography at the University of Central Oklahoma. She spent a year as a Temporary Assistant Professor at Central Michigan University where she taught World Regional Geography courses and Economic Geography courses. Her research interests are in the fields of cultural, political and population geography with a regional focus on Europe. Michelle's dissertation work at the University of Tennessee explored European Union integration by studying the types of cross-border interactions between Polish and German individuals living along the border. In the future, she would like to continue studying the integration of nation-states of the EU by researching new crossborder labor migration patterns in Europe. Luc Claessens, luc.claessens@vt.edu I will be joining the Department of Geography at the University of Delaware as an assistant professor this summer. My long-term career interests are: research on the linkages between hydrology and Biosketches, Page - 1 ecosystem processes, with particular interest in the effect of changes in land-use and climate, and the development of adaptive management practices; and teaching in hydrology, physical geography and environmental science. My Ph.D. is in Geography from the University of California Santa Barbara and San Diego State University (joint doctoral program). My dissertation research was on hydroecological linkages in urbanizing watersheds, focusing specifically on the role of small streams in controlling watershed nitrogen export. Currently, I am a Research Scientist in the Department of Biological Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech. Previously I had a full-time teaching appointment in the Department of Geography at the University of Connecticut. Prior to my Ph.D. studies I obtained a B.S. in both Tropical Agriculture - Soil Science and Water Management (Netherlands) and Agricultural Engineering (Colorado State University) and a M.S. in Civil Engineering Hydrologic Science and Engineering (Colorado State University). I worked in between my degrees, including in Latin America in soil and water conservation (Honduras) and flood control (Ecuador), at NASA Goddard Space and Flight Center, and at The Ecosystems Center in Woods Hole Massachusetts. Meghan Cope, Meghan.Cope@uvm.edu Meghan Cope is a Professor and Chair of the Geography Department at University of Vermont. She completed her Ph.D. at University of Colorado in 1995 and spent 11 years at SUNY-Buffalo before moving to UVM in 2006. Meghan is an urban geographer interested in the intersection of multiple dimensions of power and marginalization such as gender, race, class, and age, and concentrates on cities of the ‘developed’ world. She primarily uses qualitative methods in her research and has had an active publishing record in this area, as well as in the cutting edge field of qualitative GIS. Her most recent research (since 2002) has been focused on children and young people’s experiences in cities and towns, particularly around issues of youth as a marginalized subjectivity, children’s conceptualizations of local spaces, youth (im)mobility, and their (lack of) access to public space. In the youth-related projects Meghan has developed new participatory methodologies for working with young people and has increasingly refined her “engaged scholarship” through service-learning courses, collaborations with local non-profits, and participatory research directly with youth. As Chair of her department, Meghan has more recently begun to focus on issues of professional development, mentoring, and department advocacy. Karen Culcasi, Karen.Culcasi@mail.wvu.edu I am an assistant professor of Geography in the Department of Geology and Geography at West Virginia University. I completed my doctoral degree at Syracuse University in 2008. Broadly speaking, my research employs critical geopolitical and cartographic lenses to examine both Western and Arab geographical imaginings of the Middle East. I have worked on projects focusing on Arab cartography and Western popular geopolitics of the Middle East; and I am currently formulating a new project that investigates roles of Arab nationalism along the Gulf of Aqaba. At WVU, I teach a large lecture course on World Regions, smaller undergraduate courses on the Middle East and Political Geography, and a graduate seminar on Geopolitical theories. When I am not focused on teaching and research, I am gleefully exploring the world with my 10 month old daughter Ayla and my fellow geographer husband Brenden McNeil. Biosketches, Page - 2 Ken Foote, k.foote@colorado.edu 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'm currently AAG vice-president and will serve as president in 2010-11. At the time I 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. John Frazee, John.Frazee@Colorado.EDU John Frazee joined the University of Colorado at Boulder as Director of Faculty Relations in January 2007. Prior to assuming this new role—unique in higher education—John served as a faculty member, department chair, dean, and academic vice president at colleges in Texas, Colorado, and Massachusetts. A graduate of CU-Boulder, John earned his Ph.D. in English from the University of California-Berkeley. John and his wife, Dana (also a CU grad) have three grown daughters and threeplus grandchildren. When not helping faculty and administrators manage their professional relationships, John enjoys cycling and fly fishing. Scott Freundschuh, sfreunds@nsf.gov Scott is currently Program Director at the National Science Foundation, Geography and Spatial Sciences Program and Technical Coordinator for the Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center. Before moving to NSF, Scott taught for 14 years in the Department of Geography at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Prior to his appointment at the University of Minnesota Scott completed a post doc at the University of Maine and spent three years as an assistant professor at Memorial University in Newfoundland. Scott teaches courses in map design and theory, geo-visualization and geographic information science. He also maintains a research program in spatial cognition, exploring how age and sources of spatial information inform and shape spatial knowledge and spatial concepts. He is currently president of the Cartography and Geographic Information Society, and has served as editor of Cartographic Perspectives (2000 through 2007), co-edited the book Cognitive Mapping: Past, Present and Future with Rob Kitchin in 2000, and has published articles in various geography, cartography and GIScience journals. He is moving to Albuquerque this summer to become professor and chair of the Geography Department at the University of New Mexico. Biosketches, Page - 3 Scott’s non-academic life includes spending time with his four sons, serving as a member of the National Ski Patrol and participating in Minnesota’s Red Ribbon HIV/AIDS ride each July. Oh, and ice cream! Debs Ghosh, dghosh@kent.edu Dr. Debarchana Ghosh (Debs) completed her Bachelor of Science and Master of Arts in Geography from Presidency College and Jawaharlal Nehru University, India. She then came to the United States in 2005 to pursue her Ph.D in Geography from the University of Minnesota and completed her degree in the summer 2009. Her dissertation is titled ‘A Geospatial Analysis of West Nile Virus in the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area of Minnesota’. She joined the Department of Geography, Kent State University, as an Assistant Professor from August 2009. Dr. Ghosh’s research employs an interdisciplinary approach to investigate health and environmental issues. She combines health and medical geography concepts and theories with geospatial technologies such as Geographic Information Science (GIS), modeling, machine learning, and statistics. Specific interests include spatiotemporal modeling of diseases (chronic and infectious), toxic releases, pollution, and their association with unsustainable use of urban and environmental resources, environmental justice, and health disparities. Her research is published in several peerreviewed journals such as Computers, Environment and Urban System, Social Computing, Behavioral Modeling, and Prediction, Cartography and Geographic Information Science Journal, Environmental and Planning B, Social Science and Medicine, Geography Compass, The URISA Journal, and Professional Geographer. She is currently involved in two major research projects. 1) Development of spatial social network to assess and evaluate HIV/AIDS intervention programs that promote knowledge and access to treatment and care for people living with HIV in India. This is an interdisciplinary study that involves theory and methods from the fields of medical geography, epidemiology, and sociology. The study explores how spatial analytic methods (especially GIS) and social network analysis can be used simultaneously. 2) Indentifying ‘food deserts’ in north-east Ohio using geospatial techniques. Dr. Ghosh is also involved in collaborations with the College of Public Health and College of Nursing at Kent State University. Her teaching interests include GIS, Medical and Health Geography, spatial statistics and modeling, spatial epidemiology, and urban environmental issues. Currently, at the department of Geography she is teaching Advanced Geographic Information Science (Fall), Applications of GIS: Health Research (Fall), and Medical and Health Geography (Spring). Dr. Ghosh is an elected member of the Health and Medical Geography Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers, Coordinator for GIS Minor, and member of the Faculty Advisory Committee, Department of Geography, Kent State University. She also reviews several journal articles and book chapters. She is a Scrabble addict and usually plays online at the ISC server using the nick panda115. Biosketches, Page - 4 James W. (“JW”) Harrington, jwh@u.washington.edu JW is a Professor of Geography at the University of Washington. June 2010 will be his sixth 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 teaches international trade and retail geography. He served as department chair from 2000-05, spent three years representing the UW Faculty in Washington State legislative and educational policy matters, and is now vice-chair and chair-elect 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. 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. John Patrick Harty, jharty@uwyo.edu John Patrick Harty is a cultural geographer at the University of Wyoming whose research and teaching interests focus on folk, historical, and sacred places and how regional identity is expressed and embraced through such landscapes. Current research focuses on the linguistic landscapes of northern Great Plains Indian Reservations and folk landscapes of the Northwoods (i.e. Paul Bunyan and his blue ox). Tim Hawthorne, hawthorne.20@osu.edu Tim Hawthorne is a PhD candidate in The Ohio State University Department of Geography. He is set to defend his dissertation on June 28th! In the fall, Tim will move to Georgia to begin his tenuretrack position as Assistant Professor of Geography in the Department of History and Geography at Columbus State University. At CSU, Tim will teach GIS and world regional geography. He will also develop relationships between the university and community and across disciplines to apply GIS in teaching, research and community outreach. Tim’s teaching interests are in community-based geography, including service learning approaches to teaching GIS and cartography. Tim’s research interests are in community geography, human geography, health GIS, Public Participation GIS, and urban geography. His dissertation research uses a mixed-method approach to examine healthcare accessibility and quality of care in the Near East Side of Columbus, Ohio. In his spare time, Tim enjoys golfing, playing softball, biking, watching the Pittsburgh Steelers, and snorkeling. James J. Hayes, james.hayes@csun.edu Jim began his current position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at California State University, Northridge in 2008. His research interests include landscape ecology and biogeography, human-environment interaction, field methods, and spatial analysis. He has taught courses in physical geography, GIScience and remote sensing, and environmental studies. Jim Biosketches, Page - 5 earned the PhD at Indiana University, Bloomington in 2008. His dissertation topic was landscape ecology and spatial pattern analysis of wildfire in ponderosa pine forests. His current projects include investigation of ecological dynamics and landscape ecology of valley oak, an endemic California oak of conservation concern. He is also conducting research on Midwestern forest dynamics and cultural biogeography. Jim is also interested in the concept of landscape as theory and method in geography. Jung Eun (Jessie) Hong, jung.hong@colorado.edu Jessie is a PhD student at University of Colorado at Boulder, and currently working with Dr. Kenneth Foote. Her research interests are Web-based GIS applications for secondary education, especially focusing on teacher training, mixed-method research, and user interface design. At CU, she teaches the computer labs of cartography and GIS related courses. Matin Katirai, MKatirai@wcupa.edu Dr. Katirai received his Ph.D. from the University of Louisville in Urban and Public Affairs where he specialized in urban planning and development. He holds a Master of Public Health in Epidemiology from the University of Kentucky, and Bachelor’s of Arts degree in Geography from York University. Dr. Katirai has over 12 years of experience with geographic information systems (GIS) and has extensive knowledge with geographic analysis in both the public and private sectors. Dr. Katirai has done work with GIS in various fields including: business, education, health care, and government. Dr. Katirai joined the West Chester University faculty in the fall of 2009 with the primary responsibility of teaching Business GIS. Prior to Dr. Katirai working at West Chester University he was a research associate at the Center for Hazard Research and Policy Development at the University of Louisville where he was responsible for working on a grant to develop a disaster preparedness index from the National Science Foundation. Dr. Katirai has also worked at the Kentucky Department of Public Health as a GIS specialist. Before Dr. Katirai went into higher education and government he worked with various private firms in Toronto, Canada. The largest of those firms being the Canadian Tire Corporation, Canada’s largest retailing chain, where he was the GIS coordinator. Dr. Katirai's teaching interests include GIS; business, medical, urban, and transportation geography; disaster preparedness and emergency response; environmental and hazard-mitigation planning and policy; and research methods. David Koch, dkoch@k-state.edu I am currently finishing my Ph.D. (ABD) at Kansas State University. Starting this Fall I will be working at the University of Dubuque. At Dubuque, I will be a faculty member in the Department of Natural and Applied Sciences, my teaching duties there will primarily involve GIS, remote sensing, and environmental science. The main focus of this job will be on teaching, but there is a lot of departmental interest in getting the undergraduate students involved in doing research projects. My thesis work at Kansas State is involves understanding connections between landscape and landscape patterns and the amount of pathogens carried on that landscape. Specifically, with hantavirus in rodent communities in Paraguay. More generally, my research interests involve understanding the importance of spatial distributions in operating ecology, how to use GIS and remote sensing to Biosketches, Page - 6 improve our understanding of the spatial aspects of ecology, and other aspects of humanenvironment interactions. Carl J. Legleiter, cleglei1@uwyo.edu I have just completed my first year as an assistant professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Wyoming. Before arriving in Laramie, I earned B.S. degrees in Earth Sciences and Statistics from Montana State University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Geography from the University of California Santa Barbara, and briefly worked as a post-doc with the USGS' Geomorphology and Sediment Transport Laboratory in Golden. My primary interests are in fluvial geomorphology, remote sensing, and geostatistics, and my research seeks to gain insight regarding the flow and sediment transport processes that drive channel change through the application of geospatial techniques. My dissertation research involved developing spectrally based methods for mapping flow depth from optical image data and geostatistical tools for quantifying spatial patterns of channel morphology, all in the context of the dynamic gravel-bed rivers of northeastern Yellowstone National Park. I remain actively engaged in this area and am also working on a river restoration project in California, where my colleagues and I are examining the evolution of greater morphologic complexity from a simple, initial channel design. I have initiated a couple of new studies in Wyoming as well. My teaching activities include courses in Physical Geography, Geomorphology, Fluvial Geomorphology, and Remote Sensing of Rivers. Brenden McNeil, Brenden.McNeil@mail.wvu.edu After spending boyhood summers in Estes Park, CO, Brenden McNeil left his hometown of Middletown, OH to ski, climb, and pursue a BS in Environmental Science and MS in Geographic Information Science at University of Denver. Since leaving DU for a PhD in Geography at Syracuse University, and a postdoc in forest ecology at UW-Madison, Brenden has developed research interests focused on applying tools of raster-based GIS models, hyperspectral remote sensing, and spatially-extensive fieldwork to study nutrient cycling in forests of the Adirondack Park, NY and the Central Appalachians. Currently, he is continuing this research as an assistant professor at West Virginia University, where he also teaches a large (350 students) Physical Geography lecture, and smaller classes of Natural Resources, Environmental GIS Modeling, and a graduate seminar in Spatial Ecosystem Ecology. Outside of the academy, his perfect day would involve drinking homebrewed beer and eating local food, while walking in someplace in the global outdoors with his wife (and colleague Karen Culcasi), dog, and 10 month old daughter. Katie Meehan, kameehan@email.arizona.edu Katie Meehan will join the geography faculty at the University of Oregon this fall. She is an urban political ecologist with research and teaching interests in diverse economies, sustainable water governance, and informal settlements in the global South, particularly Mexico. After graduating from the University of Oregon with degrees in Political Science and Environmental Studies, Meehan worked as a Peace Corps Volunteer for three years in Central America. She holds an MSc in Environmental Change and Management from Oxford University and will finish her doctorate in Geography from the University of Arizona this spring. Her research has been supported by grants Biosketches, Page - 7 and fellowships from the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Fulbright-Hays, and the Social Science Research Council. Fernando Riosmena, fernando.riosmena@gmail.com Fernando Riosmena is Assistant Professor in the Geography Department and the Population Program (Institute of Behavioral Science) at the University of Colorado at Boulder. His research interests relate to immigration from Latin America, particularly in the changing spatial distribution of migrant origins in Mexico and their destinations in the US; the health status and health trajectories of migrants; and some aspects of the association between migration and development. He teaches courses on immigration, population geography, demographic methods, and Latin American human geography. Michael Solem, msolem@aag.org Michael Solem is Educational Affairs Director for the Association of American Geographers. Since 2003, Dr. Solem has served as principal investigator or co-principal investigator on over $3.5 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, both 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. Dr. Solem is the external evaluator for Oregon State University’s 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 University–San Marcos, and leads the AAG’s efforts with the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning program. Dr. Solem has twice received the Journal of Geography in Higher Education’s biennial award for promoting excellence in teaching and learning for his research on faculty development and graduate education in geography. Jane Southworth, jsouthwo@ufl.edu Dr. Jane Southworth is an Associate Professor at the University of Florida and my research interests are based on the study of human-environment interactions within the field of Land Change Science. More specifically remote sensing of land use, land cover change and land change modeling; the implications of scale and scaling in remote sensing and modeling analyses; people and parks; climate variability and climate change analyses and modeling of the impacts of climate change on humanenvironment systems. I teach courses on Extreme Weather, Climate Change, Introduction to Remote Sensing, Land Change Science and Advanced Environmental Remote Sensing. Eight years ago I attended the GFDA workshops and as a result of that experience I also teach courses on ‘Publish or Perish’ and ‘How to Survive (and Thrive) in Academia’ as one-credit hour professional development courses for PhD students in our program. For the past 5 years I have also served as Graduate Biosketches, Page - 8 Coordinator, and am a Co-Developer of a newly formed 'Florida Climate Institute' between Florida and Florida State Universities. Sara Smith, shsmith1@email.unc.edu Sara is a new assistant professor of geography at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She started at UNC-CH in August of 2009, after completing her dissertation on the geopolitics of love and babies in India’s Jammu and Kashmir State. The dissertation was written after 11 months of fieldwork in the Ladakh region of India, with methods including a survey, interviews, and a participatory oral history project. Sara’s research interests are in feminist and political geography, with a focus on the relationship between self and state in South Asia, and how this relationship shapes experiences of intimacy and daily life. In the fall she’ll be teaching a graduate proposal design class and an upper division course on political and cultural geographies of South Asia. Deborah A. Strumsky, dstrumsk@uncc.edu My primary research interest is technological innovation. For some time I have been studying how innovation and invention fosters long run economic growth. Historically, innovation is an urban phenomena, however innovation rates vary enormously across cities. This variation in urban invention has prompted me to investigate the determinants of innovation across metropolitan areas, and to explore if there are relevant public policy levers to influence innovation rates within cities. My most recent work, funded by the National Science Foundation, quantified the effect of the recession on US innovation rates and under what conditions and in what locations the 2009 ARRA stimulus package produced increases, or prevented declines, in US innovations rates. My most recent research focuses specifically on renewable energy technologies. It is often assumed that if sufficient resources are invested in innovation, then significant, even catastrophic, environmental disasters can be averted without invoking significant lifestyles changes. However, like most economic phenomena, investments in innovation reveal decreasing marginal returns to productivity. The implication being, that it is possible there is no level of investment large enough to overcome the environmental challenges we confront, at least not with in a relevant period of time. The specific projects I am working on are attempts to estimate the marginal increase in energy returns of investment (EROI) and patented inventions in energy technology. Additional areas of active research are spatial econometrics on social network graphs and scaling analysis on complex adaptive systems. I received my undergraduate degree at the University of Southern Maine in Economics, and my Master’s and PhD from Cornell University in Regional Science. Upon receipt of my PhD I was as an energy analyst covering electricity and natural gas markets, and completed a post-doc at the Harvard Business School. Jim Wilson, jwilson41@niu.edu After a thirteen year hiatus from teaching, I have just finished my first year as an assistant professor at Northern Illinois University’s Department of Geography. At NIU I teach Environment and Society, the Geography of Health, and Maps and Mapping. Prior to this mid-life change in careers I have worked as a research associate and associate director at East Carolina University’s Health Biosketches, Page - 9 Services Research and Development Center and as manager of the GIS unit at the North Carolina’s State Center for Health Statistics. My research background includes epidemic diffusion, spatial statistics, geographic disparities in health outcomes, GIS in public health, and environmental health, while my avocations include reading—particularly in natural history topics, fish-keeping (native and tropical), and martial arts. Kristen, my spouse, holds a doctorate in Anthropology. We have three children: Bryce is a souschef in Manhattan; Leah has just graduated from Appalachian State University, summa cum laude in English, and Ian is continuing his work towards a BFA in illustration at ASU. Erika Wise, ekwise@gmail.com Erika is joining the geography faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill this summer, after spending the past year as an assistant professor at the University of Iowa. She earned her Ph.D. in geography from the University of Arizona in 2009. She is a climatologist and a dendrochronologist who studies the causes of climate variability and the impacts of climate change and variability on physical, biological, and human systems. Her current research focuses on how past climate, current climate variability, and projected climate changes interact with water resources in the western U.S. Biosketches, Page - 10