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News Headlines: 2007

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  • Congratulations Fall grads! Twenty-two earn degrees (December 13, 2007)

    Congratulations to 22 new ASU geography graduates -- 14 with bachelor's degrees, 5 with master's degrees, and 3 new Ph.D.s. Here are the new grads:
    Doctor of Philosophy: Timothy Leslie, Seow Huan Lim, Brandon Vogt
    Master of Arts: Andrew Burnett, Juan Declet, Jyoti Jain, Shea Lemar, David Tompkins
    Bachelor of Arts: Kirsten Harshaw, Ashley McQueen, Shaun Savage
    Bachelor of Science: Justin Davis, Joseph Dickinson, Jeremy Dorn, Peter Gatzke, Brandon Holloway, Daniel Krahenbuhl, David La Conte, Luanne Lynch, James Russell, Scott Ryan, and Cole Turnbull

  • Torrens embarks on lecture tour of Ireland (December 12, 2007)

    Paul Torrens just returned from a 25 km lecturing micro-tour of Ireland, where he gave invited talks on “Using geospatial agents to explore riot dynamics” at the National Centre for Geocomputation in National University of Ireland, Maynooth (NCG just won a 10 million Euro grant for Geotechnologies), and on “Geosimulation as an engine for synthetic actors in urban simulations” at the Graphics, Visualisation and Vision Group in Trinity College Dublin’s School of Computer Science.

     

  • CBC radio discusses Canada immigration and "ethnoburbs" (December 5, 2007)

    In a December 5 news feature, CBC radio discussed Canada's changing immigration patterns, emphasizing an increase in "ethnoburbs" -- ethnic enclaves in suburbs on the outskirts of large cities. Dr. Wei Li, of ASU Geographical Sciences and Asian Pacific American Studies, first coined the term "ethnoburb" beginning over 10 years ago, and is interviewed in the CBC feature. The broadcast is available over the internet at http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2007/200712/20071205.html

     

  • Aether: The Journal of Media Geography debuts; Lukinbeal is a founding editor (November 26, 2007)

    Aether is a new online peer-reviewed journal offering a forum that examines the geography of media, including cinema, television, the Internet, music, art, advertising, newspapers and magazines, video and animation. Aether provides a space to engage issues surrounding these media, beginning with constructions of space and place, cultural landscapes, society, and identity.
    The first issue of Aether (Volume 1, Fall 2007) is now available online and contains short essays by the editorial board on the current state of media geography research and theory.

  • PhD student Gabriel Judkins chairs panel on Literacies of Sustainability (November 13, 2007)

    At the Western States Rhetoric and Literacy Conference on Sustainability, held Oct. 25-27 at ASU, Gabriel Judkins presented and chaired a panel on "Landscapes and Literacies: A Transdisciplinary Approach to Literacies of Sustainability." The conference presentation and discussions on teaching sustainability through a learning community. The conference brought participants from universities and colleges throughout the western United States.

  • Torrens presents at IEEE conference on robotics (November 11, 2007)

    Dr. Paul M. Torrens recently presented a paper on “Behavioral intelligence for geospatial agents in urban environments” at the IEEE Intelligent Agent Technology conference in Silicon Valley (http://www.cs.sjsu.edu/wi07/iat/?index=about).

  • Arizona Republic features Balling and Chhetri on global warming (November 11, 2007)

    "Skeptics raise doubts on global warming", a lead article in Sunday's Arizona Republic, features several viewpoints on causes of global warming, and is accompanied by a second article featuring Professor Robert Ballling's assessment of the issue. The series also presents comments by Assistant Professor Netra Chhetri, emphasizing the shift in research to focus on effects of climate change at the local level.

  • Work by Paul Torrens is attracting interest from the computer graphics community (November 10, 2007)

    Dr. Paul M. Torrens’s work on geosimulation (http://geosimulation.org) has become popular in the computer graphics community and is currently featured on the front pages of CG Architect (http://www.cgarchitect.com/news/) in the USA and 3DVF (http://www.3dvf.com/) in France. Dr. Torrens has been working on visually realistic synthetic actors for his agent-based behavioral models, and rendered urban infrastructures for the environments in which they interact (see http://geosimulation.org/crowds/ for more details).

  • ASU ASPRS Kickoff Event will take place Nov. 13 (November 7, 2007)

    The newly formed student chapter of American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) an imaging and geospatial information society, sponsored by with the School of Geographical Sciences, will be hosting a kickoff and informational event for all new members, those students interested in joining and all faculty members. Guest speakers will include Mr. Leland J. Harbers, ASPRS National Director and Dr. Stephen R. Yool, President of the Southwest Region of ASPRS. It will be held from 10:00 AM-12:00 PM at the Brickyard Orchid House, Decision Center for a Desert City Conference Rom 175, Arizona State University at the Tempe campus.

  • Alumni Chris Graham completes Fulbright year, works on MPA at Columbia (November 6, 2007)

    Chris Graham graduated from Arizona State University in 2005 with a BS in Geography. He is also a graduate of the Barrett Honors College writing a thesis entitled "A Hydroclimatic Indexing Method for Drought Monitoring." Upon graduation he interned at the Arizona House of Representatives for the 2006 Legislative Session. The following year, Chris conducted research on drought in the Republic of Mauritius as part of a Fulbright Fellowship. He is currently working on a masters degree in Public Administration, specializing in Environmental Science and Policy, at Columbia University. He is also working on GIS applications at the Center for International Environmental Science Information Network.

  • Wei Li is featured in several media (November 6, 2007)

    The work of Wei Li, Associate Professor with a joint appointment in Geographical Sciences and Asian Pacific American Studies, appeared recently in two public news venues. On October 30, Radio Canada aired and interview with Li on Pacific Rim immigration and diversity. A few days earlier, the October 27 edition of World Journal featured her research in an article on polarization among Chinese Americans.

  • Mark Schmeeckle and team receive grant to study Verde River Ecological Flows (November 4, 2007)

    Assistant Professor Mark Schmeeckle, together with Juliet Stromberg (ASU School of Life Sciences), Abe Springer (NAU Department of Geology), Tom Meixner (UA Hydrology and Water Resources) and Peter Reinthal(UA Ecology & Evolutionary Biology) received a grant from the Arizona Water Institute to continue their work in linking hydrological variation in the Verde River to ecological response on the river. This second phase of the project will develop integrated data collection to confirm and futher develop flow-ecology response models built in the first phase. The project allows continuation of research focusing on one of the most critical sustainability issues in Arizona.

  • Nancy Selover to lead evaluation of Arizona drought status determination (November 3, 2007)

    Under a grant from the Arizona Water Institute, State Climatologist Nancy Selover will lead an evaluation of Arizona's drought monitoring tool. The project will conduct a systematic, quantitative evaluation of drought status triggers in order to ensure credibility of the Drought Status Reports which are used to promote appropriate drought preparedness actions. The project is being carried out cooperatively with Michael Crimmins (Climate Science Extension Specialist) and Greg Garfin, (Outreach Director of CLIMAS) at the University of Arizona, and Susan Craig, Drought Planning Coordinator of the Arizona Department of Water Resources.

  • Professor Pasqualetti receives grant dealing with AZ-Sonora water and energy sustainability (November 1, 2007)

    Prof. Martin J. (Mike) Pasqualetti is Co-PI on a new grant from the Arizona Water Institute. The title of the grant is “Water and Energy Sustainability with Rapid Growth in the Arizona-Sonora Border Region”. He is joined by Christopher Scott (Co-PI), Asst. Professor, Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, and Dept. of Geography & Regional Development, University of Arizona (UA) Robert Varady Research Prof., Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, UA Gregg Garfin, Deputy Director, Institute for the Study of Planet Earth, UA Subhrajit Guhathakurta, Professor, School of Planning, ASU. The grant, which addresses water and energy from a combined management perspective, was one of 12 selected from 58 submitted.

  • MA student Scott Kelley presents "Arizona's Energy-Water Nexus: Electrical Generation and Associated Water Consumption" at South (November 1, 2007)

    Scott Kelley presented findings from part of his MA thesis research, directed by Professor Mike Pasqualetti, at SWUG annual conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Oct. 31. The Southwest Users Group (SWUG) annual conference brings together GIS users from Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. For more details about the meeting, see http://www.swuggis.org/

  • 91st Arizona Town Hall, "Land Use Challenges and Choices for the 21st Century" includes contributions from Geographical Sciences (November 1, 2007)

    Professors Patricia Gober, Mike Pasqualetti and Tony Brazel contributed to the background report prepared for the 2007 Arizona Town Hall, held in Prescott, Arizona Oct. 28-31.

    Arizona Town Hall is a private, nonprofit civic organization created in 1962 to increase citizens’ understanding of the many facets of the state's economic, cultural and social life. Twice each year, the Arizona Town Hall brings together a wide cross-section of approximately 150 prominent Arizona citizens to consider and discuss a topic of major concern to Arizona's future.

    Patricia Gober edited the background report, which will be combined with recommendations from the Town Hall into a final report that will be widely distributed to Arizona public officials, community and business leaders. Mike Pasqualetti wrote a chapter dealing with the role of urban energy demand on rural landscape quality, and Tony Brazel contributed to a chapter on land use and environmental quality.

    See Summary of Town Hall Findings and Recommendations.

  • Paul Torrens is featured in "The Futurist" Magazine (October 31, 2007)

    The November/December issue of "The Futurist" magazine, features the work of Assistant Professor Paul Torrens. The article, "Predicting Panic" opens with the questions "Wnen does a crowd become a mob? And what can public safety and security professionals do to predict, prevent, or control it?" The full article is available at http://www.wfs.org/Nov-Dec%20Files/N-D2007_scenarios.pdf.

  • Chris Lukinbeal introduces "Shane" at Phoenix Art Museum, Sunday Nov. 11 (October 30, 2007)

    As part of the Phoenix Art Museum's "Westerns in the West" movie series, Chris Lukinbeal, Assistant Professor in the School of Geographical Sciences, will be introducing the film "Shane" and leading a discussion after its showing. The program will begin at 1 pm; admission is free. Westerns in the West is sponsored by ASU’s Center for Film, Media and Popular Culture. George Steven’s 1953 masterpiece Shane, is a classical tale of America’s frontier myth that situates transplanted Europeans in a new and empty landscape (space) for their cultivation (place). Shane mediates this myth by framing landscape as a contested place of ranchers and farmers. The hero, Shane, embodies the paradox of the frontier: moral civility (civilization, place) and savage, violent wilderness (nature, space). Filmed near Jackson Hole Wyoming, the Grand Tetons symbolize uncivilized space looming over the contested formation of civilized place.

  • Arizona Republic features Arizona Indicators project, with contributions by Professors O hUallachain and Gober (October 28, 2007)

    Sunday's Arizona Republic describes ASU's Arizona Indicators project, an initiative to aid in community planning by making key information about Arizona easily accessible. The School of Geographical Sciences is a partner in this effort, with leadership from Breandan O hUallachain and Patricia Gober. To find out more about the project, and explore its interactive maps and digital dashboard, see http://www.asu.edu/indicators/.

  • NEH Grand Canyon NP project, Ph.D. student Yolonda Youngs, featured in upcoming ASU Research Magazine. (October 26, 2007)

    The upcoming edition of the ASU Research Magazine will feature an article profiling a recent trip to Grand Canyon National Park with the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) “Interpreting America’s Historic Places: Nature, Culture, and History at the Grand Canyon” project team led by Dr. Paul Hirt (Department of History). Yolonda Youngs participated in the grant writing for this project that is now funding her dissertation research into the visual landscapes and iconography of Grand Canyon National Park. The online edition of ASU Magazine is available for this article at: http://researchmag.asu.edu/2007/09/outdoor_classroomgrande.html

  • Julia Koschinsky (GeoDa Center) present findings on rental spillovers at ACSP in a paper co-authored with Luc Anselin (October 23, 2007)

    Julia Koschinsky presented the research findings of a co-authored paper with Luc Anselin on spillover effects of un-assisted rental housing on single-family home values at the Annual Meeting of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP) in Milwaukee, WI, Oct. 2007. In their paper, they are the first to compare impacts of subsidized rental units to those of unsubsidized units, by zoning area. They find that neither subsidized nor unsubsidized rental units in multi-family or neighborhood commercial zones have any impacts on nearby property values (of homes in either multi-family or single-family zones). However, new rental units in single-family zoning areas have negative property value impacts on homes in these areas. These differential effects are masked by traditional model specifications applied in the existing literature. Julia is affiliated with the School of Geographical Science’s GeoDa Center for Geospatial Analysis and Computation.

  • Julia Koschinsky (GeoDa Center) receives U.S. HUD grant for dissertation research (October 23, 2007)

    Julia Koschinsky received a competitive grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to complete her dissertation on modeling spatial spillover effects from rental to owner housing at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The dissertation improves traditional time series-based methods to measure spatial spillover effects through the application of spatial methods and spatial concepts. Dr. Luc Anselin is the PI on the project. Julia is affiliated with the School of Geographical Science’s GeoDa Center for Geospatial Analysis and Computation.

  • Tony Brazel speaks at two conferences, Ecological Society of America and National Council of Geographic Education (October 21, 2007)

    Tony Brazel was an invited speaker at two recent conferences: In August, he spoke at a special Symposium on "Effects of Human Choices on Characteristics of Urban Ecosystems", at the Annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America held in San Jose, CA. The write up of the symposium appears in ESA Reports, Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America, pp 404-409.
    He also was invited to make a presentation on “Changing Urban Climates” at a special session on “Climate Variation and Change” of the National Council of Geographic Education’s Annual Meeting in October held in Oklahoma City. Session participants have contributed a chapter to a book by the same title as the session advertised on the NCGE website at www.ncge.org.

  • ASU students win honors at 2007 meeting of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers (October 21, 2007)

    Many ASU students and some faculty participated in the 70th Annual Meeting of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers in Long Beach, CA, Oct. 17-20. ASU students continue a tradition of excellence at these meetings and two of ours received distinguished awards in Long Beach. Ann Fletchall received the President's Award for Outstanding Paper by a Ph.D. Student for "The Spectacle of the Festival." Arianna Fernandez received the Cultural Geography Fieldwork Scholarship for "The Pro's Ranch Market Landscape: Latino Community Identity through Commercial Space in Metropolitan Phoenix."
    In addition to these award winners, other graduate students presenting papers were Casey Allen, John Finn, Der-Shiuaun Lee, Bryan Paris, Darren Ruddell, Lindsey Sutton, and Yolonda Youngs. Faculty Daniel Arreola, Robert Balling, Patricia Gober and Christopher Lukinbeal presented or authored papers.

  • Architect Magazine: "Paul Torrens Learns how People Navigate Urban Spaces" (October 16, 2007)

    The current edition of Architect Magazine features the work of Assistant Professor Paul Torrens in modeling behavior of crowds. The article, describing the Torrens' work in modeling based on the premise that crowds are made up of individuals endowed with unique behavioral traits, is currently available here.

  • Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change wins Nobel Peace Prize; two Geographical Sciences faculty are contributors (October 15, 2007)

    The Nobel Peace Prize award to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recognizes the work of the IPCC’s many contributors for “their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.” (http://nobelprize.org)

    Two School of Geographical Sciences faculty were among these contributors. Robert Balling, Professor, was a contributing author for two chapters of the IPCC’s Second Assessment Report, and one chapter of the Third Assessment Report. He wrote about climate variability in two of the chapters (addressing the issue of whether or not climate variability spatially and/or temporally has increased) and wrote a section on desertification and climate for the other chapter. Netra Chhetri, Assistant Professor, was involved in the Third and Fourth Assessment Reports. As contributing author to chapters on food, fiber and forest products, he reviewed the literatures on impacts of climate change in agricultural sector and its socio-economic impact in tropical and temperate regions of the world.

    The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established by the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1988 to assess the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant for the understanding of human induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for mitigation and adaptation. To date the IPCC has completed four full assessment reports and a number of special reports and technical papers.

  • Emily Talen presents keynote at University of Notre Dame conference on New Urbanism, Oct. 5, 2007 (October 14, 2007)

    The University of Notre Dame chapter of “Students for New Urbanism” held a three-day conference titled “Ask Me About My T-Zone: How We Discuss New Urbanism” Friday, October 5th through Sunday, October 7th at Bond Hall, home of the School of Architecture. The conference allowed students and young practitioners to connect and collaborate with other young people interested in the practice of New Urbanism, to learn the latest new urbanist trends and to contribute ideas and experiences that will help advance the mission to improve the built environment. John Norquist, president and CEO of the Congress for the New Urbanism and Emily Talen, Professor of Urbanism in the School of Geographical Sciences at ASU delivered keynote addresses.

  • Emily Talen participates in a charrette on low income housing for Sunland Park, New Mexico (October 14, 2007)

    Emily Talen participated in a 3-day charrette in Pasadena, California from Wednesday, October 10th through Friday, October 12th at the offices of Moule/Polyzoides, architects and planners. The charrette examined low-income housing in Sunland Park, New Mexico, a small town on the U.S.-Mexico border, near El Paso, Texas. The participants studied existing conditions, and then proposed design strategies for housing units and neighborhood layouts as well as implementation strategies. The charrette was funded by a grant from the State of New Mexico

  • Casey Allen receives NSF funding for dissertation research (October 9, 2007)

    As part of the National Science Foundation’s initiative to bring science into K-12 classrooms, Casey Allen was recently awarded a highly-competitive year-long Fellowship for 2007-08, while he completes his dissertation. This award provides Fellows the opportunity to work with teachers and students to enrich science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) content for their K-12 partners through inquiry-based instruction. Specifically, Case works with Sheila Wilson’s seventh-grade Integrated Science classes at Anderson Junior High in Chandler School District, where he brings “geographical science” thinking into the classroom. Case was selected for the program based on his work with the Arizona Geographic Alliance, his dissertation topic that assesses student learning of environmental processes, and his involvement with the MAS in Geographic Education program. The “Down to Earth” GK-12 program at ASU is led by Dr. B. Ramakrishna of the School of Materials Science and Engineering. More information ASU’s “Down to Earth” program can be found at: http://gk12.asu.edu/, and additional information about the NSF Graduate Teaching Fellows is at: http://www.nsfgk12.org/.

  • "It's not a weather record until he says it is" -- Arizona Republic article features Randy Cerveny (October 7, 2007)

    The Sunday, October 8 edition of the Arizona Republic featured Professor Randy Cerveny on the front page, and describes his new responsibility for researching and verifying weather records, from deadliest tornado to highest temperature. This project, sponsored by the World Meteorological Organization, is a new tool to help confirm climate shifts. See the full article at http://www.azcentral.com, and explore Dr. Cerveny's World Weather / Climate Extremes Archive at wmo.asu.edu.

  • Soe Myint presents paper on vegetation cover in relation to urban heat island, at SW US Region ASPRS symposium (October 6, 2007)

    Dr. Soe Myint, Assistant Professor of Geography, presented a paper at the Southwest US Region, American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing Symposium, held in Tucson, Arizona on October 5. Myint spoke about "Exploring spatial patterns of vegetation covers in relation to the urban heat island effect". The symposium was held in collaberation with the National Phenological Network (http://usanpn.org/), a newly-formed organization whose objective is to establish a continental-scale network of observations demonstrating how seasonal and interannual variations in climate influence periodic plant and animal life cycle events.

  • Yolonda Youngs receives NEH funding for doctoral research (October 6, 2007)

    Yolonda Youngs recently received funding for her doctoral research from the National Endowment for the Humanities “Interpreting America’s Historic Places: Nature, Culture, and History at the Grand Canyon” as part of the “We The People” Initiative Collaboration. Working with a project team lead by Dr. Paul Hirt (Department of History), the Grand Canyon Association, and the National Park Service, this project explores Grand Canyon National Park as a historical and cultural landscape. We will explore the ways that this unique place has influenced American science, art, environmental values, popular culture, tourism, and leisure. To accomplish these goals, the project team will develop an interactive website and DVD exploring the human history of the Grand Canyon; a pedestrian audiotour of the Grand Canyon Village historic district and various locations on the North Rim and along the trails in the inner gorge; brochures for park visitors; “traveling trunks” for public school teachers with curriculum and classroom materials; training seminars for park interpreters; and public lectures. For more details about the project and personnel, see the CLAS website, or the ASU Department of History website for the project.

  • GeoFest Conference, Oct. 27, Features English Language Learner Adaptations (October 5, 2007)

    The ongoing crisis in Arizona's English Language Learner (ELL) education program makes periodic headlines over lawsuits. To hear some good news on this issue, please consider attending this annual teacher conference of the School of Geographical Science's Arizona Geographic Alliance. You will learn of the results of a quarter-million dollar National Geographic Society grant: lessons especially designed to teach geography, reading, and writing to both mainstream and ELL will be demonstrated. To obtain registration information, please visit http://alliance.la.asu.edu/azga/ and click on GeoFest 2007.

  • Randy Cerveny appears on Weather Channel, premiering Oct. 5 (October 4, 2007)

     Professor Randy Cerveny appears as an expert for a new episode of the Weather Channel's "Epic Conditions." The episode features Arizona Skydiving, and will premier on Friday, October 5. It will be repeated, in rotation with other episodes, through November 23.

  • Mike Pasqualetti presents paper at the Alternative Energy Expo in Tucson, Sept. 15 (September 25, 2007)

    The Expo, which ran Sept 14-15, drew 10,000 people. Mike’s presentation outlined the status of renewable energy development in Arizona, concluding that wind and geothermal, while helpful, will play a small role in the state when compared to future contribution from solar energy.

  • Tony Brazel explains Urban Heat Island in Arizona Republic (September 22, 2007)

    The September 22 issue of the Arizona Republic featured a column by Professor Tony Brazel, discussing Phoenix's urban heat island; its cause and impact on Phoenix-area temperatures. The article is available at http://www.azcentral.com.

  • Wentz (PI) and Edsall (Co-Investigator) receive subcontract from University of Rhode Island (August 31, 2007)

    Associate Professor Elizabeth Wentz and Assistant Professor Robert Edsall received a subcontract from the University of Rhode Island for the following project: ‘Advancing watershed N management at the local level: Incorporating stream reach ecosystem N sinks into an environmental spatial decision support system.' The objective of this proposal is to translate understanding of nitrogen sinks into an Environmental Spatial Decision Support System to improve the capacity of local decision makers in targeting Best Management Practices and planning efforts to areas with the greatest potential to affect watershed N export.

    Performance Period: 9/1/07 - 8/31/10
    Award Amount: $150,000

  • "Geo-Spatial Factors and Impacts: Measurement and Use" awarded to Anselin from Research Triangle Institute (August 1, 2007)

    This project involves the development of spatial regression methods, the implementation of these methods in software and their application to the study of health seeking behavior in collaboration with the Research Triangle Institute project team. Spatial econometric methods will be developed that allow the incorporation of geospatial/socio-cultural factors in the study of health-seeking behavior, in both person level and small area analysis. The methods and software will be applied to the estimation of behavioral models that will form the basis for agent-based simulation models. The work will be carried out over a period of four years

    Initial Funding Period: 8/2/07 – 5/31/08

    Funded Amount: $218,777

  • Talen receives "Access to Artistic Excellence" award from the National Endowment for the Arts (July 31, 2007)

    Congratulations to Professor Emily Talen, who received the "Access to Artistic Excellence" award from the National Endowment for the Arts in January 2008. The title of her project, ‘The Book of Codes: Anthology of Urban Design Determinants,' will be published as a web-based, searchable archive drawn from a broad array of historical documents. Documents will be selected from around the world and multiple time periods, from ancient times to the present. Together, these documents will constitute a rich cultural resource for urban planners, architects, and all others involved in the construction of place.

    Performance Period: 8/1/07 - 8/31/09
    Award Amount: $30,000

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