penn state geography winter/spring 2010 newsletter

nature/society gisciences humanphysical

GePenn State

graphy

A look At where our fAculty And students hAve been lAtely

where in the world?

pAges 8-9

Vol. 8 Winter/Spring 2010

2 | Winter/Spring 2010

As I write this, Penn State Geography is wrap-ping up another action-packed semester. Thirty-eight undergraduate courses and 15 graduate courses are in full swing. The active undergraduate geography club (UnderDOGs) is completing its yearly custom-designed t-shirt sale and used proceeds to attend April's AAG meeting. The department’s graduate students are talking about the cross-campus no)Boundaries student conference they organized. Coffee Hour is brimming over with stimulating talks. A projected 32 undergradu-ate majors and 13 graduate students will be receiving their geography degrees.

This time of year also marks budget season. Budget-making in the state of Pennsylvania, like others, has become a perilous pursuit. The stakes are high again this year and sizeable cuts are possible. While Har-risburg contributes a fraction that is minor overall, it is an integral share of the Penn State budget and similarly to Penn State Geography. Hopefully the outcome will demonstrate a solid level of state support. It would be a welcome relief to reverse the trimming trend of the past couple years. In these tough times Penn State Geography depends more than ever on the giving of generous alumni and other donors to whom we are grateful. Yet our fund-raising must increase substantially and we are taking vari-ous additional steps in that direction — see the article in this issue on page 11.

One of the recent Coffee Hour talks reflects an important aspect in the vision of Penn State Geography. On Feb. 26, Dean Bill Easterling delivered a stirring talk entitled “Pasteur’s Quadrant, Moon Shots, and the Death of Distance.” Drawing on Donald Stokes’ influential book, Dean Easterling framed the endeavor of research in a 2x2 contingency table. One axis consists of whether there is the Quest for Fundamental Understanding (Yes or No). The other axis is divided between Pure Basic Research or Use-Inspired Basic Research. His talk pointed to the shift of much scientific research to the table’s upper-right corner, namely Pasteur’s Quadrant (exemplified by Pasteur’s research

on pasteurization). In this up-per right corner the affirmative Quest for Fundamental Un-derstanding is combined with Use-Inspired Basic Research. Dean Easterling then asked pointedly and constructively about the place and role of geography in all of this.

I think this framing is a for-tunate one for geography. The coupling of a Quest for Fundamental Understanding and Use-Inspired Basic Research – Pasteur’s Quadrant – is precisely the pair of parameters distinguishing so much of geographic inquiry. In other words, geography as a discipline, and Penn State Geography in particular, is well-placed in Pasteur’s Quadrant. Important to recognize, moreover, is that geography has gained ground in the shift to Use-Inspired Basic Research. This shift has supplanted an earlier emphasis on what can be typified as Pure Basic Research (the latter exemplified in the scientific contributions of Bohr). While the stuff of vital scientific

revolutions, that earlier emphasis did not offer a lot of space for geo-graphic research and inquiry.

It’s our good fortune as geographers of all stripes to be in a field that lines up well with the sorting out and shift tracking toward

Pasteur’s Quadrant. As Penn State Geographers, we should feel confident that we are well situated for research.

2 From the Department Head3 Undergraduate student news4 Graduate student news5 Graduating students6 Faculty and staff news7 Faculty in focus: Alan Taylor

7 In Memoriam: Paul Simkins8-9 Where in the World?10-11 Alumni news12-13 Alumnus bikes to Arctic Circle14-15 Dutton Institute news16 Donors

In thIs Issue

Department highlights

February27 College of Earth and Mineral Sciences held its Undergraduate Exposition (EMEX).

MarCH19 Miller Lecture featured Paul Robbins, professor and head of School of Geography and Development, University of Arizona.23 No)Boundaries Graduate Student Conference held.

april14-18 AAG annual meeting, Washington, D.C. More than 60 Penn State Geography faculty and students presented.15 Penn State Geography reception held during 2010 AAG annual meeting.30 Last day of spring semester

May14 College of Earth and Mineral Sciences undergraduate commencement16 The Graduate School commencement

june3-6 Traditional Reunion Weekend

july7-11 Central Pa. Festival of the Arts10 GEMS Alumni breakfast

august14 Summer commencement23 First day of fall semester

Watch the weekly Coffee Hours online at http://e-education.mediasite.com by clicking on the "Coffee Hour to Go" folder.

You can see photos of the above events and more on our Flickr site, www.flickr.com/pennstategeography.

This newsletter is a publication of the Department of Geography in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences at Penn State.

Contact us at:Department of Geography302 Walker BuildingPenn State UniversityUniversity Park, PA 16802Phone: 814-865-3433Fax: 814-863-7943URL: www.geog.psu.eduE-mail: [email protected]

Design/editorial content: Mike DawsonAdditional editors: Jodi Vender, Karl Zimmerer

U Ed. EMS 10-128

This publication is available in alternative media. Penn State is committed to affirmative action, equal opportunity, and the diversity of its workforce.

Geography research, theory are well-placed in Pasteur's Quadrant

Karl ZimmererDepartment Head

[email protected]

from the department head www.geog.psu.edu

Winter/Spring 2010 | 3

Carlo sica interned at the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D.C., for the fall 2009 semester. He was a program analyst trainee. Carlo was also the recipient of the undergraduate E. Willard Miller Award in Geography.

Charles Ferrer was accepted to the Minority Under-graduate Laboratory Research Experience (MURE) program. He’ll work with Dr. Peter LaFamina, a profes-sor of geosciences, and he’ll do research on “Geodesy and Volcanology.”

Michelle Renn visited 12 countries during the Semester at Sea program during the spring of 2009. Among the places she visited were Casablanca, Morocco; Walvis Bay, Namibia; Port Louis, Mauritius; Chennai, India; Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Beijing, China; Tokyo, Japan; and Antigua, Guatemala.

Arielle hesse received several awards during the 2009-2010 academic year. They include the John W. White Graduate Fellowship from the University Faculty Senate; the Dean Edward Steidle Memorial Scholar Award from the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences; the University’s Evan Pugh Senior Scholar; and a John and Elizabeth Holmes Teas Scholarship from the College of Earth and Mineral Sci-ences. Arielle was also the student marshal for the Col-lege of Earth and Mineral Sciences and was escorted by assistant professor Brian King.

Andrew Lehnerd participated on the spring 2010 Semester at Sea program. His voyage included stops in Hawaii, Japan, China, Vietnam, India, Mauritius, and Brazil. You can read about his travels on his blog at www.geog.psu.edu/blogs/lehnerd.html.

Undergrads presented at the 2010 meeting of the As-sociation of American Geographers in Washington, D.C. See http://www.geog.psu.edu/pdf/psuaagpresent-ers2010.pdf for the full list. Arielle hesse and siobhan O’Connor presented at the Middle States AAG meting November 2009 in New Paltz, N.Y.

timothy Johnson, and Mark smithgall (B.s. 2009) presented at the 2009 North American Cartography Information Society (NACIS) meeting in Sacramento.

Alisa shockley received the Resilient Student Award from the University’s Multicultural Resource Center.

siobhan O’Connor and erin Rudegeair received honorable mention in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences’ William Grundy Haven Memorial Award.

steve Aliberti (B.s. 2009) competed in the Col-

legiate Mountain Bike Nationals at Lake Tahoe, Calif., in October 2009. He also did research in California’s Lassen Volcanic National Park with Alan taylor in the summer of 2009.

sonia Mak was a student at the University of California-Berkeley in the summer of 2009. While in California, she visited San Francisco and Los Angeles. Before she went to Berkeley, she visited her family in Hong Kong in May 2009.

Andrew Luettgen and his friends took a cross-coun-try road trip between the fall 2009 and spring 2010 semesters. Along the way they went through Indianapo-lis, Ind.; St. Louis, Mo.; Kansas City, Mo.; Denver; Las Vegas; and Los Angeles. On the way back, they took a more southerly route and saw the Grand Canyon in Arizona, Oklahoma City, Memphis and Nashville before arriving in Pennsylvania.

Jinlong Yang received the department’s 2010 Jeff Gockley Memorial Award.

Eight Geography students were honored as EMSAGE Laureates. They are Katherine Gloede, Arielle hesse, Justine Kendall, tye Kreider, siobhan O’Connor, Andrea schwander, timothy shannon and tamara Yoder.

Annalisa Ariatti was awarded lifetime membership in Pi Delta Chi, University Park chapter of Alpha Sigma Lambda, for her achievements as a part-time under-graduate adult learner.

steve Butzler, halina sundy and Andrew stauffer were cartography undergraduate student interns for the Gould Center during the spring semester.

Andrew stauffer received a certificate of participation for the Penn State Behrend Simga Xi Undergraduate Research and Creative Accomplishment Conference.

UnderDoGS officers for 2010-2011 will be: president, Jennifer spinelli; co-vice presidents, Andrew stauffer and tim Yuskavage; secretary, Kyle Martin; and trea-surer, Brian hall.

Justine Kendall was a Graduates of Earth and Miner-al Sciences (GEMS) Diamond Award nominee. She also received a John and Elizabeth Holmes Teas Scholar-ship from the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences.

Recipients of the Balmat Family Scholarship were emily Conner, David Knoppers, sarah Layton and Alex-andra Mcnally. Recipients of the Balmat Family Fund in Geography for Honors Scholars were Arielle hesse, sarah Layton, sean McGrath and siobhan O’Connor.

A number of undergraduates have studied abroad. Christine Rosenfeld was in Seville, Spain, during the summer of 2009. Lauren herwehe (pictured below) spent the fall 2009 semester in Accra, Ghana. sean McGrath spent the summer 2009 semester studying Italian and Italian politics in Milan. He also visited Rome, Cinque Terra, and Munich. tim shannon spent the spring 2009 semester at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.

www.geog.psu.edu UnderGradUate neWS

From left, tye Kreider, Katherine Gloede, sean McGrath and Zachary Zabel traveled to Peru over spring break with students and faculty in Geog 497C, Environmental Issues Across the Americas. The students were introduced to topics such as ecotourism, environmental and economic sustainability, environmental justice, biodiversity, forest fragmentation, endangered species, and Latin American culture. The students conducted field research for independent projects under the supervision of Denice Wardrop and Joe Bishop.


GradUate StUdent neWS www.geog.psu.edu

Two grads placed in the 2009 Earth and Mineral Sciences poster exhibition: Robert Roth (Ph.D.) won first place for his poster, “U.S. Cervical Cancer Mortality 2000-2004: New Methods and New Findings.” emma Gaalaas Mullaney (Ph.D.) received honorable mention for her poster, “Land Security in the Indigenous Terri-tory of Dominica.”

Destiny Aman (Ph.D.) and Brent Yarnal published “Home sweet mobile home? Benefits and challenges

of mobile home ownership in rural Pennsylvania” in the January 2010 edition of Applied Geography. Destiny also received the James T. Meyer Outstanding Graduate Teach-ing Assistant Awardand the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences’ George H.K. Schenck Teaching As-sistant Award.

emma Gaalaas Mullaney (Ph.D.) published “Carib Terrritory: Indigenous Access to Land in the Common-wealth of Dominica” in Latin Ameri-can Geography (2009). Emma also received a CLAG field study award, which she will use toward a visiting scholar position at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Texcoco, Mexico, in the summer. Emma also was awarded the E. Willard and Ruby S. Miller Distinguished Graduate Fellowship. She also received the Student Field Study award of the AAG Cultural and Political Ecology Specialty Group.

nathan Amador (Ph.D.) presented a poster about saturated crevasse drainage along Greeland’s Jakob-shavn Glacier at the American Geophysical Union’s meeting in San Francisco in December 2009.

seth Baum (Ph.D.) was chosen to be a 2009-2010 Public Scholarship Fellow with the Penn State Laboratory for Public Scholarship and Democracy. Seth also was an author on three papers. He published

“Universalist ethics in extraterrestrial encounter” in Acta Astronautica (July 2009); he was one author in “The role of NSF Broader Impacts Crite-rion in Enhancing Research Ethics Pedagogy” in Social Epistemology (2009); and he was the author of “De-scription, prescription and the choice of discount rates” in Ecological

Economics (November 2009). Seth taught Geog 30 in the fall and charged his students with submitting op-ed pieces for publication in local, regional and state media. Seth compiled the publications online at http://bit.ly/6cdtKu.

Paulo Raposo (M.s.) has had three maps recently published: two appeared in early 2010 in the Journal of Planning Education and Research, accompanying an article written by Richard Florida and Scott Jackson,

and another is on the third page of a publication on ESRI Canada’s Web site at http://bit.ly/6Ou9YD. He was also awarded a Cartography and Geo-graphic Information Society (CaGIS) master’s scholarship.

thomas sigler (Ph.D.) is in Panama City, Panama, for his dissertation research on the capital city’s urban growth as it relates to structural changes in the global economy. He’s maintaining a blog at www.geog.psu.edu/blogs/sigler.html.

Andrew Pierce (Ph.D.) published “Competition and Regeneration in quaking aspen-white fir (Populus tremuloides-Abies concolor) Forests in the Northern Sierra Nevada, USA” in the January 2010 edition of the Journal of Veg-etation Science. The paper was the result of his master’s thesis.

Jim thatcher (Ph.D.) went to Vancouver in February 2010 to see his sister Karen play for the United States’ women’s hockey team. Karen scored three goals and tal-lied three assists in five games.

Maureen Biermann (Ph.D.) and Katie Dietrich (Ph.D.) went

to Copenhagen, Denmark, in December 2009 with Petra tschakert for the U.N. Framework Convention on cimate change. They presented an exhibit on De-partment of Geography/AESEDA research on climate change adapation.

nicole Laliberté was the spring 2010 teaching assistant for the Parks and People education abroad program that’s based at the Dwesa-Cwebe Nature Reserve in eastern South Africa.

Rob Roth presented “A workflow learning model to improve geovisual analytics utility” at the 2009 International Cartography Conference in Santiago, Chile, in November 2009. The other authors were Alan Maceachren and Craig McCabe (M.s. 2009).

s

Jennifer Collymore (Ph.D.) received a U.S. Department of Education and Cultural Affairs summer research grant for her dissertation fieldwork in Trinidad. She will take an in-depth look into the curriculum, instruction and assessment components

of geography education in the Caribbean. Jennifer also received the AAG Geography Education Specialty Group’s Gail Hobbs Paper Award.

Chelsea hanchett (M.s.) and Paulo Raposo (M.s.) were graduate cartographer student interns in the Gould Center for the Spring 2010 semester.

Chelsea hanchett (M.s.) received the department's graduate E. Willard Miller Award in Geography. She also won the master’s division of the gradu-ate student paper competition for the AAG Political Geography Specialty Group.

Martha Bell (Ph.D.) received the Harley Fel-lowship in the History of Geography.

Beth Bee (Ph.D.) received the Susan Hanson Disserta-tion Proposal Award from the AAG Geography Perspectives on Women (GPOW) Specialty Group.

The Penn State Geography chapter of Support-ing Women in Geography established the Nancy Brown Geography Com-munity Service Award in memory of Ph.D. student nancy Brown, who passed away in October. emma Gaalaas Mullaney was the first recipient of the award.

Raymond tutu (Ph.D.) spent the summer of 2009 doing research in Ghana. His

research focuses on understand-ing risks, stressors, and resilience among young migrants. His study site is an urban slum, Old Fadama, popularly called “Sodom and Gomorrah” in the city of Accra, Ghana. He is grateful to the Africana Research Center, The H. Herbert and Mary Hughes Fund, The Ruby Miller Endow-ment Fund, and the Department of Geography at Penn State for supporting his research.


www.geog.psu.edu 2009-2010 GradUateS

Congratulations, graduates!The department would like to extend its heartiest praise to those undergraduate and resident graduate students who graduated during the summer of 2009 and the 2009-2010 academic year. Below are lists of the recent graduates.

undergraduatesuMMer 2009 Desiree Brungard (B.A.) Jacob Burnheimer (B.S., physical/environmental) Zachary Crampton (B.A.) Bradley Farster (B.S., GIS) Allison Hurley (B.S., GIS, physical/environmental) Kevin Imafuku (B.S., general; B.A. Japanese; B.A. East Asian Studies; B.S. International Studies) Christopher Panek (B.S., GIS) Carl Sherlock (B.S., general) Zachary Snyder (B.A.) Joseph Sosik (B.S., human) Kariann Tesch (B.S., GIS) Adam Thomas (B.S., general) Kirstin Twardon (B.S., physical/environmental)

Fall 2009 Steven Aliberti (B.S., general) Mason Christensen (B.A.; B.A. history) Andrew Haile (B.S., GIS) Jolene Kaminksi (B.A.; B.A., political science) Sarah Knorr (B.S., physical/environmental) Teoman Korkmaz (B.S., physical/environmental) Jonathan Lynch (B.S., physical/environmental) John Murphy Jr. (B.S., general) Akshay Nanavati (B.A.) Laura Newcomer (B.A.; B.A., English) Dun Ning (B.A.) Michael Roman III (B.S., physical/environmental) Mark Smithgall (B.S., GIS) Tyler Stoner (B.S., GIS) Thomas Watson (B.S., GIS)

graduatesuMMer 2009 Tom Auer (M.S.) Amy Avery-Grubel (M.S.) Tim Frazier (Ph.D.) Adrienne Gruver (M.S.) Jessica Hayes-Conroy (Ph.D.) Andrei Israel (M.S.) Craig McCabe (M.S.) Ratchanok Sangpenchan (M.S.) Kean Huat Soon (M.S.) Jessica Whitehead (Ph.D.)

Fall 2009 Armand Silva (M.S.) Marina Viola (M.S.)

spring 2010 Ritesh Agrawl (Ph.D.) Jin Chen (Ph.D.) Chelsea Hanchett (M.S.) John Morrow (M.S.)

spring 2010 Matt Aghazarian (B.A.) Allison Arnold (B.A) Stephen Beckage (B.S., physical/environmental) Allison Day (B.S., GIS) James Doyle (B.S., GIS) Giovanni Ferro (B.S., general) Katherine Gloede (B.S., human) Kevin Griffith (B.S., GIS) Angelica Hassinger (B.S., physical/environmental) Arielle Hesse (B.A.; B.A. French, B.A. Jewish studies) Justine Kendall (B.A.) Tye Kreider (B.S., general) Sean McGrath (B.S., general) Lee Miller (B.S., environmental) Siobhan O'Connor (B.A., B.A. political science) Jonathan Pfaff (B.S., GIS) Zachary D. Pletchan (B.S., human) Stephen Racek (B.S., general) Scott Roberts (B.S., general) Christine Rosenfield (B.A.; B.A. Spanish) Erin Rudegeair (B.S., general) Christopher Ruhl (B.A.) David Rumbaugh (B.S., physical/environmental) Andrea Schwander (B.S., physical/environmental) Timothy Shannon (B.S., general) Jacob Shermeyer (B.S., physical/environmental) Alisa Shockley (B.S. human) Kristyn Sullivan (B.A.; B.A. telecommunications) Halina Sundy (B.S., general) Joshua Weidner (B.S., general)


www.geog.psu.edufaCULtY and Staff neWS

Bill easterling, the dean of Penn State’s College of Earth and Mineral Sciences and a professor of geography, was named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Decem-ber. He also gave a Coffee Hour talk during the spring semester that can

be watched online at http://www.bit.ly/cITUqU.

Alan Maceachren received a Penn State Faculty Scholar Medal for Outstanding Achievement. He was honored in the category of social and behavioral sciences.

Greg Knight was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Renewable Natural Resources Foundation, representing the Universities Council on Water Resources. Penn State is a member of UCOWR.

Alexander Klippel and Rui Li (Ph.D.) received the Senior Best Presentation Award at the Conference on Spatial Information Theory (COSIT) in France in September 2009. The work presented addresses the cognitive understanding and modeling of geographic scale movement patterns and is part of a recent NSF award. For more information and to download the paper, visit www.cogntivieGIScience.psu.edu.

Cindy Brewer was named the di-rector of the Peter R. Gould Center for Geography Education and Outreach. The center will focus on national map-

ping. See www.geog.psu.edu/gouldcenter/nationalmap-ping.html for more information.

Lakshman Yapa published the paper “Transform-ing the University through Community Engagement” in Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement (2009). The paper is based on his Understanding Urban Poverty: The Philadelphia Field Project.

Staff cartographer erin Greb (B.S. 1999) designed the Pennsylva-nia Hiking Map, a collaboration between Keystone Trails Associa-tion, DCNR, and the department’s Gould Center. The map highlights Pennsylvania’s 29 long-distance hik-ing trails with short trail descriptions and links to appropriate websites for additional trail information. The Penn-sylvania Hiking Map is a wonderful tool for introducing Pennsylvania’s beautiful long distance hiking trails to novice and expert hikers alike.

Frank hardisty published the paper “GeoJabber: Enabling Geo-Collaborative Visual Analysis” in Cartog-raphy and Geographic Information Science (July 2009).

Ian turton presented two papers at GeoComputa-tion 2009 in Sydney, Australia: “Experiences Teaching GIS with Open Source Software” and “Why Geolocating Written Routes is Harder than it Looks.”

Derrick Lampkin received a grant through NASA to study supra-glacial lakes in the Jakobshavn Glacier on Greenland’s west coast. nathan Amador (Ph.D.) and Justin Vanderberg (Ph.D.) will help with the work.

Geography kid Caroline Vender Vancura (age 6) is

the proud big sister of two siblings, Lily Claire Vancura and Nicholas Vender Searles. Will Vancura (B.s. 1992) and his wife, Robin, welcomed Lily on July 1, 2009; they live in Lancaster, Mass. Undergraduate ad-vising coordinator Jodi Vender and her husband, physi-cal geography lab instructor Jay searles, welcomed Nicholas on Oct. 12.

David DiBiase, the director of the John A. Dutton e-Education Institute, was awarded the 2010 Wilson Award for Outstanding Service from the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences. He was honored for his pioneer-ing work in the teaching and technology of e-education.

Staff member Pam stauffer left the department to take a similar position in the Department of Electrical Engineering. Good luck in your new job, Pam!

Geography professor Alan taylor received the E. Willard and Ruby S. Miller Professorship in Geography. The award recognizes faculty in the Department of

Geography who have excelled in teaching and research and whose contributions in their area of expertise have been significant.

erica smithwick received the George H. Deike, Jr. Research Grant from the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences for “Pyrogeography: Understanding Complexity and Resilience on African Landscapes.”

Denice Wardrop received a letter of thanks from Virginia Gov. Timothy Kaine for her work in coordinating the priority review process of the Chesa-peake Bay Executive Council’s monitoring program. The governor commended Dr. Wardrop on her leadership for the plan she helped put together for reallocating existing funds and prioritizing future allocations.

From left: andrew Car-leton, rob Crane, brian King, alan Maceachren, greg Knight, rob brooks, erica smithwick, Deryck Holdsworth, Denice Wardrop, Doug Miller, petra tschak-ert, alex Klippel, Karl Zimmerer, alan taylor, Donna peuquet, james McCarthy, lorraine Dowler, lakshman yapa, Derrick lampkin, brent yarnal, Melissa Wright, and Frank Hardisty.photo taken at the geog-raphy faculty retreat at the Hintz alumni Center at the university park campus on Oct. 9, 2009.

FACuLtY RetReAt 2009


www.geog.psu.edu faCULtY neWS

Professor Alan Taylor has received three grants to study fire behaviors and severity in northern California.

WhAt: A comparison of fire severity patterns in the late 19th and early 21st century in a mixed conifer forest land-scape in the southern Cascades from the Interagency Joint Fire Sciences Program.

WhY: The Cub Complex fires of 2008 burned through the landscape of the Cub Creek Research Natural Area (CCRNA) in the Lassen National Forest, California. The CCRNA watershed is the site of a previous study by Taylor and Matt Beaty (M.s. 1998, Ph.D. 2004) of the Penn State Ge-ography Department that generated maps of 19th century fire severity patterns using tree ring studies. The 2008 fire provides a rare opportunity to compare contemporary and 19th century severity patterns in a landscape that has not been disturbed by management so there are no confounding effects of forest harvest. The working hy-pothesis is that spatial variation in patterns of fire severity in 2008 is strongly associ-ated with the spatial patterns of severity in the late 19th century. We believe that strong associations between fire severity, vegetation structure/fuels and terrain fix fire severity pattern in this landscape instead of them being controlled by random factors such as weather during the fire.

WhAt: Mapping canopy fuel charac-teristics to assess potential fire behavior,

Lassen Volcanic Na-tional Park California, USDI National Park Service

WhO: Taylor and Ph.D. candidate Andrew Pierce (M.s. 2007)

WhY: This research will quantify and map canopy fuels across Lassen Volcanic National Park and relate these measure-ments to existing surface fuels inventories. This work will combine field studies of canopy fuels with forest stand and vegeta-tion cover data from aerial photos, and his-toric, stand level photos from studies in the park that Taylor and his students have been working on since 1993. The surface and canopy fuels maps will be used to simulate expected fire behavior and examine the relationships between expected fire inten-sity, crown fire activity, topography, surface fuels, canopy fuels, and vegetation type in the park. Fire managers need spatially explicit data on potential fire behavior when confronted with unplanned ignitions. This research will provide managers with key information for decision making. The study also provides information on the locations of potential high-intensity fire behavior inside the park and how that compares to known vegetation-fire severity relationships in the early 20th century before fire suppression caused widespread vegetation changes.

WhAt: Using neutral models to evaluate

the effect of topography on landscape patterns of fire severity: A case study of Lassen Volcanic National Park

WhO: Pierce and TaylorWhY: Variations in

fire severity across the landscape have become increasingly important be-cause of recent increases in fire size and severity and growing human habitation in rural areas. Causes of variation in fire sever-ity include daily weather conditions, fire suppression and fuel buildup, other past management action, and climate. Fire severity patch location could be stochastic, or fixed in space by topographic influences. However, quantifying the effect of topography on observed patterns of fire severity patches is difficult because fires are stochastic events burning through dynamic and heterogeneous fuel, weather, and historic management conditions. This research will use Lassen Volcanic National Park as a case study.

The results of the study will address the role of topography in creating hetero-geneity in vegetation community structure and composition across the landscape through its influence on fire severity. In

addition, this research will address the impacts of fire suppression on chang-ing the landscape location of high intensity fire-created patches.

Using neutral models to assess the potential for high severity fire to create heterogeneity on the landscape will help both resource managers and fire fighters to make better decisions regarding wildfires, Wildfire Use, pre-scribed fire, and other fuel treatments in highly altered forests.

FACuLt Y In FOCus: ALAn tAYLOR

Reprinted with permission of the Simkins family

Paul Dean Simkins, age 82, passed away Tuesday, February 9, 2010, at the Hospice of Northwest Ohio in Perrys-burg. Paul was a long-time resident of State College, Pa., but had lived at the Lutheran Village at Wolf Creek in Hol-land, Ohio, for the last two years.

He was born in Marshalltown, Iowa, on October 1, 1927, to Jean Craig and Josephine (Gurnsey) Simkins, but grew up in Willow Springs, Mo., where he graduated from High School in 1945.

He graduated from the University of Missouri at Columbia with his Bachelor of Arts in 1951 and his Master of Arts in Geography in 1954. He completed his Ph.D. in geography in 1961 from the University of Wisconsin.

He spent his professional career as

professor of geography at The Penn-sylvania State University, retiring with professor emeritus status in 1991 after 31 years. He received the outstand-ing teacher award from the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences in 1974. He was a member of the Pennsylvania Geographical Society and received a distinguished teaching award in 1990. He was a long time volunteer with the American Association of University Women, as well as a driver for the State College Area Meals-on-Wheels. He was an avid wild flower enthusiast and photographer and was on the Board of Directors of the Pennsylvania Native Plant Society.

Paul is survived by his loving wife, Mary Jo (Sweeney) Simkins and chil-dren, Jennifer (Wesley) of Toledo, Ohio, and Stephen of Amherst, Mass.; grand-children Olivia and Carson of Toledo,

Ohio, and Evangeline and Elora, of Amherst, Mass.; brothers Gerald (Mary Ann) of Kansas City, Mo., Ken (Betty); sister, Marjorie, and sister-in-law, Millie, of Springfield, Mo.

He was preceded in death by his brother, Richard, and brother-in-law, David.

Paul’s wishes were to have no formal funeral service. A memorial service in Toledo, Ohio, for friends and family will be announced in the future.

For those wishing to send an expres-sion of sympathy please consider a donation to Nature Conservancy in honor of Paul Simkins. His family wishes to extend special thanks to all of the doctors, nurses, and staff of Lu-theran Village of Wolf Creek, St. Luke’s Hospital, Arrowhead Dialysis Center, and Hospice of Northwest Ohio.

In memorIam: Paul SImkInS, faculty emerItuS

Ph.D. candidate Beth Bee was in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, pursuing dissertation research about female farmers and their adaptation to climate change.

Ph.D. candidate Emma Gaalaas Mullaney was in the Carib Territory of Dominica doing research for her master’s thesis at Miami University.

Ph.D. candidate Jim Thatcher watched his sister Karen play for the U.S. women’s hockey team during the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancou-ver, British Columbia, Canada.

Undergrad Lauren Herwehe was on an education abroad program in the Fall 2009 se-mester in Accra, Ghana.

Undergraduate Justine Kendall did fi eld research in Bulgaria for GEOG 435H.

Undergrad Michelle Renn visited Casablanca, Mo-rocco, on Semester at Sea.

s in Vaanconcocou-u-ananadada.da.da.a.a.a.a..

Alan MacEachren, David DiBiase, Cindy Brewer, Anthony Robinson, Rob Roth and Wes Stroh presented at the 2009 International Cartography Conference in Santiago, Chile.

Anthony Robinson and alum Brian Tomasziewski (Ph.D. 2009) visited Easter Island while they were in Chile for the Internation-al Cartographic Conference.

Instructor Wes Stroh spent some time in Buenos Aires, Argentina, after the International Cartography Conference.

Faculty members Denice Wardrop and Joe Bishop led a group of undergrads to Puerto Maldonado, Peru, over spring break as part of GEOG 497C, Environmental Issues Across the Americas.

Alum Mark Smithgall drove his motor-cycle to Deadhorse, Alaska, one weekend during an internship with the state of Alaska last summer.

omamammmm

Undergrad Tim Shannon spent the spring 2009 semester at the Univer-sity of Cape Town.

Undergrad Rodrigo Buanafi na visited family in Recife, Brazil, last summer.

Faculty members Rob Crane, Brian King, Erica Smithwick, Petra Tschakert, and grad Nicole Laliberté have taught as part of the Parks and People education abroad program in South Africa’s Dwesa-Cwebe Nature Reserve. The program was piloted by Penn State Geography and AESEDA.

Undergrad Michelle Renn visited Walvis Bay, Namibia, when she was on Semester at Sea in the spring of 2009.

ade-

Thomas sigler interned with USAID in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Undergrad Michelle Renn visited Port Louis, Mauri-tius on Semester at Sea.

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Master’s candidate Alyssia Church was on the Schoodic Peninsula in Maine doing fi eldwork for her master’s thesis.

Ph.D. candidate Emma Gaalaas Mullaney interviewed female veterans of the Timorese Resistance Movement in January 2009 while she was attending Miami University.

Ph.D. candidate Katie Dietrich presented at the Third International Conference on Community-based Adaptation to Climate Change in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Grad Katie Dietrich was in the Aframs Plains District of Ghana as a research assistant for Petra Tschakert.

Ph.D. candidate Laura Spess at-tended the 2009 Summer Institute for Geographies of Justice workshop in Manchester, United Kingdom.

Faculty member Petra Tschakert and graduate students Maureen Biermann and Katie Dietrich attended the 2009 U.N. Climate Change Con-ference in Copenhagen, Denmark.

dddergraduate Justiniesseearch in Bulgaria f

attee in ce ferencnc

Undergraduate Sean McGrath spent last summer in Milan, Italy, on an education abroad program to study Italian and Italian politics.

Faculty member Cynthia Brewer was in Zaragoza, Spain, for Maria Zuniga An-ton’s dissertation defense.

Ph.D. candidate Nicole Laliberté was in Uganda for preliminary dissertation research.

GeoVISTA Center researcher Ian Turton presented two papers at GeoComputation at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.

UUUUUUnndUUUUUU drrrrrreeessrrrr

Ph.D. candidate Shaunna Barnhart was in Jhapa, Nepal, for dissertation research on community forestry groups promoting biogas technology.

Ph.D. candidate Matt Branch conducted prelimi-nary dissertation research in Bhutan.

Undergrad Arielle Hesse pre-sented at the Eighth Annual Ha-waii International Conference on Arts and Humanities in Honolulu, Hawaii, in January.

Ph.D. candidate Melissa Rock attended the 2009 Mid-year Fulbright Conference in Hong Kong. Undergrad Sonia Mak visited family in Hong Kong over the summer last year.

Ph.D candidate Missy Rock was in Bei�ing, China, studying the effects of hutongs in Bei�ing culture.

Undergrads Michelle Renn and Andrew Lehnerd visited Tokyo, Japan, on Semester at Sea.

Ph.D. candidate Thomas Sigler is living in Panama City, Panama, to complete disserta-tion research on the city’s urban growth as related to structural changes in the gobal economy.


www.geog.psu.eduWhere In the WorLd

Ph.D. candidate Beth Bee was in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, pursuing dissertation research about female farmers and their adaptation to climate change.

Ph.D. candidate Emma Gaalaas Mullaney was in the Carib Territory of Dominica doing research for her master’s thesis at Miami University.

Ph.D. candidate Jim Thatcher watched his sister Karen play for the U.S. women’s hockey team during the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancou-ver, British Columbia, Canada.

Undergrad Lauren Herwehe was on an education abroad program in the Fall 2009 se-mester in Accra, Ghana.

Undergraduate Justine Kendall did fi eld research in Bulgaria for GEOG 435H.

Undergrad Michelle Renn visited Casablanca, Mo-rocco, on Semester at Sea.

s in Vaanconcocou-u-ananadada.da.da.a.a.a.a..

Alan MacEachren, David DiBiase, Cindy Brewer, Anthony Robinson, Rob Roth and Wes Stroh presented at the 2009 International Cartography Conference in Santiago, Chile.

Anthony Robinson and alum Brian Tomasziewski (Ph.D. 2009) visited Easter Island while they were in Chile for the Internation-al Cartographic Conference.

Instructor Wes Stroh spent some time in Buenos Aires, Argentina, after the International Cartography Conference.

Faculty members Denice Wardrop and Joe Bishop led a group of undergrads to Puerto Maldonado, Peru, over spring break as part of GEOG 497C, Environmental Issues Across the Americas.

Alum Mark Smithgall drove his motor-cycle to Deadhorse, Alaska, one weekend during an internship with the state of Alaska last summer.

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Undergrad Tim Shannon spent the spring 2009 semester at the Univer-sity of Cape Town.

Undergrad Rodrigo Buanafi na visited family in Recife, Brazil, last summer.

Faculty members Rob Crane, Brian King, Erica Smithwick, Petra Tschakert, and grad Nicole Laliberté have taught as part of the Parks and People education abroad program in South Africa’s Dwesa-Cwebe Nature Reserve. The program was piloted by Penn State Geography and AESEDA.

Undergrad Michelle Renn visited Walvis Bay, Namibia, when she was on Semester at Sea in the spring of 2009.

ade-

Thomas sigler interned with USAID in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Undergrad Michelle Renn visited Port Louis, Mauri-tius on Semester at Sea.

eheeeaddddadd

nnnn n n o--t Seeaa.a.a.a..

Master’s candidate Alyssia Church was on the Schoodic Peninsula in Maine doing fi eldwork for her master’s thesis.

Ph.D. candidate Emma Gaalaas Mullaney interviewed female veterans of the Timorese Resistance Movement in January 2009 while she was attending Miami University.

Ph.D. candidate Katie Dietrich presented at the Third International Conference on Community-based Adaptation to Climate Change in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Grad Katie Dietrich was in the Aframs Plains District of Ghana as a research assistant for Petra Tschakert.

Ph.D. candidate Laura Spess at-tended the 2009 Summer Institute for Geographies of Justice workshop in Manchester, United Kingdom.

Faculty member Petra Tschakert and graduate students Maureen Biermann and Katie Dietrich attended the 2009 U.N. Climate Change Con-ference in Copenhagen, Denmark.

dddergraduate Justiniesseearch in Bulgaria f

attee in ce ferencnc

Undergraduate Sean McGrath spent last summer in Milan, Italy, on an education abroad program to study Italian and Italian politics.

Faculty member Cynthia Brewer was in Zaragoza, Spain, for Maria Zuniga An-ton’s dissertation defense.

Ph.D. candidate Nicole Laliberté was in Uganda for preliminary dissertation research.

GeoVISTA Center researcher Ian Turton presented two papers at GeoComputation at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.

UUUUUUnndUUUUUU drrrrrreeessrrrr

Ph.D. candidate Shaunna Barnhart was in Jhapa, Nepal, for dissertation research on community forestry groups promoting biogas technology.

Ph.D. candidate Matt Branch conducted prelimi-nary dissertation research in Bhutan.

Undergrad Arielle Hesse pre-sented at the Eighth Annual Ha-waii International Conference on Arts and Humanities in Honolulu, Hawaii, in January.

Ph.D. candidate Melissa Rock attended the 2009 Mid-year Fulbright Conference in Hong Kong. Undergrad Sonia Mak visited family in Hong Kong over the summer last year.

Ph.D candidate Missy Rock was in Bei�ing, China, studying the effects of hutongs in Bei�ing culture.

Undergrads Michelle Renn and Andrew Lehnerd visited Tokyo, Japan, on Semester at Sea.

Ph.D. candidate Thomas Sigler is living in Panama City, Panama, to complete disserta-tion research on the city’s urban growth as related to structural changes in the gobal economy.


Below you'll find a sampling of the places Penn State Geography's students and faculty have visited for work and play. A similar interactive map will debut on our website in

the near future, and we encourage alumni to submit where, when and why they went somewhere interesting. Send an e-mail to

[email protected] to have yours included on the web map, which is how we'll compile the next print version.(A big thank-you goes to grad student Paulo Raposo for the print map design below.)

www.geog.psu.edu Where In the WorLd

aLUmnI neWS www.geog.psu.edu


1970sJoseph W. Bencloski (Ph.D. 1976) received the 2009

Distinguished Service Award from the Pennsylvania Geographical Society (PGS) at its annual meeting in West Chester on Oct. 23, 2009. Bencloski, who is a professor of geography in the Department of Geography and Regional Planning at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP), received the award for his many years of professional service to PGS, AAG, NCGE, and IUP. Bencloski also presented a paper at the meeting titled “The Impact of the 1997-98 El Niño on Vegetation Health in the Piura Region of Northwestern Peru: An NDVI Analysis.”

1980sDan urich (B.A. 1982) is a GIS specialist for the

Richmond, Va., Department of Public Works. He was involved in a project to reroute the city's 109 garbage collection routes using ArcGIS' Network Analyst. Dan is also teaching several ArcGIS classes to various divi-sions within the Department of Public Works.

harry Paul Mann, Jr. (B.s. 1983) and Albert Aftoora (Penn State, M.A. Economics, 1963) recently traveled to Rwanda as part of a BNSF Railway Company team that presented the final report findings of a railroad feasibility study to the governments of Tanzania, Rwanda, and Burundi. The final report for the "Feasibility Study for the Upgrade of the Dar es Salaam to Isaka Railway" was presented as part of the Interministerial Conference on Regional Railway Development held at the Serena Hotel in Kigali from December 9-10 2009. The purpose of the study was to make technical recommendations about upgrading the existing rail corridor in Tanzania between the port of Dar es Salaam and the city of Isaka, and about how best to construct a new railway which will extend into the countries of Rwanda, and Burundi. Rwanda and Burundi currently have no rail service.

Christopher s. Anderson (B.s. 1986) took a job as the town planner for Summerfield, N.C. Although the town has Revolutionary War history, it was incorporated in 1996. Now the town covers 25 square miles and has a population of 7,300. Several large-scale impacts from highway modifications and additions in the near future have everyone agreeing to plan for the future.

Rich McCluskey (M.s. 1987, Ph.D. 1995) became chair of the geography department of Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Mich., in the fall semester of 2009.

Mark Cowell (M.s. 1988) was a member of the del-egation from the Association of American Geographers that attended the United Nations Framework Conven-tion on Climate Change in Copenhagen in December 2009. Mark is an associate professor of geography at the University of Missouri.

LCDR Robert Kraft (B.s. 1989) began working at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

1990sKristian stokke (Ph.D. 1992) edited Rethinking

Popular Representation (Palgrave Macmillan, Decem-

ber 2009). The book makes a case for the need to rethink more democratic popular representation, given people’s contemporary tendencies toward depoliticiza-tion of public issues and popular interests.

Mike Dorn (M.s. 1994) has relocated from Phila-delphia to Port Jefferson Station, N.Y. He’s a research assistant professor in the Center for Medical Humani-ties, Compassionate Care, and Bioethics in the Depart-ment of Preventive Medicine at Stony Brook University School of Medicine.

Michael solem (M.s. 1995) co-edited the book Ac-tive Learning and Student Engagement (INLT January 2010). Contributing authors with Penn State Geography connections include David DiBiase, Amy Griffin (M.S. 2000, Ph.D. 2004); Christy Jocoy (M.s. 1998, Ph.D. 2004); and Jodi Vender. This book examines significant issues in geography teaching and learning from the perspectives of an international network of academic geographers and postgraduate students.

John Krygier (Ph.D. 1995) published a comic entitled “Ce n’est le monde (This is not the world)” in Rethinking Maps (Routledge 2009), which brings together leading re-searchers to explore how maps are being rethought, made and used, and what the changes mean. A description of the book and link to the comic are at http://makingmaps. net/2009/08/13/rethinking-maps. E-mail Dr. Krygier at [email protected] for a paper copy of the comic.

Philip Dennison (B.s. 1997) received tenure and promotion to associate professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Utah.

Graeme Burt (M.s. 1997) and partner Catherine Porter are thriving north of the border in Toronto and have two beautiful children: Lyla, 3, and Noah, 1. When not changing dirty nappies or reading Dr. Seuss, Graeme is a partner in planningAlliance (www.plan-ningalliance.ca, an urban planning and design firm) and its sister practice rePlan Inc. (www.replan.ca, a social development firm). They both report that they miss Happy Valley.

Gareth John (M.s. 1997) and his partner Christine Metzo announce the birth of a daughter, Cerys Meriel Violet, on Sept. 9, 2009. They live in St. Cloud, Minn., where Gareth is an associate professor teaching cultural, historical and political geography at St. Cloud State University.

Wolfgang hoeschele (Ph.D. 1998) will publish The Economics of Abundance: A Political Economy of Freedom, Equity, and Sustainability (Gower Publishing, 2010). The book argues that by analyzing how institutions manufacture scarcity by manipulating demand, and by dismantling or reforming those institutions, we can enhance individual freedom while at the same time making progress toward social justice and environmental sustainability.

erin heithoff Greb (B.s. 1999) was a contributing cartographer for the atlas Earth (Millennium House) that

won first place in the International Map Exhibition Atlas category at the 2009 International Cartography Confer-ence in Santiago, Chile. Erin is a freelance cartographer for the Department of Geography’s Gould Center for Geography Education and Outreach.

Mark harrower (M.s. 1999, Ph.D. 2002) was a part of the group that launched Cartography 2.0 (www.cartography2.org), a free online knowledge base and e-textbook for students and professionals interested in interactive and animated maps. Cartography 2 started with a joint team from Penn State and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Ryan Leech (B.s. 1999) won the Division II Collegiate National Cyclocross championship in Bend, Ore., in December 2009. Ryan is in his second year of an MFA of Industrial Design at the Savan-nah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Ga.

Beth (Goulart) Monson (B.s. 1999) announces the birth of her son Henry, born Nov. 28, 2009.

Ron santini (CPGIs 1999) completed the online Master of Engineering GIS from the University of Colorado Denver.

2000sCrystal (nesbitt) stanionis (B.s. 2000) and her hus-

band, Ryan, announce the birth of the son Luke on May 3, 2009. The Stanionises live in Bozeman, Mont., where Crystal is taking online courses in the Penn State World Campus Certificate Program in GIS.

Jennifer Kluber Wolfram (M.s. 2000) and her husband, Jim, announce the birth of their son Na-thaniel Peter Wolfram. Nathaniel was born Oct. 30, 2009, and he weighed 8 pounds 6 ounces and was 20 inches long. He has an older sister, Adrienne, who is 3.

Chris Ryan (M.s. 2000) wrote “The Global Irishman,” which was the cover story in the December/January issue of Irish America magazine. A former Washington, D.C., lobbyist for social science research, Chris now works as an independent writer and photographer, often publishing stories related to geography or the environment in popular media. The story is at http://bit.ly/5VnHWa.

Jimmy Adegoke (Ph.D. 2000), who is the chair of the Department of Geosciences at the University of Mis-souri-Kansas City, attended the United Nations Frame-work Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen in December 2009. He was a member of the delegation from the Association of American Geographers.

heejun Chang (Ph.D. 2001) is working on two research projects on climate change. One is titled “Inte-grated water and land planning as a climate adaptation

A note about the department newsletterStarting with this issue, the department is transitioning

its semi-annual newsletter to a web-only publication in the hopes of trimming costs and keeping pace with read-ers’ preferences for reading such materials in an online environment. The department will reduce the number of newsletters it prints and instead will send out e-mails directing you to the view the newsletter online.

We have set up an account at a PDF-sharing site called www.issuu.com, and you can read the newslet-ter there at www.issuu.com/pennstategeography. You can view other publications, including previous newsletters, there, too.

In order to make this transition work, we ask that you provide us with your e-mail address so we can maintain and build our records. If you’d rather receive the newslet-

ter in hard copy, please contact us via e-mail at [email protected] or by phone at 814-863-4562 to let us know your preference. We don’t want to lose touch with anyone, so please make sure that we have your current e-mail and/or mailing address. To update your informa-tion, please contact us by e-mail at [email protected] or by phone at 814-863-4562.

While you’re browsing our Issuu.com archive, take a look at our other social media sites: We have a variety of photos at www.flickr.com/pennstategeography; we’ve begun a YouTube channel at www.youtube/pennstate geography; and you can follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/psugeography. We’re also on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pennstategeography. Connect/follow/friend us and stay updated with what’s going on in the department!

strategy: Comparisons of Portland, Oregon and Phoenix, Arizona” funded by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, and among his collaborators is Colin Polsky (Ph.D. 2002). The second project is titled “Interac-tive Teaching Materials for Understanding Ecological Response from Climate Change in Urban Forests” from the National Science Foundation. He is working with forest ecologists to develop interactive instructional materials for introductory physical and environmental sciences courses. Chang also gave a talk on climate change policy at a con-ference on prospects for expanding the U.S.-South Korea partnership hosted by the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at Brookings Institution and the Center for U.S.-Korea Policy at The Asia Foundation. The con-ference was videotaped by C-SPAN and is available at http://www.c-spanarchives.org/program/291081-1.

susan (Jeffrey) hmel (B.s. 2001) and her

husband, Peter, announce the birth of their twin daughters, Lily Julianna and Charlotte Jessie, on

Dec. 15, 2009. They’re joined at home by an older sister, Amelia. Susan works as a GIS ap-plication de-veloper and GIS database administrator

for Spatial Systems Associates Inc. in Columbia, Md.

Fred Judson (CPGIs 2002) was elected chair for the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association for 2009-2010 and the vice chair for the Ohio Geograph-ical Referenced Information Program for 2010.

Geoff hatchard (M.s. 2003) is working as a geog-rapher in the Population Division of the Census Bureau after working at National Geography for six-and-a-half years in the maps and geography competitions depart-ments.

Richard Murphy Jr. (B.s. 2004) married Katie Gill on Nov. 20, 2009. The couple resides in Lansdale, Pa.

Rob neff (Ph.D. 2005) announces the birth of his son, James Michael Neff, on Aug. 15, 2009. He is perfectly healthy, and the best baby in the world. The two are get-ting to know each other this Spring semester, while Rob is on modified family leave as his primary caregiver.

Chad Ficocelli (B.s. earth sciences and GIs minor 2002, CPGIs 2005) married Talia Michelle Pitts on April 4, 2009. Chad now works for Atlas Energy Inc. in Moon Township, Pa., as a GIS administrator.

stefan Gaston (B.s. 2005) is a quality control engineer with DigitalGlobe in Boulder, Colo.

howard hodder (MGIs 2007) and his wife announce the birth of their second daughter, Lily Madeline Hodder, on Aug. 3, 2009.

Vanessa Glynn-Linaris (MGIs 2007) has relocated to Grand Canyon, Ariz., to start a consulting firm, GeoRevs LLC, which specializes in GIS and Hazards U.S.-MH

projects and training, and risk assessments for com-munity mitigation plans. Visit GeoRevs online at www.georevs.com.

Clark seipt (M.s. 2007) and her husband, Mitch, announce the birth of their son Samuel Vernon Seipt on July 19, 2009.

Kelly Vanderbrink (M.s. 2008) and his wife, Jocelyn, announce

the birth of their daughter, Claire Elizabeth on Oct. 1, 2009. She weighed 6 pounds 0.5 ounces and was 17 inches long despite being four weeks early. She is joined at home by two brothers, Gabriel and Alexander.

Justin Klos (MGIs 2008) ap-peared on the game show Jeopardy! in April 2009. He finished in second place by a difference of only $1. Justin also had a paper published in June 2009: “De-termining Correlations Between Voting Behavior and Selected Demographic Characteristics in a Changing Electorate” in the Middle States Geographer.

Richard scott Murray (B.A. 2009) was an intern with The ELM Group, an environmental consulting and management firm, and worked closely with the firm’s GIS project coordinator. Some of Scott’s work included building a geodatabase for a historic watershed and compiling data for education purposes with the Bucks County Audubon Society.

Andrew haile (B.s. 2009) is working as a GIS analyst with TerraSim Inc. in Pittsburgh.

Colin Polsky (M.s. 1998, Ph.D. 2002), James O’Brien (Ph.D. 2004) and Penn State geography faculty member Brent Yarnal edited the book Sustainable Communities on a Sustainable Planet: The Human-Environmental Regional Observatory Project (Cambridge, 2009). The HERO project’s goal was to develop the infrastructure necessary to monitor and understand the local dimen-sions of global change. The book presents HERO’s philosophy, methodology, results and lessons learned. It also highlights the focus of the project regarding thinking and acting on complex, integrative, and interdisciplinary global change science at local scales. Other Penn State contributors are Andrew Comrie (Ph.D. 1992); former faculty member Mark Gahegan; Junyan Luo (Ph.D. 2007); faculty member Alan Maceachren; Robert neff (Ph.D. 2005); William A. Pike (M.s. 2001, Ph.D. 2005); Chaoqing Yu (Ph.D. 2005); Brandi nagle Robinson (M.s. 2005); Rachel Kurtz-headley (Ph.D. 2003); and Jessica Whitehead (Ph.D. 2009).

A note about the department newsletterStarting with this issue, the department is transitioning

its semi-annual newsletter to a web-only publication in the hopes of trimming costs and keeping pace with read-ers’ preferences for reading such materials in an online environment. The department will reduce the number of newsletters it prints and instead will send out e-mails directing you to the view the newsletter online.

We have set up an account at a PDF-sharing site called www.issuu.com, and you can read the newslet-ter there at www.issuu.com/pennstategeography. You can view other publications, including previous newsletters, there, too.

In order to make this transition work, we ask that you provide us with your e-mail address so we can maintain and build our records. If you’d rather receive the newslet-

ter in hard copy, please contact us via e-mail at [email protected] or by phone at 814-863-4562 to let us know your preference. We don’t want to lose touch with anyone, so please make sure that we have your current e-mail and/or mailing address. To update your informa-tion, please contact us by e-mail at [email protected] or by phone at 814-863-4562.

While you’re browsing our Issuu.com archive, take a look at our other social media sites: We have a variety of photos at www.flickr.com/pennstategeography; we’ve begun a YouTube channel at www.youtube/pennstate geography; and you can follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/psugeography. We’re also on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pennstategeography. Connect/follow/friend us and stay updated with what’s going on in the department!

www.geog.psu.edu aLUmnI neWS


Calling Our aluMni:

Last year, Geography faculty, staff and alumni began the process of forming an affiliate program group (APG), a group of alumni and friends who share a common interest in the de-partment. Membership is open to all interested parties. As a separate sub-organization of the Penn State Alumni Association and GEMS--the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences Alumni Constituent Society, the Geography APG offers a mechanism to connect alumni with each other and with current students, faculty, and staff, and to provide guidance to the PSU DoG commu-nity. Alumna and GEMS Board member Anne Messner (B.s. '89) is leading the initiative; additional alumni on the steering committee include GEMS Board members Grady Meehan (M.s. '70) and Barb Kinne (M.s. '78), Joel sobel (B.s. '69), Mike hermann (B.s. '95), Beth Fletcher King (B.s. '96), and Kelly Van-derbrink (B.s. '04, M.s. '08). The committee has identified professional development and mentoring as a key initiative. If you'd like to get involved, please contact Anne Messner ([email protected]) or Jodi Vender ([email protected]).

by Mike Dawson

Mark Smithgall (B.S. 2009) stood caked in mud at the airport in Deadhorse, Alaska. The only clean clothing he had was what he was wearing: a black polypropylene t-shirt, swimming trunks, and hiking boots. A motorcycle helmet was his carry-on.

For a guy who’s 6-foot-6, Smithgall didn’t need help standing out in a crowd. But then again, he didn’t expect to be at the airport in faraway Dead-horse, Alaska, after the Fourth of July weekend, let alone be fashionable.

Smithgall, 22, was planning to ride his motorcycle 850 miles from Anchorage to Deadhorse, a town on Alaska’s Arctic Ocean coast that owes its livelihood to offshore oil fields in Prudhoe Bay, and back. In all, it’d be 1,700 miles roundtrip over four days.

But Mother Nature and Murphy’s Law had other plans: Smithgall’s riding for hours in rain and fog on the Dalton Highway, a gravel road through the mountain-ous tundra of north-central Alaska, spelled doom for the bike. Smithgall was forced to find MacGyver-like fixes when the bike broke down a couple times far from a mechanic’s shop. Smithgall also remembers the trip as a baptism-by-fire initiation into adventure motorcycling in which he crossed paths with complete strangers who automatically took an interest in his life.

Nevertheless, Smithgall did return to Anchorage and Pennsylvania in one piece. And now, having graduated from Penn State on Dec. 19, he remem-bers that experience as one of the capstones of his college career.

“It’s really amazing how I remember all the details,” he says. “I remember two or three songs that were on my iPod playing that weren’t my favorites, but when I hear them, I think of my motorcycle trip.”

Smithgall, the son of Montoursville’s Gary and Arlene Smithgall, interned with Alaska’s Department of Natural Resources over the summer. A geography major, Smithgall was going to work as cartographer, and he was excited to apply on the job what he learned in his classes.

The impetus for the internship was a reprieve

from a semester during which he’d study until 4 or 5 in the morning. And, more importantly, it got him away from what he was all too familiar with, central Pennsylvania.

“That was the most stressful semester,” he says. “I was applying for internships. I had four 400-level GIS classes and I was working very hard. I was basically starting over.”

In the spring, Smithgall says he was procrastinat-ing from doing classwork and watched a few online video clips of people riding motorcycles on the Dalton Highway. An impetuous Smithgall thought he’d give it a shot, too, while he’d be in Alaska.

For Smithgall, an avid outdoorsman, the idea made perfect sense.

“Riding your motorcycle in the Arctic Circle – how often can you do that?” he says.

Well, it almost didn’t happen.Smithgall used the long weekend around the

Fourth of July to plan his trip. He’d take two days off work to make the drive north, and he made sure he had the important rations: new tires on his motorcy-cle, a tent to sleep in, and a gun and ammunition for protection against bears. And, he booked in advance a room in one of Deadhorse’s two hotels.

For the first leg of the trip, Smithgall took Alaska Route 3 north as it snaked its way along the Denali state and national parks.

Smithgall spent the first night of the trip north of Fairbanks and set off for Coldfoot on the Dalton High-way, about 250 miles from Fairbanks, the next day.

There’s not much there, save for a restaurant, a truck stop and a visitors center for the Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve. More importantly,

Alumnus bikes to Arctic Circle (but has to fly back)

aLUmnI neWS www.geog.psu.edu


a sign warns travelers to stock up on supplies like gas, food and water, because will be were no services until Deadhorse, some 240 miles of muddy, gravel road away. Smithgall wasn’t worried, he says.

“I felt as though I was prepared,” he says. “I was get-ting what I came to Alaska for.”

Heading toward Deadhorse, Smithgall came upon two 18-wheel tractor-trailers, which he stayed with until Atigun Pass, a 4,600-foot-high pass in the Brooks Range. By then, the mud on the road was causing the motorcycle to fishtail on his ascent, and the rain and fog combined to limit his vision to less than 100 feet in front of him.

Atigun Pass might have been one of those fight-or-flight moments for Smithgall. He chose to fight, but looking back, he concedes it might have been the wrong decision to continue the rest of the way to Deadhorse.

“I stood at the top of the pass, and I thought, ‘You’re in the middle of nowhere and any number of mechani-cal issues could come up,’ but I was stuck on going up there,” he says. “If I knew then what I know now, I would have turned around.”

Smithgall followed the two 18-wheelers down the mountain and put on his raingear. At that point, the weather was raining, and he says the fog was so thick that if he had been driving in Pennsylvania, he’d have pulled over.

A few seconds later, Smithgall saw two motorcyclists heading south. They told him that the road conditions were bad but not terrible. So he kept going.

Soon after, Smithgall started to experience the motorcycle malfunctions that hampered his trip. He was crossing a bridge when he had to downshift to fourth gear and only could maintain 40 mph. He pulled over, inspected the bike and discovered a damaged spark plug, which he thought was the problem.

Then, another group of people happened upon him: A group of researchers from the University of Alaska-Fairbanks saw him and offered him a dry spot to work on his bike. He says he was thankful for their offer but declined and continued to chip away at troubleshooting why the bike’s engine wasn’t running at full throttle.

Another fight-or-flight moment ensued: The research-ers left, it was still raining and foggy, and despite the damaged spark plug, the bike still worked, though not well. He could turn back to Coldfoot, but he doubted his motorcycle had the gas efficiency to make it back through the rain and fog.

“I had just driven through hours of muck, and I knew exactly what I’d be going info if I turned around, but I didn’t know what was going on to the north,” he says. “I was trying to be optimistic.”

So he kept going.Smithgall still only could muster 40 mph on the

motorcycle, and another 50 miles later, the engine quit. He tinkered with the bike and scraped off mud, all to no avail.

Then, he says, it came to him. He remembered when he and his brother used to ride their four-wheeler, which they’d have to push-start. So, he tried push-starting it.

Wearing his raingear and clopping around in mud, he ran for 30 feet and hopped on.

It worked.“Even though I was in a bad situation, I wish some-

one was there to see me,” he says. “I wish I could have seen me.”

But his relief was short-lived, as the engine quit again a few moments later.

Smithgall had another idea: the battery. He remem-bered the setup of his van’s electric system, and he tightened the motorcycle’s battery terminals, which had vibrated loose.

Sure enough, tightening them worked. A push-start later, he was pressing on for the last 50 miles to Deadhorse.

For the last leg, Smithgall tried to play it safe – he did his best to avoid the largest potholes on road that might rattle the motorcycle, he says. The rain let up with about 10 miles to go, and Smithgall arrived in Deadhorse unscathed.

The bike, not so much. The next morning, Smithgall took it to Peak Oilfield Services for someone there to fig-ure out why it was working correctly. (First, they invited him in for coffee, a donut and a chat about the previous two-day trek that put him and his bike in their shop.)

“I am very thankful for the guys up there at Peak,” he says. “They showed me the utmost hospitality and generosity. They also only charged me a fraction of what I should have paid.”

The workers at Peak found that the bike had a faulty ignition coil and let Smithgall call other Kawasaki parts suppliers in Alaska to find one. It probably wasn’t a shock he couldn’t find one – the coil he needed had been discontinued.

But that didn’t bother Smithgall.“I was glad to finally be around people again,” he

says. “I knew I was going to get out of there. It was a matter of how much it was going to cost.”

Smithgall says he doubted the motorcycle had the fuel efficiency to drive to Coldfoot, and so he chose Plan B, the more expensive route. He booked a one-way flight to Anchorage and made arrangements to have his motorcycle flown back, too.

In all, Smithgall paid $450 for his flight, $250 for the air freight for his bike, and $100 for a case to stow that

gun he bought for protection against bears – a lot of money for a college student, he says.

Riding around Deadhorse making arrangements for Plan B, Smithgall got muddied up again. Roads there aren’t paved, and in the summer, the permafrost melts but won’t seep into the ground because it’s frozen beneath the surface. Smithgall says he cleaned up and put on the only clean clothes he had – that polypropyl-ene shirt, the swimming trunks, and his hiking boots.

Apparently Smithgall was a sight for sore eyes, he says of a BP-Alaska executive who chided him on his appearance at the airport.

“He said, ‘You’re kind of dirty, don’t you think?’ ” says Smithgall, who’s sure that’s what the exec said. “That’s one of those things that’s engrained in my memory forever.”

Smithgall says could have unleashed a verbal as-sault, but, instead, he chose keep quiet. He waited for his flight, and as people filtering into the airport started to notice the motorcycle helmet that was his carry-on, he began explaining his trip and his troubles.

The conversation continued onto the plane, where Smithgall befriended a couple from Bethlehem, Pa., and told them his story. Meanwhile, the BP executive – who sat in the row behind Smithgall – probably was discover-ing that his comment to Smithgall minutes earlier might have been a little too presumptuous, Smithgall says.

“I’ve been accused of biting off more than I can chew in some situations, and this one definitely proved to be one of them,” he says. But, “I’ve been blessed with a pretty level head in precarious situations, and it came in handy in this one.”

Smithgall’s epic Anchorage-to-Deadhorse trip came about two months into his stay in Alaska. To get there from Pennsylvania, he drove his family’s 1990 Chevrolet conversion van, which recorded 200,000 miles along the way, west on Interstate 90. After two days he reached Great Falls, Mont., turned north on Interstate 15 and headed into Canada. He arrived three days later.

The internship consisted of custom mapmaking for projects in the state DNR’s Division of Oil and Gas. Maps are eye candy for Smithgall, who can’t explain his draw to them but knows they fascinate him, as evidenced by his spending hours reading the DeLorme “Alaska Atlas and Gazetteer.”

Smithgall is proudest of a map he made that blends cities and towns of Alaska with one that includes oil reserves, national parks, and places where drilling is permitted. It started out as a request from a manager, and it ended up being entered into a student poster competition in the fall.

“I really like maps,” he says. “I had the most fun with that because it was sheer cartography.”

Jennie Karalewich (B.s. 2005) and Rosemary Daley (B.s. 2006) were two Penn state Geography alumnae who attended the 2010 reception in Washington, D.C., in April. Keep an eye out for the department in seattle in April 2011!


www.geog.psu.edu aLUmnI neWS


John a. dUtton e-edUCatIon InStItUte neWS www.geog.psu.edu

Beth King (B.s. 1996), who works in the John A. Dutton e-Education Institute as a senior lecturer, and her husband, Nate, who is a biology teacher at Lewistown Area High School, were among a small group of people who started Self Empowerment through Education (SEED), a non-governmental organization that supports aspiring educators in Zambia.

Through fund-raising, SEED provides scholarships to Zambian students to attend a teachers college in the town of Serenje. Beth says SEED’s goal is to provide full scholarships to students. So far, two students have graduated and two more are enrolled. The Kings visited the town most recently in July 2009.

Question: beth, not too many people go to Zam-bia, let one alone start an NGO that benefits people there. How did this initiative come about?

My husband Nate was in the Peace Corps in Zambia. He and two other volunteers wanted to do something

to give back to the wonderful people who hosted them. Friends and family who visited them during their stint were equally excited to be involved. This has been a

great way to stay connected and offer direct benefits to the town and surrounding villages.

Question: your visit in july 2009 was to talk to the students who’d been accepted into the scholar-ship program. What kinds of things did they tell you, and how can you tell that the scholarship is beneficial to them?

You can see some videos of interviews with our scholarship recipients at www.seedzambia.org. The young adults who received these scholarships would

not have been able to attend the teachers college without our funding. Student loan programs do not

exist, and interest rates are prohibitively expensive for personal loans. The students are extremely grateful for

the opportunity to further their education.

Question: it sounds as though education is an integral part of you and your husband’s life: you are an educator in the Dutton institute, and he is a high school teacher. education is part of you profession-ally and personally. Where did this interest come from?

Our parents instilled the love of teaching in us and Nate’s Peace Corps

experience strengthened our resolve to help others.

Question: the cost to attend the teacher’s college in Zambia is $1,600. that is expensive by Zambian standards, but it is not expensive by american standards -- $20 would cover a student’s book for a trimester or $160 will pay for tuition for a trimester. How can one donate to seeD to help fund the scholarships?

We really appreciate any donations that we can get – 100 percent of all donations is used to support our scholarship program. Tax-exempt donations can be

made by going to the web site, printing the contributor in-formation sheet and mailing it to the address listed there.

For more information, go to www.seedzambia.org.

Dutton Institute’s Beth King involved in Zambian NGO

The Department of Geography and John A. Dutton e-Education Institute’s online master’s degree in geographic information sciences received the Sloan-C Consortium’s 2009 Most Outstanding Online Teaching and Learning Program award for “creating and sustaining the foremost online graduate program for current and aspiring geospatial professionals.”

The MGIS program, which is among the programs offered through Penn State’s World Campus, was nominated by David DiBiase, the director of the John A. Dutton e-Education Institute. Fifty-five students have earned Penn State’s MGIS degree since the graduate program was established in 2004. Nearly 130 students are currently active in the MGIS program, while more than 300 seek a certificate of achievement.

The combined Master of GIS degree and post-baccalaureate certificate programs in GIS and Geospatial Intelligence have attracted more than 3,000 students from all 50 states and seven continents.

The Department has conferred more than 1,300 certificates of achieve-ment since the program’s founding in 1999, when it consisted of only five classes. By 2009, the program had expanded to 26 classes comprising a professional master’s degree and two post-baccalaureate certificate programs.

MGIS program receives accolade

David DiBiase was one of the authors of “The GIS Professional Ethics Project: Practical ethics education for GIS Pros,” which he presented at the 2009 International Cartography Conference confer-ence in Santiago, Chile, and the AAG annual meeting in Washington, D.C. in April 2010.

The Geospatial Revolution project, which is being led by instruc-tor Karen schuckman (MGIs 2009) and seeks to educate about the world of ditigal mapping and how it is changing how people think, behave and interact, has been approved by WPSU. Find out more about the project at http://geospatialrevolution.psu.edu.

Doug Miller presented an invited plenary talk on soil information resources and web technology at the Soil Geography 2009 Confer-ence in Huatulco Santa Cruz, Mexico, in November 2009.

Marty Gutowski helped build the College of Earth and Mineral Sci-ences’ new Web site, www.ems.psu.edu.

Dutton institue notes

On Oct. 16, 2009, several Penn State Geographers continued the department’s tradition of participation in the annual Tussey Mountainback Relay Race and Ultramarathon.

Among the 58 “ultras” was senior lecturer and alumna Adena schutz-berg (M.s. 1988), who finished the challenging 50-mile course through hilly and colorful Rothrock State For-est in 9:44:31.

Adena’s performance recalls Mor-gan Windram-Geddes’ (B.s. 2004, M.s. 2006) record-setting “ultra” finishes in 2002 and 2003 (Morgan also raced in 2005 and 2008).

In the 2009 race Penn State Geography also fielded a relay team called “Built for Comfort” that included David DiBiase, Alan taylor,

Kristin Taylor, Denice Wardrop, and Mark Wherley (B.s. 1995).

Each team member ran two or three legs totaling 8 to 13 miles each. Finishing in 7:39:18, Built for Comfort was the fastest (and yes, the only) team in the Mixed Masters division. The defending champs hope to run again next year.

In the Women’s Open division, assistant professor erica smithwick ran three legs as part of a “quad” team called “Three Quick Women and One Slow One.” Erica was not the slow one.

The Tussey Mountainback race was one of the attractions noted by National Geographic Adventure when it included State College among the 50 “Next Great Adventure Towns” in

Geographers run 50 miles

Geographers alan taylor, Kristen taylor, david diBiase,

denice Wardrop and mark Wherley have a well-deserved

beer after the race.

the U.S. (See http://adventure.nationalgeographic.com/2008/09/weekend-getaways/best-places-to-live/east-text)

For more information about the event, including a 3-D Google Earth image of the race route and surrounding terrain created by Wherley, see http://www.tusseymountainback.com/maps.html.


www.geog.psu.edu John a. dUtton e-edUCatIon InStItUte neWS

The John A. Dutton e-Educa-tion Institute recently conferred degrees and certificates to its students. They are:

Mgis – third quarter 2009Sarah Merz

Mgis – fourth quarter 2009Michael BraymenCarrie BurkholderAllen CousinsJonna DuSheyWilliam ForsythAndrew GroganBruce KinnerMichelle LazarTimothy LoveJames PriceRuth Trudell

Cpgis – second quarter 2009Kristin AnichSamuel AruchJustin BarclayNaomi BarnesMalie Beach-SmithBrian BettenhausenBrad BienkowskiJocelyn BishopKirby BoeschlingJames Burkhart Jr.Shane Campbell-HenningJacqueline Clamor-MamauagSusan ColemanRichard CornerGregory CornettJudith CoyneChadwick Cunningham

William DavidsonJames DurkinJoshua ElkinsAmy EverettTammy FearnowKimberly FisherMichael GiangrandeMatthew GillErin GoodnoughJared HermanyAmy HusemanAndrew JohnsonAlice JohnstonMichael LacykMichael LamerePatricia LanctoJohn LangeAndrew LiGwen LockhartPaul LupoJames LynchDavid MarquardtRichard MartinThomas PeckBethany PetersonSandra Phillip-BurrowsBenjamin PlunkettShimsha Divyashree PrasadSusan PrillamanDennis QuinlanZack RoehrCarlos SerpasJohn SteinJames SturmCindy SweeneyEdwin TadlockRichard TinnellNeil TrenkJulie Vaughan

K. VogtCatherine WalkerEthan WatelKelly WhitleySandra WoiakEric WoodCarey ZinckLeslie Zolman

Cpgis – third quarter 2009Allegheny BeckerNicholas BegynRachel CarrSteven CherekGeorge CoxCasey FinedellKrystal ForgenieZlatko GrebenarPatricia GreenDavid HackeltonErik IrtenkaufRyan KieneMichael LeclaireAndrew LiJennifer McCallJulie McGivernJulie MorahanJesse MourerRobert MyersAndrew PaganoGlen RaunerDavid SabinCorrey StapletonAileen StuartDanny SymesThaeng UngCheryl WankoSarah WeberKellie Weidenheimer

Michael WiniskiStephanie WojnoBryn WoodJames WootenNathan Workman

Cpgis – fourth quarter 2009Oluwafemi AdewaleElaina AlbersKelly AlderjanesFrederick AmidonMatteo ArruCristi BaldinoMandy BingamanRichard BorutaBrian CassidyKaren ChapmanKevin ColaizziJames CoursonJeffrey DiblasiPatricia DixonJan DucnuigeenAlex EnglishJustin ForehandLinda FosterDavid GrecoLynn GreerEric HaflettLara HallJohn HodgeStephen HodoryJustin HollenbachJoel HowardZemfira HuseynliMatthew JohnsonDonald JonesJohn KalinichHal KellerEmily Klipp

Jeri LedbetterJames LewinTania LewisKatherine LyellRobert MacgregorLeigh MartinRyan McCammonKrista McDermidKevin McQueenTimothy MichaelTheodore MoxonBao PhamStephan PowersGang QuJeffrey ResterDavid RobertsonMaddalena RomanoRebecca RosenbauerDavid SchollTara ShickMarnie SippelBeth SteinThom StulginskiBrett TaylorWarren ThompsonJames TompkinsLaurinda TraversDuane TreadonTomislav UrbanRebecca VarleyRobert WesselJohn WolfCarlynne WorshamRyne YargerRaymond YostQingyi Yu

The Pennsylvania State UniversityDepartment of Geography302 Walker BuildingUniversity Park, PA 16802-5011

We extend our deepest gratitude to all alumni and friends who have given financial support to the Department of Geography during past six decades. Without these generous contributions, many scholarhips, research experiences, and awards would not be available to our students and faculty. We especially wish to recognize those who contributed to the department be-tween July 1 and Dec. 31, 2009. Their names are listed below.

If you would like to donate to the department, please contact [email protected] or [email protected].

Dr. joseph W. bencloski Mr. Frank j. bonazza, jr. Mrs. sandra Monica bonazza Ms. sarah e. bontrager ltC Winfred r. boyer, usaF (ret.) Mrs. judith High boyer Dr. Cynthia brewer Mrs. rebecca p. brooks Dr. robert p. brooks Mr. jason brown Mrs. sarah szalankiewicz brown Dr. joseph a. Casalena Mrs. Mary j. Casalena Mr. benjamin j. De angelo Mr. David Dibiase Ms. alexa j. Dugan Dr. rodney a. erickson Mrs. sharon l. erickson Mr. jerome a. Fabanich

Mrs. Michele Fabanich Dr. joseph W. glass

Mrs. susan Fulton glass Mr. Fred gockley

Mrs. Marianne gockley Dr. David a. Kirtland

Mrs. audrey a. Kirtland Mr. jonathan M. Korus

CDr robert W. KraftMrs. brenda Kraft

Dr. john i. Messner Ms. anne Dempski Messner

Dr. james t. Meyer Dr. Charles b. Monroe

Ms. laura b. Monroe Mr. louis M. Mosurak Mr. Michael a. palecki Mr. scott pezanowski

Mr. William a. pike Ms. sheryl Kron rhodes

Dr. g.D. richardson and Ms. la sauce Mr. bret W. rodgers

Mrs. Denise g. rodgers Mr. and Mrs. jeffrey M. rote

Mrs. Debra Vincer sipe Mr. ronald l. sipe

Mr. raymond j. stolinas jr. Helen a. stolinas, esq.

Mrs. sheryl a. swingley Dr. robert n. thomas Mr. john t. titzel, jr. Ms. joann C. Vender Mr. joseph M. Watts

Mr. brendan j. Wesdock Ms. Michele johnson Wesdock

Dr. Careen M. yarnal Dr. brenton M. yarnal

Mr. brian Zabela Mrs. rose Marie Zabela

We ARe ... GRAteFuL FOR YOuR suPPORt!

penn state geography winter/spring 2010 newsletter

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