Geography News and Events
Rumsey to Give Brownbag Talk
David Rumey – historical map collector, curator, and president of Cartography Associates – will give an informal 1-hour brownbag talk on Thursday May 8th at 3:30 pm in room 350 Science Hall. This will be a great opportunity to interact with him and ask him questions about the many cool things he is involved with in the world of mapping.
Department of Geography Picnic: May 2nd at Vilas Park
The Department of Geography will hold its annual Spring picnic this Friday, May 2nd at Vilas Park.
The event will follow the Treacy Lecture at Science Hall and begin around 5:30pm at the Vilas Park Shelter. The Department will supply grilled meat and vegetables, beer, and other refreshing beverages. Attendees are encouraged to bring a potluck item, as well as partners, friends, and family members.
Click here to see a map from Science Hall to Vilas Park Shelter.
Department Acknowledges Recent Geography Student Awards
Congratulations is in order for UW-Madison Geography Students!
Jacquelyn Gill
Geological Society of America (GSA) Graduate Student Research Grant
Is there evidence for a Younger Dryas impact event in lake sediment records from the Great Lakes region?
Firestone et al. (2007) reported evidence of an impact event that they conclude was a cause of the megafaunal extinction, the collapse of the Clovis culture, and destabilization of the Laurentide Ice Sheet (LIS) resulting in Younger Dryas (YD) cooling. The causes of these events have remained controversial, and Firestone’s hypothesis suggests a singular cause. They cite extra- terrestrial materials in soil, including magnetic grains, micro-spherules, charcoal, and geochemical indicators (iridium and helium) as evidence. The impact is hypothesized to have taken place on or over the LIS in the Great Lakes region at approximately 12.9 cal. yrs BP.
Do lacustrine records from the Great Lakes region support the YD impact theory? Firestone suggested that the effects of the impact were continental in scale, accompanied by extensive fires across North America. For this study, lake sediments will be investigated for geochemical and physical evidence of an impactor, and if such an event is found it will help interpret the ecological records. Firestone only reported one Midwestern site (MI) out of ten, and so data from other sites near the proposed impact event are ideal to test the YD impact hypothesis.
Anthony Beauchaine
Geological Society of America (GSA) Graduate Student Research Grant
The award
will support Tony's efforts to obtain OSL (optically stimulated luminescence)
age estimates on fluvial and eolian sediments in the Lower Wisconsin River
Valley. These ages will help constrain the deglacial chronology of certain
events related to the retreat of the Green Bay Lobe of the Laurentide Ice
Sheet. These events include the final drainage of glacial Lake Wisconsin,
the timing of permafrost degradation and eolian activity in the Lower Wisconsin
River Valley, and the formation of ice-wedge polygons related to Younger
Dryas cooling.
Kara Dempsey
Political Geography Specialty Group of the AAG PhD Student Paper Award
Kara has been awarded first place for her paper, titled "Architecture, Symbol and Identity: Spanish Monuments and Contested Regional Representations." She won this award for both Political Geography and European Geography Specialty Group competitions.
Graduate Student International Field Research Award
Samantha (Sam) Keehan
AAG/CSG National Geographic Mapping Award
This
top prize was awarded to Sam based on her historical map of the USS Cobia,
statement on how the award will help her, and instructor recommendation
letter.
Zach Johnson
ACSM/CaGIS David Woodward Award
AAG/CSG National Geographic Mapping Award
Zach
was also given the first place award for his cartogram depiction of Defense
Spending and Military Troop Levels. Zach received
a National Geographic World Atlas in addition to the handsome award. Read
more about Zach Johnson's maps and visualization.
Jamon Van Den Hoek
2008 Summer Foreign Language Area Studies (FLAS) Award
The award will help Jamon study Mandarin at intensive ten-week program at Nankai University in Tianjin, China this summer. While there he will improve his proficiency in written and spoken Mandarin in preparation for research fieldwork in northwest Yunnan Province, China. Read about Jamon's research.
Jake Fleming
2008 Summer Foreign Language Area Studies (FLAS) Award
Jake is learning Russian to support his work on land use change in semi-nomadic herding communities in rural Kyrgyzstan. He will be spending eight weeks this summer at Indiana University taking a Russian immersion course. Jake has previously won FLAS's for the study of Kyrgyz and Uzbek.
Adam Mandelman
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program
Adam has been awarded for his proposal "Walking Through Time and Place: Historic Trails and Public Space"
Adam's proposal asks how historic trails provide insight into the creation
and sharing of cultural and environmental knowledge about the past and present.
His research sites include Hawai'i's Ala Kahakai National Historic Trail, urban
history walks in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and one route of broad cultural
significance, most likely Route 66. Examining these sites as linear spaces
of both mobility and connection, he will study how historic
routes can reveal important stories about culture, history, and the environment
as well as what those narratives might offer for collaborative research, planning,
and community-based development projects.
Abby Popp
2008 Summer Foreign Language Area Studies (FLAS) Award
Abby is learning Hindi to conduct PhD research on gender & water in northern India. The FLAS award supports 10 weeks of language study at the American Institute of Indian Studies program in Jaipur. She will also use the time to narrow and clarify her research interests.
Po-Yi Hung
Graduate Student Affinity Group of the Association of American Geographers (GSAG) Paper Competition Award
Po-Yi won the award for his paper, "Articulated Identities with Neoliberal Landscapes: Agricultural Transformation in Fataan, Taiwan."
His paper investigates how neoliberalism has reoriented local agriculture to multifunctionality for sustaining local agrarian economy. Following the extended dimensions made by the mode of multifunctionality, "leisure agriculture" (xiuxian nongyie) in Taiwan has not only created new discourses in surviving the fragile agrarian communities in terms of counting the challenges brought by WTO, but also initiated a process of reframing Fataan's spatial identity.
Hallie Eakin Brownbag on Friday, April 25: "Vulnerability Research and Approaches"
Please join us for a brownbag talk with invited guest Hallie Eakin. The talk will be in room 350 of Science Hall from 12 – 1pm.
Hallie Eakin is an assistant professor in the Department of Geography at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her work looks at the relationship between climate change, economic globalization, and its impact on the vulnerability of agricultural communities in Latin America. In her recent text, "Weathering Risk in Rural Mexico: Climatic, Economic and Institutional Change", Eakin provides a stunning account of how global climatic and economic change interacts in complex and unpredictable ways with local socio-ecological processes in three rural farming communities in Mexico. Eakin's work is at the forefront of scholarly research that attempts to unravel the human dimensions of environmental change in an increasingly globalized world.
Professor Eakin will also present the Yi-Fu talk later on Friday: "Resilient but Vulnerable? The Challenge of Enhancing Adaptive Capacity in Rural Mexico"
UW-Madison Geography AAG Party: April 17th
The Department of Geography will host its annual party for the American Association of Geographers Conference in Boston:
UW-Madison Annual AAG Party- When: 9pm – close on April 17, 2008
- Where: Dillon's – 955 Boylston Street
- Wisconsin AAG Party Map/Flier
Please contact Matt Purdy with questions and advice.
2008 Geography Student Symposium: Friday, April 11th
The Department of Geography will hold its 7th Annual Geography Student Symposium on Friday, April 11th.
Leif Brottem Awarded Pre-Doctoral Fellowship
from the West Africa Research Association
Leif Brottem was awarded a Pre-Doctoral Fellowship from the West Africa Research Association to begin his project: ‘Pastoralism, bioculture, and changing patterns of governance in West Africa’. This summer, Leif will begin a multi-scalar study that will explore the encroachment of agricultural fields into grazing areas and livestock corridors in and around the Boucle du Baoulé biosphere in Western Mali. He also plans to explore the live music scene in the capital, Bamako, as much as possible.
Zach Johnson Wins CaGIS-ACSM Map Competition
Zach
Johnson (MS in cartography) won first prize for the
David Woodward Award for Best Electronic Map in the Student Category in the
2007 CaGIS-ACSM Map Design Competition for his World
Freedom Atlas. He
will be awarded $500, a National Geographic world atlas, and a license for
Map Publisher software program at the 2007 AAG Conference in Boston
this April.
Zach will finish a Masters Degree in Cartography in May. His thesis will explore the relative effectiveness of different cartogram designs for communicating election results.
Congratulations Zach on your wonderful achievement!
Geography Student Commons Opens
The new Geography Student Commons is officially
open in room 155 of Science Hall. The Student Commons
will provide a space for students to gather, check email,
have a cup of coffee, and organize student activites.
The Commons will be maintained by the Geography Club, which will use the space in part to sell coffee and t-shirts to raise funds for Geography Club activities and events.
The Student Commons will be open from 9am — 5pm Monday through Friday.
Geography Undergraduates Awarded College of Letters and Science Undergraduate Scholarships
Katie Lininger is the recipient of the 2007-2008 Ralph B. Abrams College of Letters and Science Scholarship, which is awarded to four seniors based on academic performance. The scholarship will help fund her study abroad program in Ecuador. Her program is a tropical conservation semester that is run by UW-Madison and the Ceiba Foundation for Tropical Conservation.
Erin Collins is the recipient of the 2007-2008 Earl D. Johnson College of Letters and Science Scholarship.
Congratulations to Both Katy and Erin!
Geography Students Create Food Map
UW-Madison Geography undergraduate students Kai Johnson and Carissa Dilley are
creating an interactive
map that allows users to trace the route food and ingredients
take from origin to destination. The
map aims to clarify the
complex
issues that surround food industries and sustainability. Users
will choose from various products and enter in their home
zip code to see how far these foods have traveled to get
to their plate.
The idea for the map came from the book Twinkie Deconstructed (2007), which explores how food ingredients are grown, mined, and manipulated into America's diet. Kai and Carissa considered the questions of sustainability and morality, arriving at the conclusion that one must consistently increase one's own awareness to understand the world and make good decisions. In terms of the food industry, the complexity of food processes and discourses (e.g. local vs organic vs industrial) is a challenge to increasing awareness. The map, as Kai explains, serves two purposes to address this challenge: "First, to get more people to be actually thinking about these topics – food, sustainability, environment, politics – as well as all the intricate connections between everything. Second, to act as a (semi) comprehensive tool which can help people decide on food related questions themselves."
As an independent study under the direction of Professor
Harrower, Kai and Carissa began the project of compiling various data
on the production of food and building a database to store that information.
A map interface using an API from Google Maps will allow users
to look up food and see connections within the industry. Their food map
is an illustration of a new generation of digital maps distributed over
the internet that reach a wide audience and invite user manipulation
of mapped information. Carissa
explains, "We
chose to put the map online so more people would have access to it and
so users are able to play around with this information much more then
they would be able to with a static or standalone text, which is how
this information is often presented. This way the map allows you switch
between information and maps that would otherwise take a whole book full
of static maps to portray."
Future directions of the map include sophisticated search capacities, the ability to calculate the approximate carbon cost for shipping foods various distances, and ways to allow users to enter in their own data on food products and ingredients. We'll keep you posted as to the map's development!
Geography Students To Intern with National Geographic
Katie
Lininger will begin as intern
for the National Geographic Society for Fall of 2008. She
will work with a group of researchers in the film and television
division. Her tasks will involve researching National Geographic
films to verify factual accuracy and creating research packets
about upcoming projects." The goal is to gain the ability
to research a film in its entirety on her own. Katy says,
I am interested in it because National Geographic needs to
produce films and programs that are entertaining and that
maintain scientific integrity at the same time. I am curious
to see how they transfer scientific information from the
academic community to the public community; I guess I have
always been interested in this subject."
Mark Bigelow will be interning at the cartographic division of National Geographic this summer in Washington D.C.
Department of Geography Undergraduate Ben Spaier Places First in Paper Competition
Department of Geography
Undergraduate Ben Spaier was awarded
First Prize in the 2007 Annual Meeting of the AAG West Lakes
Division (November 8-10 , 2007) Undergraduate Paper Competition
at the at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His
paper, titled "The Military-Industrial
Complex through Airphotos of Wisconsin," considers
the role of post-World War II military production in Wisconsin
through the use of air photography.
Geography Grad Students Awarded NSF Doctoral Dissertation
Improvement Grants
Three doctoral students in the Department of Geography, Abby Neely, Colin Belby, and Yen-Chu Weng, have been awarded NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grants in support of their ongoing research. These grants allow doctoral students to undertake significant data-gathering projects and to conduct field research in settings away from their campus that would not otherwise be possible. Proposals are judged on the basis of their scientific merit, including the theoretical importance of the research question and the appropriateness of the proposed data and methodology to be used in addressing the question.
Abby Neely's proposal is titled "Health and Nature in Twentieth and Twenty-first Century Zululand." Her research investigates the relationship between health and nature in the context of HIV/AIDS in Africa's changing environments. She will proceed by posing three key questions:
- How are health and nature related?
- How have health and nature evolved from the mid-twentieth century to the present?
- What is the role of labor (via natural resource management) in connecting health and nature?
Her methods will include the collection of life and oral histories, a historical re-survey, focus groups, landcover change analysis, and archival research. Abby's research aims to understand how the current HIV/AIDS epidemic and landscapes are a result of a larger cultural and historical context, as well as how connections between human and environmental health change over both time and space.
Colin Belby's proposal is titled "Floodplain Sedimentation and Nutrient Sequestration, Upper Mississippi River" His research will investigate the role large river floodplains play in reducing downstream conveyance of aquatic contaminants. He will employ sediment coring of multiple areas of the Mississippi River floodplain to:
- quantify how sedimentation and nutrient concentrations associated with sediments have changed on the Mississippi River floodplain from pre-European-American settlement to present,
- characterize how hydrologic connectivity and geomorphology of the Mississippi River floodplain affect nutrient retention and fluxes, and
- identify the dominant forms of phosphorus retained on the floodplain
This research will provide a greater understanding of how and where floodplains retain sediment and nutrients, which will help resource managers more effectively manage these areas to reduce downstream nutrient transport and its adverse impacts.
Yen-Chu Weng's proposal is titled "The Knowledge-Discourse-Practice Nexus of Ecological Restoration: Integrating Diversities." Her research explores they ways in which people’s positionality influences how ecological restoration is interpreted and practiced. She will focus on three types of actors involved with ecological restoration: ecological scientists, professional practitioners, and the general public. She will investigate the interconnections between people’s knowledge background, their discursive construction of nature, and their concrete practices in conducting restoration activities through a comparative case-study approach to study a range of restoration projects in two Midwestern cities: Madison, Wisconsin and Ann Arbor, Michigan. The aim of her research is to foster mutual communications between experts and lay volunteers so that they can both contribute to restoration projects and cultivate long-term reciprocal interactions.
Baldwin Grant to Help Archive Historic Aerial Photographs
Geography's Mark Harrower and Peter Gorman of Memorial Library
are heading a project entitled "The Changing Landscapes
of Wisconsin: A Digital Archive of Historic Aerial Photographs." They
have been awarded the Baldwin Grant to scan, georeference,
and distribute via a Web portal UW-Madison's
collection of historic aerial photos. The collection
is currently under high demand and at risk for deterioration.
With the help of Jamie Stoltenberg (Author Robinsin Map Library),
AJ Wortley (State Cartographer's Office), and Vicki Tobias
and Melissa McClimans (both from UW Digital Collections
Center in Memorial Library), over the next three years the
entire collection will be preserved and made accessible for
free to the public.
Read more about it from UW-Madison News.
The Baldwin Grant is funded by an emdowment from Ira and Ineva Baldwin, a unique gift to the University of Wisconsin-Madison that is designed to involve faculty, staff, and students, and to honor the Baldwins’ pioneering leadership in extending the talent, knowledge, and resources of the campus to the people of the state, the nation, and the world.
Jack Williams' Climate Research Presented at the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Professor Jack WIlliams' research on novel and disappearing climates was presented at the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. His findings relate potential climate change scenarios to the world's protected areas and suggest a high vulnerability for plants and animals within these areas. The conference in Bali resulted in the United States signing on with a plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Read about the story in the Wisconsin State Journal.
Lacy Receives UW Academic Staff Development Grant
Jim
Lacy, Associate State Cartographer with the State
Cartographer's Office, was recently awarded an academic staff professional development grant to attend the MidAmerica GIS Symposium in April 2008. The Symposium, sponsored by the MidAmerica GIS Consortium ("MAGIC"), is one of the largest gatherings of GIS professionals in the Midwest.
As a unit of the Department of Geography for over 30 years, the State Cartographer's (SCO) provides direct assistance to the state's professional mapping, surveying, and GIS/LIS communities through print and Web publications, presentations, and educational workshops.