Geography Faculty and Graduate Student Newsletter (Summer 2017)

The summer is over and students are back on campus. We are welcoming a brand new cadre of students to the Geography department this Fall. It is particularly exciting to see that we have 25 new MS students that are enrolled in our on-line professional GIS program. This program has been a development for a long time and we are finally welcoming students into the program. Andrew Klein, Dan Goldberg, and Tony Filippi deserve a big shoutout for their work in course and program development. We have also joined this Fall by Stacey Lyle who will be facilitating many of the courses.

We are also joined this Fall by 4 new Assistant Professors. Rodrigo Bombardi, Burak Guneralp, Julie Loisel, and Courtney Thompson are joining us as new tenure-track faculty. We also have some new visiting faculty in the Department. Deidra Davis, Nathan Swanson, and Joshua Watkins will be teaching in Geography this coming year.

In addition to the new faculty, we have 11 new graduate students in the residential MS and PhD programs. So, there are a lot of new faces around the department and up on the website. For those of you who are returning, please make the newcomers feel welcome!

Just before classes started, the Geography Department had a faculty retreat at the Milton-Parker Home in Bryan. We were also able to be joined by George Allen and John Connors who will be joining the Department in Fall 2018. It was nice to see the whole department together in one place for even a short time. Christian Brannstrom, Dan Goldberg, Wendy Jepson, and Charles Lafon weren't able to attend.

Grants Funded

Loisel, J., Walenta, J., and Goldberg, D.The value of Magallanes peatlands on the carbon market. Funded by the National Geographic Society - Committee for Research and Exploration. $21,820.

Proposals Submitted

Lafon, C.W. Ecosystem Classification and Mapping of Longleaf Pine (Pinus palustris) Habitat. U.S.D.A. Forest Service $5,000.

Roark, E.B.Collaborative Research: Recovery of Seamount Precious Coral Beds From Heavy Trawling Disturbance. NSF $25,000.

Klein, A.G.Collaborative Research: Sea ice as a driver of Antarctic benthic macroalgal community composition and nearshore trophic connectivity. NSF $54,651.

Goldberg, D.G.Innovative solutions to spatial uncertainty in geocoding. University of Colorado/NIH $47,998.

Goldberg, D.G.Geocoder Application Consulting to NAACCR. North American Association of Central Cancer Registries/NIH. $54,066.

Bishop, M.P. and Sericano, J. Synthesis Now: Next-generation analytical tool engages Gulf dataverse to find best management, monitoring, and bottom-line outcomes for estuaries. Agrilife Research/National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine $147,352.

Bishop, M.P.Developing Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS)-based Techniques for Enhancing the Efficiency of Agronomic Management Practices. U.S.D.A. NIFA. $88,998.

Bishop, M.P.Development of ground penetrating radar for potato breeding and production. Texas A&M Agrilife Research/U.S.D.A. NIFA. $542,055.

Loisel, J., Harden, J. and Hugelius, G. Soil Banker: Tools for soil wealth evaluation and management. Science for Nature and People Partnership (SNAPP) $119,530.

Papers Published

Peng, X., T. Zhang, O. W. Frauenfeld, K. Wang, B. Cao, X. Zhong, H. Su, and C. Mu, 2017: Response of seasonal soil freeze depth to climate change across China. The Cryosphere, 11, 1059-1073, doi:10.5194/tc-11-1059-2017. (Download)

Ford, T. W., S. M. Quiring, and O. W. Frauenfeld, 2017: Multi-decadal variability of soil moisture-temperature coupling over the contiguous United States modulated by Pacific and Atlantic sea surface temperatures. Int. J. Climatol., 37, 1400 - 1415, doi:10.1002/joc.4785. (Download)

Dobreva, I.D., Bishop, M.P., and Bush, A.B.G. 2017. Climate-glacier dynamics and topographic forcing in the Karakoram Himalaya: concepts, issues and research directions. Water 9:405, doi:10.3390/w9060405.

Broadstone, S. and Brannstrom, C. "Growing food is work": The labour challenges of urban agriculture in Houston, TX. Pages 66-78 in WinklerPrins, A.M.G.A. (ed) Global Urban Agriculture. CABI.

Shen H, S Tao, Y Chen, P Ciais, B Güneralp, M Ru, Q Zhong, X Yun, X Zhu, T Huang, W Tao, Y Chen, B Li, X Wang, W Liu, J Liu, S Zhao. Urbanization-induced population migration has reduced ambient PM2.5 concentrations in China. Science Advances.

N.G. Prouty, F. Mienis, P. Campbell-Swarzenski, E.B. Roark, A.J. Davies, C.M. Robertson, G. Duineveld, S.W. Ross, M. Rhode, A.W.J. Demopoulos, Seasonal variability in the source and composition of particulate matter in the depositional zone of Baltimore Canyon, U.S. Mid-Atlantic Bight, Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers, 2017, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dsr.2017.08.004. (Download)

Houser, C., Bishop, M.P. and Lemmons, K. 2017. Teaching complex concepts in the geosciences by integrating analytical reasoning with GIS. Journal of Geosciences Education 65:263-271. doi:10.5408/16-152.1. (Download)

You, M., Filippi, A.M., Güneralp, I., and Güneralp, B. 2017. What is the direction of land change? A new approach to land-change analysis. Remote Sensing 9:850; doi:10.3390/rs9080850.

Huang X, J Yang, B Güneralp, and M Burris. 2017. U.S. Metropolitan Spatial Structure Evolution: Investigating Spatial Patterns of Employment Growth from 2000 to 2010. Urban Science 1(3): 28.

Serrato Marks G., M. LaVigne, T. M. Hill, W. Sauthoff, T. P. Guilderson, E. B. Roark, R. B. Dunbar, and T. J. Horner (2017), Reproducibility of Ba/Ca variations recorded by northeast Pacific bamboo corals, Paleoceanography, 32, doi:10.1002/2017PA003178.

Jacquez, G.M., Essex, A., Curtis, A., Kohler, B., Sherman, R., El Emam, K., Shi, C., Kaufmann, A., Beale, L., Cusick, T., Goldberg, D., and Goovaerts, P. 2017. Geospatial cryptography: enabling researchers to access private, spatially referenced, human subjects data for cancer control and prevention. J. Geogr. Sys 19: 197-220. doi: 10.1007/s10109-017-0252-3.

MacDonald, Y.J, Sehwind, M., Goldberg, D.W., Lampley, A., Wheeler, C.M. 2017. An alysis of the process and results of manual geocode correction. Geospatial Health 12:526.

Papers Submitted

Loisel J, MacDonald GM, Thomson M. The “warm Little Ice Age” as an analogue for enhanced hydroclimatic variance across the American Southwest. PLoS One.

Loisel J, Yu Z, Beilman DW, Kaiser K, Parnikoza I. Past and present peatland development in Antarctica under warm climates. Nature Scientific Reports.

Beilman DW, Yumol L, Yu Z, Parnikoza I, Guilderson TP, Loisel J. Recent plant growth conditions in the Antarctic Peninsula in context of the last 2000 years. Science.

Stelling J, Yu Z, Beilman DW, Loisel J. Dynamic response of moss peatbank ecosystems to late Holocene hydroclimate change in the western Antarctic Peninsula. Quaternary Science Reviews.

Harden J, Hugelius G, Ahlström A, Blankinship J, Bond-Lamberty B, Lawrence C, Loisel J, Malhotra A, Jackson R, Ogle S, Phillips C, Ryals R, Todd-Brown K, Vargas R, Vargas S, Cotrufo F, Keiluweit M, Heckman K, Crow S, Silver W, DeLonge M, Nave L. Pathways for the science community to characterize the state, vulnerabilities, and management opportunities of soil organic matter. Global Change Biology.

Treat C, Broothaerts N, Dalton A, Dommain R, Douglas T, Drexler J, Finkelstein S, Grosse G, Hope G, Hutchings J, Jones M, Kleinen T, Kuhry P, Lacourse T, Lähteenoja O, Loisel J, Notebaert B, Payne R, Peteet D, Sannel B, Stelling J, Strauss J, Swindles G, Talbot J, Tarnocai C, Verstraeten G, Williams C, Xia Z, Yu Z, Brovkin V. Widespread global peatland establishment and persistence for the last 130,000 years. Nature Geoscience.

McDonald, RI, B Güneralp, C-W Huang, KC Seto, M You. Conservation priorities to reduce biodiversity loss from global urban expansion. Conservation Letters.

Travel

Kathleen O'Reilly was in Bihar, India working on her 3ie project (6/28/2017 - 7/7/2017).

Julie Loisel lead a study abroad trip to Peru (6/29/2017 - 7/13/2017).

Charles Lafon traveled to Virginia to visit sites associated with his innovative pedagogy grant (7/1/2017 - 7/10/2017).

Andrew Klein represented the department at the ESRI User's Conference in San Diego, CA (7/7/2017-7/14/2017).

Dan Goldberg reperesented the department at the ESRI User's Conference in San Diego, CA (7/7/2017-7/14/2017).

Michael Bishop visited Charlotee, NC for research collaborationand optimization of LIDAR data for courses and algorithm development (7/9/2017 - 7/14/2017).

Dan Goldberg attended the SIGGRAPH conference in Los Angeles, CA (7/28/2017-7/31/2017).

Dan Goldberg partipated in the Summer at the Census Program in Suitland, MD (8/5/2017 - 8/28/2017).

Michael Bishop was in Albuquerque, NM to present progress on a research project at Sandia National Laboratory (8/6/2017 - 8/7/2017).

Wendy Jepson attended a sponsored workshop on household water security metrics at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL (8/9/2017 - 8/12/2017).

Julie Loisel was in the field near Kananaskis, Alberta, Canada for research on beaver meadow paleohydrology (8/18/2017 - 8/22/2017).

Wendy Jepson traveled to Stockholm to attend the World Water Week conference (8/26/2017 - 9/2/2017).

Faculty Activities

Burak Güneralp was appointed as Associate Editor for the journal System Dynamics Review.

Geographers in the News

Wendy Jepson's new article in Water Security received some press in Water Canada. You can see more here.

Graduate Student News

Parveen Chhetri won the Department of Geography Outstanding Graduate Student Award (Research). Congratulations, Parveen!

Cesar Castillo won the Department of Geography Outstanding Graduate Student Award (Teaching). Congratulations, Cesar!

Yolanda McDonald successfully defended her dissertation "The landscape across the continuum of invasive cervical cancer prevention: a geospatial approach" on May 19, 2017. Congratulations, Yolanda!

Eric Guenther successfully defended his M.S. thesis "USING SPECTRAL ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES TO IDENTIFY CHARACTERISTIC SCALES IN DIGITAL ELEVATION MODELS" on June 15, 2017. Congratulations Eric!

Undergraduate Student News

Kate von Ness '19 won the 2016-2017 Undergraduate Research Scholars Outstanding Thesis in STEM. Her thesis "Long-Term Hydrological Reconstruction from a Beaver Meadow" was supervised by Julie Loisel. Congratulations, Kate & Julie!