Kansas State University

Geography faculty, students present at national conference

Submitted by Chuck Martin

Faculty and graduate students from the geography department participated in the annual Association of American Geographers meeting from April 21-25 in Chicago. The meetings are the largest annual gathering of professional geographers in North America. The following faculty and students made presentations at the meetings: 

Robert Briwa, graduate student, presented "Geographic Perspectives on the Provencal Literary Tradition."

Marcellus M. Caldas, associate professor; Gabriel Granco, graduate student; and colleagues J. Bergtold and C. Brown presented "How Sugarcane Ethanol Expansion Impacts the Brazilian Cerrado Land Use: Intensification of Extensification?"

Kabita Ghimire, graduate student; Bimal K. Paul, professor; and Douglas G. Goodin, professor, presented "Malaria-Related Knowledge, Perceptions and Practices among Adults in Nepal."

Granco; Caldas; and colleagues A. Sant’Anna and J. Bergtold presented "Spatial Explicit Model of Ethanol Plant Location in the Brazilian Cerrado."

Bartosz Grudzinski, visiting assistant professor; Claire Ruffing, visiting assistant professor; and colleagues P. Barnes and M. Daniels presented "Climatic Influences and Temporal Variability in Suspended Sediment Dynamics in Actively Grazed Grassland Streams."

John A. Harrington Jr.. professor, and colleague I. Howard presented "Precipitation Seasonality in the United States." Harrington and Howard also presented "Seasonality and Climate Change in Kansas."

Lisa M.B. Harrington, professor, and colleague L.A. Wallace presented "Condit Dam Removal: A Decision-Making Comparison with Removal of Elwha River Dams."

Andrew Hilburn, visiting assistant professor, presented "At Home or to the Dump? Household Garbage Management and the Trajectories of Waste in a Rural-But-Urbanizing Mexican Municipio." 

J.M. Shawn Hutchinson, associate professor; Bryanna Pockrandt, graduate student; and colleagues A. Jacquin, N. Bloedow, and L. Murray presented "Sensitivity of TIMESAT-Derived Phenometrics to Adaptive Savitzky-Golay Filters Applied to MODIS Time Series Data."

Christy Jean, graduate student, presented "Hydrological Transitions: A Story of Kansas Watersheds."

Thomas Larsen, graduate student, presented "Culture, Experience, and Geo-Progressions: K-12 Student Pathways to Imagining Places and Regions."

Max Lu, professor, and colleagues J. Yang and M. Guo presented "Land Expropriation, Demolition and Displacement in China's Rapid Urbanization Drive."

Lei Luo, graduate student, and Douglas Goodin, professor, presented "Simulating and Predicting the Urban Heat Island Effect in Rugao, China by Using Artificial Neural Network Model."

Richard A. Marston, university distinguished professor, and colleague F. Pellicciotti presented "Recent Advances in Understanding Glacial Meltwater: Production, Pathways, Impacts."

Charles W. Martin, professor, presented "Trace Metal Storage in Recent Floodplain Sediments along the Dill River, Central Germany."

Heidi E. Mehl, graduate student, and colleagues C. Annett and A. De Vos presented "Cultural Ecosystem Services: Where Do They Fit in Ecosystem Service Monetization?"

Bimal K. Paul, professor, and colleague M. Rahman presented "Preventing Anthrax Infection: Response to the 2010 Anthrax Outbreaks by Residents of Dhaka, Bangladesh."

Avantika A. Ramekar, graduate student, and Paul presented "Will the Growing Oil and Gas Industries Help Revive Kansas population?"

Ruffing; Bryce Marston, graduate student; and colleagues M. Daniels and L. Albertson presented "Reconstructing River and Watershed Restoration: Physical Geography and a New Restoration Design Science."

Jeffrey S. Smith, associate professor, presented "The Characteristics of a Microclimate along the Rio Grande Gorge in North-Central New Mexico."

Lianling Su, graduate student, presented "Change of Amount of CO₂ Absorbed by Forest in Heilongjiang Province of the 20th Century."

Lisa K. Tabor, graduate student, presented "An Exploration of Climate Change Education in the K-12 Classroom."

Jida Wang, assistant professor; Spencer Ford, undergraduate student; Takuto Urano, undergraduate student; Pedro Sartori, undergraduate student; and colleagues Y. Sheng and C. Song presented "Toward a Global Assessment of Lake Water Resource: Differentiating Freshwater and Saline Types from a High-Resolution Global Lake Inventory."

William A. Wetherholt, graduate students, presented "Exploring Rootedness in the Very Rural Great Plains Counties of Kansas and Nebraska."

The following geography department faculty and graduate students served as discussants, chairs, or organizers for panels or sessions at the conference:

Caldas, chair for "Agricultural Commodity."

J. Harrington Jr., organizer and chair for "Climate Literacy and Education"; chair for "Severe Weather, Central US Climate Change, Is There a Connection?"; and organizer and chair for "Ecoregions and Climate Change: Current Status and Prospect."

Hilburn, chair for "Environmental Pollution in the United States."

Larsen, chair for "Contemporary Geography Education Studies II."

Lu, chair for "Spatial Inequality IV: China I."

Luo, chair for "Research into Climate Change in China."

R. Marston, discussant for "Mountain Landscapes and Communities in a Changing World - Part II"; discussant for "Ecoregions and Climate Change: Current Status and Prospect"; panelist for "Harm de Blij Memorial Session"; and chair and organizer for "Symposium on Physical Geography: Environmental Reconstruction I&II."

Paul, organizer for "South Asia Focus."

Wang, organizer and chair for "Integrative Approaches to Monitoring and Understanding Large-Scale Hydrological Systems."

Wetherholt, organizer for "New Voices in Rural Geography."