Newsletters

Newsletter – October 2018

October 3, 2018

PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

Geography and Climate Change in the 21st Century: Keeping our Eyes on the Prize

By Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach

Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach “Geography has many grand challenges for the 21st Century… Another grand challenge is ensuring a harassment-, bullying-, and bias-free Geography workplace, to ensure that progress continues on our other grand challenges. This is a “climate change” that we must unite around. This is not an easy topic to write about, but it is my civic and professional duty.”

Continue Reading.

ANNUAL MEETING

Themes Announced for 2019 AAG Annual Meeting

Two themes have been selected for the Washington, D.C. annual meeting: Geography, GIScience, and Health: Building an International Geospatial Health Research Network (IGHRN) and Geographies of Human Rights: The Right to Benefit from Scientific Progress. Both themes will be soliciting papers, panels, posters, and sessions which integrate the theme topic. The AAG identifies themes to help give each annual meeting a more specific focus, though any geography related topic is welcome for presentation.

Learn more about the meeting themes.

Get Involved with the AAG Jobs and Careers Center!

The AAG seeks panelists, mentors, and workshop leaders for careers and professional development events for the AAG Annual Meeting. If interested, email careers [at] aag [dot] org, specifying topic(s) and activity(s) of interest, and attach a current C.V. or resume. For best consideration, please submit your information by October 25, 2018.

“Focus on Washington, DC and the Mid Atlantic” is an ongoing series curated by the Local Arrangements Committee to provide insight on and understanding of the geographies of Washington, DC and the greater Mid Atlantic region in preparation for the 2019 AAG Annual Meeting.

The Resilient Streams in the Urban Landscape of Washington

There are numerous tales of how urbanization takes its toll on waterways that stretch through areas growing in population. Ranbir Kang describes the hydrologic system in the nation’s capital in this month’s Focus on Washington, DC and the Mid-Atlantic with special attention to Rock Creek and its small branch, Klingle Creek.

Read more.

Registration for #aagDC Now Open! Start Planning your Trip!

Deadlines are approaching for submitting a paper abstract. Paper abstract submissions are due October 25, 2018 while poster abstract submissions are due January 31, 2019.

ASSOCIATION NEWS

Meet the Editors of AAG Journals: James McCarthy and Ling Bian

The final two editors we will be featuring in our Meet the Editors section for this year are James McCarthy and Ling Bian. Both work as editors for the Annals of the American Association of Geographers – McCarthy as the Nature and Society editor and Bian as the Geographic Methods editor. Each brings extensive research and editorial experience to the journal.

Find out more about the AAG Journals editors.

Michelle Kinzer Joins AAG Staff as Government Relations Manager

The AAG is pleased to welcome Michelle Kinzer to fill the role of Government Relations Manager. She will serve as AAG’s primary advocate on public policy in Washington and will continue to grow relationships with government decision makers as well as outside organizations and stakeholders. She will track and analyze relevant issues facing the AAG and work to promote the rapidly growing geography community as a whole.

Read more about Michelle.

AAG Welcomes Fall Interns

Three new interns have started working at the AAG for the fall 2018 semester. Meet Daliha Jimenez from the University of Maryland, College Park, Mike Kelly from the George Washington University, and Siri Knudsen from the George Washington University. All three interns will be helping with AAG programs and projects such as education, outreach, research, website, publications, or the Annual Meeting.

Learn more about the interns.

POLICY UPDATE

Geospatial Data Act Passes within FAA

Image-118 capitol building The AAG is pleased to announce that the Geospatial Data Act (GDA) has been passed today, absent damaging exclusionary procurement provisions that were previously in the bill. AAG has been monitoring and providing expertise regarding the GDA for several years at the request of Congressional members.

Read more about this legislation.

RESOURCES AND OPPORTUNITIES

Geography Education Research Track – Call for Participation

NCRGE_logo For the 2019 AAG Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, the National Center for Research in Geography Education (NCRGE) is welcoming abstracts and organized session proposals for a track of research-oriented sessions in geography education. This track aims to raise the visibility of research in geography education, grow the NCRGE research coordination network, and provide productive spaces for discussion about geography education research and the notion of what makes research in the field potentially transformative.

Read the full call.

Rare Book School: The Art & Science of Cartography, 200–1550

The Library of Congress is offering a short cartography course taught by John Hessler, Specialist in Modern Cartography and Geographic Information Science and Curator of the Jay I. Kislak Collection of the Archaeology of the Early Americas at the Library of Congress. The course will be offered from December 2-7, 2018 in Washington, DC.

Learn more about this short class.

National Humanities Center Fellowships Accepting Applications

Up to 40 fellowships are being offered through the National Humanities Center which will run from September 2019 to May 2020. The international center welcomes professionals and scholars from any discipline who are engaged with humanitistic projects to apply by October 17, 2018.

Apply to be a National Humanities Center Fellow.

MEMBER NEWS

Profiles of Professional Geographers

Jeremy Tasch has had a varied geographical career. Now a professor of geography at Towson University, Tasch began his career right out of his undergraduate geography program in the Geography Field Division of the US Census Bureau. After working across the globe, Jeremy asserts that “if a geographer is curious and analytical in applying their knowledge to real-world problem solving effectively, then career opportunities are excellent.”

Learn more about geography careers.

October Member Updates

Read the latest news about AAG Members.

Ronald Wall, economic geographer and professor at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, has been serving as the lead researcher and author of the UN Report ‘State of African Cities 2018: the geography of African investment’. The report is now available for download. Read the report.

IN MEMORIAM

Terrence W. Haverluk

Terrence W. Haverluk passed away on September 18, 2018. A Professor in the Geospatial Science Program at the United States Air Force Academy, Terry received his MA and PhD in geography from the University of Minnesota. Trained as a cultural geographer, most recently his research looked at geopolitics, publishing the textbook Geopolitics From the Ground Up.

Read more.

Arleigh H. Laycock

The AAG is sad to hear of the passing of Dr. Arleigh H. Laycock on June 7, 2018. Laycock was a Professor Emeritus of Geography at the University of Alberta where he had been a professor prior to his retirement in 1989. During World War II, he served as a pilot in the R.C.A.F., following which he obtained a bachelors in Geography from University of Toronto and a PhD in Geography from University of Minnesota.

Read more.

David Lowenthal

David Lowenthal died peacefully in his home in London on September 15, 2018. Lowenthal was well respected in the disciplines of history, geography, and heritage studies and he had been an emeritus professor of geography at University College, London since 1985. His most recent work, The Past is a Foreign Country – Revisited, published in 2015, was featured at an author meets critics session at the 2016 AAG Annual Meeting in San Francisco.

Read more.

Joseph E. Schwartzberg

The AAG morns the loss of Joe Schwartzberg who passed away on September 19, 2018. A world citizen of White Bear Lake, Schwartzberg spent the majority of his career working with the World Federalist movement and studying India. In his own words, Joe reflects on his life.

Read Joe’s Kaleidoscopic sketch.

PUBLICATIONS

August 2018 Issue of the ‘Professional Geographer’ Published

PG cover

The August 2018 (Volume 70, Issue 3) issue of The Professional Geographer is now available online! The focus of this journal is on short articles in academic or applied geography, emphasizing empirical studies and methodologies. These features may range in content and approach from rigorously analytic to broadly philosophical or prescriptive.

See the newest issue.

New Books in Geography — August 2018 Available

New Books in Geography illustration of stack of books

From Particles in the Air to Transitions of Power, read the latest list of new books in geography! Recently released books are compiled from various publishers each month. Some of these titles are later reviewed in the AAG Review of Books.

Browse the list of new books.

Read the September 2018 Issue of the ‘Annals of the AAG’

Annals-cvr-2017

Volume 108, Issue 5 of the Annals of the American Association of Geographers is now available! Articles spanning the breadth of geography from the four major areas of Methods, Models, and Geographic Information Science; Nature and Society; People, Place, and Region; and Physical Geography and Environmental Sciences are featured in each issue. Access to the journal is included in your AAG membership.

Full article listing available.

GEOGRAPHERS IN THE NEWS

Leslie A. Duram on promoting an increase in campus gardens in The Washington Post

EVENTS CALENDAR

Submit News to the AAG Newsletter. To share your news, email us!

Advocacy

Oct 2018 Newsletter GDA Announcement

October 3, 2018

President's Column

Geography and Climate Change in the 21st Century: Keeping our Eyes on the Prize

October 2, 2018

Geography has many grand challenges for the 21st Century: combatting climate change and biodiversity loss; providing clean water; investigating safe refuge, health care, education, and poverty; preparing for natural hazards, and ensuring food security among many. Another grand challenge is ensuring a harassment-, bullying-, and bias-free Geography workplace, to ensure that progress continues on our other grand challenges. This is a “climate change” that we must unite around. This is not an easy topic to write about, but it is my civic and professional duty.

Donna Strickland, winner of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics (Credit: UNI, Waterloo)

On this week that Nobel Prizes are being announced, a cloud hangs over the academy and over our justice system. The Nobel Prize for Literature for 2018 will not be awarded because of sexual and financial misconduct allegations against committee members, culminating in one key figure being sentenced to jail this week for rape. Another news item notes how few women have been awarded Nobel Prizes and raises questions about bias. Fortuitously, the Nobel Prize committee just awarded Dr. Donna Strickland, the third female scientist in history (and first in 55 years), a Physics Nobel, shared three ways by scholars working on laser physics.

U.S. Supreme Court building (Credit: Joe Ravi, CC-BY-SA 3.0)

Meanwhile, the U.S. has just been through wrenching hours of testimony regarding sexual assault allegations, as part of the hearings to appoint the next U.S. Supreme Court Justice. We have not progressed far since Anita Hill testified on Capitol Hill. Another professional woman, separated by nearly three decades from Dr. Hill’s experience, gave solemn testimony last week. Both women came forward out of a sense of civic duty and opened their professional and personal lives and families to public scrutiny and far worse, for no personal gain. This testimony contrasted sharply with a privileged candidate for the highest judicial seat angrily responding during his turn, especially towards female questioners. But these are not the only allegations that have crossed our news feeds or desks. I have learned of recent sexual misconduct allegations, proceedings, and findings against a geographer at a U.S. institution. I also have received a signed request from AAG members for our organization to address a specific case and, more broadly, these issues in more depth. Broadly speaking, as a former administrator, I cannot discuss specifics of cases because victims, witnesses, and accused (and exonerated) parties must receive due process and be protected from retaliation in these proceedings. Meanwhile, the challenge for AAG is what can we do, as a professional organization, to improve the climate for and among our members?

As I wrote in my September 2018 column, the AAG Council appointed a committee to work on improving and strengthening our AAG Meeting Conduct policies, to make our Annual Meeting a safer place. The AAG Inclusion Committee will be presenting their findings and recommendations to AAG Council to consider this fall, so we can move forward with a new plan. I am grateful to the committee, led by Dr. Lorraine Dowler, for their hard work on this. Stepwise, there are other ways we can address the issue of harassment, bullying, and bias in our community and institutions. One of the informal observations by the Inclusion Committee was that science organizations seem to be ahead of the issues in several senses. For the rest of this column, I will share some of the best practices of other organizations, and set an agenda for where we may ask the AAG Council and our membership to go next.

On the topic of equity, The American Geophysical Union (AGU) President and President-elect have raised the issue of gender equity in their awards, and tasked their honors committee to study how to improve in this area, and their members to be more proactive in nominating deserving diverse members. Prompted by this published discussion, an AAG member sent me a query about gender balance in AAG Awards, and asked if AAG has undertaken a study to see where we stand, and expressed optimism that we are doing well. I would expand this to a broader examination of equity in terms of how do we honor, elevate, and retain all protected classes in our profession. This is another of our grand challenges then, to assess the equity in our recognition systems.

Also on the topic of honors, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Board just passed a policy and procedure to revoke AAAS Fellowship status due to “proven scientific misconduct, serious breaches of professional ethics, or when the Fellow in the view of AAAS otherwise no longer merits the status of Fellow.“ This includes sexual misconduct. This is another grand challenge that should be considered by our organization and others as a next step, again building on our Safe Meetings, anti-harassment, and ethics policies.

Broadening out on consequences for bullying, harassment, bias, and workplace hostility, AAG needs to work in partnership with our home institutions and our sibling organizations to ensure seamless reporting, support, and action structures to deal with complicated sets of allegations and due process for all, especially when they cross multiple jurisdictions. I have heard instances where a victim was harassed at a meeting, and the perpetrator was not from their home institution, and the event was co-sponsored by two organizations. Unfortunately, the home institution had limited capacity to deal with this. Therefore, these kinds of cases can fall through institutional jurisdictional gaps when it comes to Title IX enforcement. A further complication to protect victims and witnesses from retaliation is that they are not identified and do not know the penalties handed out to perpetrators. Thus, it will often take a very long time for investigation outcomes to see the full light of day. Creating a reporting structure and clearinghouse in partnership with our home institutions is therefore another one of our grand challenges. For AAG Meetings we have made progress to build on with our Inclusion Committee, combined with our foundational anti-harassment policies, and our existing standing committee that hears meeting harassment cases.

I wish that Geography and other organizations’ “Presidential Columns” did not have to be about demanding that our memberships be more respectful and more inclusive of one another; for civility; and for basic human rights. It is the responsibility of leadership to listen to our members; to shine the light on timely and difficult professional issues that have always plagued our fields, not only recently; and to act to make our professional communities kinder, more inclusive, and in the words of Former AAG President Victoria Lawson, “caring” places, of “human and environmental well-being” (Lawson, 2009, Antipode 41(1): 210-214). I believe we geographers are all on the same page with treasuring our planet and our environment, but we still have to work on valuing and respecting each other. I salute the vast majority of geographers who do care, the women and men who write to me, who sign your names with sincerity, hope, and courage to share ideas and ask for changes, and who are already part of the positive “climate change” in Geography.

Please share your ideas with me at: slbeach (at) austin (dot) utexas (dot) edu

— Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach, President, AAG
Professor, Geography and the Environment, The University of Texas at Austin

DOI: 10.14433/2017.0045

Annual Meeting

The Resilient Streams in the Urban Landscape of Washington, D.C.

October 1, 2018

The process of urbanization often leads to the alteration of local streams. Such alterations range from complete disappearance of streams by making them flow underground, converting them into canals, loss of their aquatic habitat, and changes in their morphology (Kang and Marston 2006; Kang 2007) . In Washington, D.C. many streams and springs have disappeared during the last 200 years of urban development and federal growth (Williams 1977) . The two rivers bordering the city, the Potomac and Anacostia rivers, and the National Mall within the city, look very different as compared to their respective landscape characteristics in the 1700s due to changing sediment and runoff volumes. In Figure 1 you can see that the current stream density within the city and the surrounding areas reveals a significant difference (Figure 1). However, some times the local conditions of streams are resilient enough to counter the effects of the urban runoff (Kang 2007; Kang and Marston 2006).

Figure 1: A Visual Depiction of the Current Variable Density of the Stream Network within and outside Washington DC (Source: USGS)

While many local streams have disappeared, the resilient Rock Creek continues to drain the western portion of the national city into the Potomac River. The prominent names among the streams that disappeared include Smith Spring, Frankling Park Springs, Gibson’s Spring, Caffrey’s Spring, City Spring, and Tiber Spring (Williams 1977) . While some of them are underground, others were converted into canals or significantly reduced in their coverage for the development of the city. However, Rock Creek has successfully survived through the impervious development of the city.

Despite ambitious urban growth, the federal government protected the Rock Creek Park so that Rock Creek could meander through its flood plain. It is also a vibrant ecosystem supporting aquatic life as well as wildlife in its flood plain. One of the cherished experiences of many Washingtonians is to witness a rich variety of wild life as they conclude their late evening commute from work through the Rock Creek Parkway that partially runs through the flood plains of Rock Creek.

Figure 2: Location of Klingle Creek in Washington, D.C. (Source: USGS)

The successful survival of Rock Creek during the last century of urban growth is also because of its equally resilient tributaries that kept it alive and strong. Tributaries such as Klingle Creek (Figure 2), offer a microcosm to understand the resilient structure and ecology of this national creek. Klingle Creek is a small urban branch of Rock Creek and flows through the neighborhoods of Woodley Park, Cleveland Park, and Mount Pleasant in the city of Washington. It is unique to Rock Creek because of its geomorphic survival during the changing land cover politics around it. Surrounded by highly urbanized landscape, Klingle Creek presents a healthy ecosystem with a variety of fluvial processes. The stream has adjusted to the surrounding highly impervious landscape in a synergistic fashion. Starting as a narrow channel at the headwater, its capacity gradually increases in the downstream direction to accommodate the urban run-off. Various sections in the upstream portion of Klingle Creek experience bank erosion allowing for a sediment supply for the lower portion. The lower portion of the creek includes large rocks creating beautiful waterfalls (Figure 3) while reducing the velocity of the urban flow. It also provides sediment traps for various types of aquatic habitat (Figure 4). Many portions of the creek present lush moss covered rocks and woody debris offering a soothing experience to nature lovers.

Figure 3: Large rocks creating a waterfall in the lower portion of Klingle Creek (Source: Ranbir Kang, 2015)

Figure 4: A medium resolution point cloud (draped with colors from orthoimages) showing the sorting of large rocks in the lower portion of Klingle Creek to trap sediment (Source: Ranbir Kang, 2015)

Despite a highly urban landscape comprising its watershed, Klingle Creek is lined by a riparian corridor with a thick tree canopy. While the occasional tree fall offers woody debris to regulate the eco-geomorphology of the stream, a thick tree canopy helps promote the interception of rainwater. Therefore, it has played an important role in the survival of Rock Creek against the urban sprawl in the heart of our capital. For a long time, Klingle road (which ran parallel to Klingle Creek) was used by locals as a quick access between Cortland Place and Porter Street. However, the frequent flooding and maintenance costs of the road made the city think about alternatives to the road which led to the calls for saving Klingle Valley. While various groups of the community gathered support to remove the road, other groups gathered in favor of keeping the road. The battle grew until the dispute reached the City Council and in 1991, the road was barricaded (Figure 5).

Figure 5: The barricaded entrance to Klingle Road in 2015. The Creek is located on the left of the barricade while facing it. (Source: Ranbir Kang)

Figure 6: The entrance to the new multi-use Klingle Trail in 2015. The Creek is located on the left while facing the trash can. (Source: Ranbir Kang)

After more than two decades of dispute, in 2015 the barricaded portion of Klingle Road was replaced by a multi-use trail (Figure 6). The trail offers a variety of recreational opportunities for users of all age groups. One side of the new trail is bordered by Klingle Creek and the other side includes the historical woodland garden of the Tregaron Conservancy. While benches along the trail offer a view of the creek (Figure 7), the trail also connects the recreational communities of two neighborhoods in the city.

Figure 7: Benches along the new Klingle Trail to enjoy the view of the Klingle Creek. (Source: Ranbir Kang)

Figure 8: Post restoration use of a matting to protect the stream banks of the restored portion of Klingle Creek. (Source: Ranbir Kang)

The process of replacing the road with a trail included restoring various sections of Klingle Creek through alterations of the stream banks and creating a sequence of steps and pools along the stream. It also included efforts to modify the banks by planting native vegetation and covering various portions of the bank with protective matting (Figure 8)..

The replacement of the road with a trail along Klingle Creek is an example of geodesign. There are numerous cases of urban areas across the globe where communities and city officials worked together in geodesigning their cities with a sustainable futuristic approach (Beatley 2016). The high line project in New York City and the urban parks in the city of Singapore are just two more examples where cities introduced green zones within the highly urbanized landscapes to connect their communities with nature using softer sustainable architectural designs. Economics is often one of the major driving forces behind such conservation and restoration initiatives so that the long term future demands are met with minimal cost. The ecological challenges and experiences of residents in Klingle Valley during the next decade will determine the effects of the restored creek on the larger Rock Creek, the role and functions of the new trail, and the appropriateness of restoration design and expenditures in the Klingle Valley restoration project. Klingle Valley, an urban creek along with its sister tributaries of Rock Creek offer us a soothing experience and a quick get away from the urban stress. With Washington moving forward as a sustainable city, Klingle Creek complements that ambition as a resilient hydrology of Anthropocene.

Ranbir Kang is an associate professor at Western Illinois University. With a long term research interest in the Washington metropolitan area, he specializes in urban hydrology, human impact on fluvial systems, and high resolution river surveys.

DOI: 10.14433/2017.0044

References:

Beatley, Tim. 2016. Geodesigning nature into cities. ArcNews Winter 2016:20-21.

Kang, R. S. 2007. Effects of urbanization on channel morphology of three streams in the central redbed plains of Oklahoma, Graduate College of Oklahoma State University, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK.

Kang, R. S., and R. A. Marston. 2006. Geomorphic effects of rural-to-urban land use conversion on three streams in the Central Redbed Plains of Oklahoma. Geomorphology 79:488-506.

Williams, Garnett. P. 1977. Washington D.C.’s Vanishing Springs and Waterways. Arlington, VA 22202: U. S. Geological Survey.

Post

Michelle Kinzer Joins AAG Staff as Government Relations Manager

October 1, 2018

Michelle brings with her several years of government relations experience from both the public and private sectors. She began her career answering constituent phone calls in the office of Senator Tim Kaine and eventually went on to manage the Senator’s constituent correspondence database. She employed her budding passion for geospatial data by compiling targeted email lists for press releases and town halls in the Commonwealth, and mapping internal correspondence metrics. After some crash courses in ArcGIS Online, she created an interactive Virginia map for the National Park Service’s 2016 Centennial that was featured on Senator Kaine’s website. Michelle later went on to join the government relations firm Public Strategies Washington as a Senior Legislative Assistant. Her client work focused on the issues of renewable energy, small business & seasonal visas, agriculture, and transportation.

Michelle is a graduate of Virginia Tech where she earned her B.A. in Urban Planning with a concentration in Global Development and minors in Political Science and Spanish. She developed a working proficiency in Spanish while studying abroad in Valparaíso, Chile.

In her free time, Michelle enjoys DC theater, bluegrass music, Hokie football, and arguing with friends and family over the quickest way to get somewhere.

Post

AAG Welcomes Fall 2018 Interns

October 1, 2018

Three new interns have joined the AAG staff this fall semester! The AAG would like to welcome Daliha, Mike, and Siri to the organization.

Daliha Jimenez is a senior at the University of Maryland, College Park, pursuing a B.S in Geographic Information Systems and a minor in Remote Sensing. Daliha hopes to use her skills to collect data and create maps to analyze the effects of land and climate change along the East Coast. She is also interested in urban planning and analyzing growth in densely populated areas. After graduating this December, she wishes to work as a GIS analyst in the District / Maryland / Virginia area. In her spare time, she likes to watch movies, explore new museums & restaurants, and embroider different designs.

Mike Kelly is currently a junior at the George Washington University studying Geography and Finance. Prior to joining AAG, Mike served as a Membership and Marketing Intern at the Council on Foundations in Arlington, VA. At the COF, he was heavily involved with database management and creating content to be distributed on social media and mailing lists. Born and raised in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Mike spent most of his childhood in Bucks County rooting for the Eagles, Sixers, and Phillies. In his spare time, Mike enjoys producing and listening to music, running, following college basketball and reading up on the latest trends in new urbanism.

Siri Knudsen is a senior at the George Washington University pursuing a B.A in Geography and International Affairs and minors in Spanish and GIS. Over the summer she worked at the Port of Seattle in Washington State as a data management intern in their environmental department. Siri got to participate in many of their habitat restoration projects including monitoring and mapping kelp growth in Elliott Bay. Aside from her interest in environmental issues, she is an active participant in open source mapping and hope to one day bridge her disciplines and continue working in this field. Siri’s love for geography came from childhood boating trips in British Columbia where her family explored the intricate groups of islands, navigating them using nautical charts. In her spare time, Siri likes to read, travel, ski, and be at the beach with her dog!

If you or someone you know is interested in applying for an internship at the AAG, the AAG seeks interns on a year-round basis for the spring, summer, and fall semesters. More information on internships at the AAG is also available on the Jobs & Careers section of the AAG website at: https://www.aag.org/internships.

Journals

Meet the AAG Journals Editors – James McCarthy and Ling Bian

September 24, 2018

James McCarthy is the Nature and Society editor for the Annals of the American Association of Geographers and a Professor in the Graduate School of Geography at Clark University. His work analyzes the interactions of political economy and environmental politics, with particular emphases on rural areas, renewable energy, property relations, and social movements. He has published widely on these themes in geography and related disciplines, including two major edited volumes and over 50 articles and chapters. He has carried out research on natural resource management, energy policy, and connections between rural landscapes and livelihoods for the Ford Foundation and Oxfam America. Prior to coming to Clark in 2011, he was an Assistant and Associate Professor of Geography at Penn State University. His current research focuses on the relationships among climate change, renewable energy, and the political economy of capitalism, focusing in particular on the ways in which a renewable energy sector booming in the context of climate change is taking up land and other natural resources in ways that may slow further climate change on the one hand, but create new social and environmental claims, impacts, and conflicts on the other.

Professor McCarthy considers nature-society research and analysis to be an absolutely essential area of scholarship for geography and for society. The field’s breadth, relevance, and potential for integration of diverse topics and approaches is precisely what led him to a career in academic geography after work in the environmental NGO field, and those attributes make creative and committed new work in it needed now more than ever. As editor, Professor McCarthy seeks to ensure that the full range of current nature-society scholarship in geography is represented in the Annals. He enjoys seeing both the tremendous range and vibrancy of work in the field, and working developmentally with scholars early relatively new to the publication process. Professor McCarthy sees cultivating new voices, perspectives, and topics in the discipline and journal as essential responsibilities for an editor, and prospective authors should always feel free to contact him regarding potential topics for the journal.

Ling Bian is the newest of the four editors for the Annals of the American Association of Geographers, having assumed her role in January 2018. She currently serves as the editor for the Geographic Methods section of the Annals. Published six times a year (January, March, May, July, September and November), the Annals also dedicates one Special Issue per year which draws a diversity of papers from across the discipline under a single theme.

In addition to being an editor, Bian is a professor in the Department of Geography at the University at Buffalo where she teaches geographic information systems and sciences, remote sensing, network analysis, and geostatistics. Her research interests are in the general area of geographic information science, but she has decades of publication experience in topics related to GIScience, remote sensing, and geographic image retrieval. In recent years she has focused on the ontological foundation of spatial representation, individual-based and spatially explicit behavior modeling, network analytics, and their implementations in the context of public health.

Bian currently serves on the editorial board of the Annals and has previously served on the editorial board of The Professional Geographer and as Associate Editor of ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Bian is the Director of the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis at Buffalo, which was formed in 1988, to promote excellence in GIScience research. Even though she is the methods editor, Bian believes that those wishing to publish their research in geography today should try to pay attention to more than the methods themselves. Scholars should look to tell a story with their research and strive to see the social relevance of their work.

Newsletters

Newsletter – September 2018

September 5, 2018

PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

A New Academic Year

By Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach

Beach_Sheryl-500 This Labor Day weekend marks the return to University instruction for many geography faculty and students, and as an educator, I welcome you all back to our academic community and wish you a successful new academic year. Many of us are returning from field and lab research, writing, and conferences, wondering where the summer went and why we are considered nine-month-employees! … For our non-academic professional Geography community, I pause to thank you for your research partnerships, your innovation and entrepreneurship, and for the internship opportunities and inspiration you offer to our students.

Continue Reading.

Read past columns from the current AAG President on our President’s Column page.

ANNUAL MEETING

Carla Hayden, 2019 AAG Atlas Awardee, to Speak in D.C.

The AAG will be awarding Carla Hayden, 14th Librarian of Congress, the Atlas Award during the 2019 AAG Annual Meeting, on Friday, April 5, 2019. Hayden will deliver a keynote address after presentation of the Atlas Award, the association’s highest honor.

Learn more about Hayden.

Stories of Change Hidden in Washington, D.C.’s Alley

Tucked into residential areas of Washington, DC exists a maze of alley homes and retail establishments dating back to the Reconstruction era of the mid-1800s. Today, urban hikers may find a mixture of homes, art, and food scattered in various masked locales. Rebecca Summer elaborates on the disappearing feature of the gentrifying city in this latest Focus article.

Read more.

Get Involved with the AAG Jobs and Careers Center!

The AAG seeks panelists, mentors, and workshop leaders for careers and professional development events for its annual meeting, April 3–7, 2019, in Washington, DC. Individuals representing a broad range of employment sectors, organizations, academic and professional backgrounds, and racial/ethnic/gender perspectives are encouraged to apply. If interested, email careers [at] aag [dot] org, specifying topic(s) and activity(s) of interest, and attach a current C.V. or resume. For best consideration, please submit your information by October 25, 2018.

Learn about the AAG Jobs & Careers Center.

Registration for #aagDC Now Open! Start Planning your Trip!

The new early bird registration rate for the 2019 AAG Annual Meeting expires on September 27, 2018. Register early to ensure the best rates!

ASSOCIATION NEWS

Meet the Editors of AAG Journals: Tim Cresswell, Deborah Dixon, and Philip J. Nicholson

This month, get to know the editorial team of AAG’s newest journal, GeoHumanities. Two editors, Tim Cresswell and Deborah Dixon, and one assistant editor, Philip J. Nicholson, work on the journal, which includes scholarly articles at the intersection of geography and the humanities, shorter creative pieces, and an accompanying online art exhibition of author’s works.

Find out more about the AAG Journals editors.

Visiting Geographical Scientist Program Accepting Applications for 2018-19

The Visiting Geographical Scientist program (VGSP) sponsors visits by prominent geographers to small departments or institutions that do not have the resources to bring in well-known speakers. The purpose of this program is to stimulate interest in geography, targeted for students, faculty members, and administrative officers. Participating institutions select and make arrangements with the visiting geographer. A list of pre-approved speakers is available online. VGSP is funded by Gamma Theta Upsilon (GTU), the international honors society for geographers.

Apply to and learn more about the VGSP.

MEMBER NEWS

Profiles of Professional Geographers

This month, learn about the career path of Caitlin Kontgis who works as an Applied Scientist Lead (Solutions) at Descartes Labs in New Mexico. Kontgis discusses her passion for geography, how it has led to her giving back to her local community, and the undergraduate courses that inspired her eventual professional goals.

Learn more about geography careers.

Summer Member Updates

Many AAG members were active throughout the summer with research and other geography related activities and honors.

50 year AAG Member Martin J. Pasqualetti was named the University of California, Riverside Alumni Association’s 2018 Distinguished Alumnus. His work has largely focused on energy, including his UC, Riverside dissertation, Energy in an Oasis. Learn more.

Marla R. Emery, a Research Geographer with the United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service Research and Development, has been appointed co-Chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services for the assessment of the sustainable use of wild species. Read more.

AAG Councilmember Wendy Jepson was awarded an NSF grant to lead a new water security research network. She was also selected as one of eight Texas A&M Faculty for their inaugural X-Grant program in which she will lead a team examining desalination and water reuse.

Julie Loisel, an assistant professor of geography at Texas A&M, was awarded one of eight inaugural grants in the Texas A&M X-Grant program that awards research funding for interdisciplinary projects. Her team will be assessing CO2 levels in arctic permafrost. Learn more.

The keynote speaker for the 4th Annual International Geography Youth Summit in Bengaluru, India was Sue Roberts of the University of Kentucky. The summit, founded by Chandra Shekhar Balachandran, attracted 170 young adults aged 11 to 17. Read more.

Jacqueline M. Vadjunec has been appointed to serve as a Program Director for Geography and Spatial Sciences at the National Science Foundation. Jacqueline will work with two other GSS program directors, Antoinette WinklerPrins and Thomas Baerwald. She replaces Sunil Narumalani, who has returned to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Learn more.

Victoria Trucksess took part in graduate studies in Belize this past summer through Miami University’s Project Dragonfly. Trucksess of Hackettstown, N.J., studied approaches to environmental stewardship. Inspired by her work in Belize, Trucksess is now conducting a semester-long research project.

OP-ED

Researchers with disabilities in the academic system

By Aleksandra (Sasha) Kosanic, Nancy Hansen, Susanne Zimmermann-Janschitz, and Vera Chouinard

“Although researchers with disabilities are an exceptional category, they are a still very much underrepresented group in Academia worldwide. With 1.5 billion people with disabilities worldwide, the percentage of academic positions filled in by academics with disabilities is surprisingly low… The low number/percentage of Academics with disabilities in top class universities and other research institutions is alarming, and we have to ask why this is the case and what are possible solutions to change this situation for the better.”

Continue reading.

IN MEMORIAM

Robert H. Stoddard

Robert Stoddard passed away on May 21, 2018 at the age of 89. Stoddard, one of the first geographers to focus on pilgrimage, was also an Asia specialist who combined his interests throughout his distinguished teaching career in the U.S. at University of Nebraska-Lincoln and abroad in India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.

Read more.

PUBLICATIONS

New Books in Geography — July 2018 Available

New Books in Geography illustration of stack of books

Recent books published in geography and related topics span the discipline from Bolivia and Chile to Asia and Manila to Russia and the Arctic. Some of these new titles will be selected to be reviewed for the AAG Review of Books. Individuals interested in reviewing these or other titles should contact the Editor-in-Chief, Kent Mathewson.

Browse the list of new books.

Read the September 2018 Issue of the ‘Annals of the AAG’

Annals-cvr-2017

Full article listing available.

Summer 2018 Issue of ‘The AAG Review of Books’ Now Available

Volume 6, Issue 3 of The AAG Review of Books has now been published online. In addition to featuring individual book reviews and discussions, the quarterly publication also includes longer essays on several books dealing with a particular theme. This quarter, the essay by Joseph S. Wood looks at the white, rural poor in the US.

Read the reviews.

GEOGRAPHERS IN THE NEWS

EVENTS CALENDAR

Submit News to the AAG Newsletter. To share your news, email us!

President's Column

A New Academic Year

September 4, 2018

This Labor Day weekend marks the return to University instruction for many geography faculty and students, and as an educator, I welcome you all back to our academic community and wish you a successful new academic year. Many of us are returning from field and lab research, writing, and conferences, wondering where the summer went and why we are considered nine-month-employees! The answer is we are year-round members of our academic communities. Last week I wrote the final Department Chair’s welcome of my term to the UT Austin Geography community. As my term closes, I am passing the administrative baton to a wonderful colleague, to whom I give my thanks and wish all the best. I am excited for the new beginning of rejoining my fellow professors and to have more time to devote to scholarship, to my students, and to the AAG. I thank those faculty, students, and staff who helped along the journey, and thank the department chairs who will carry our missions forward.

Every September, my family also celebrated the ritual known as back-to-school. Like my current household, we lived on the academic calendar: My Father is a retired junior high school teacher, and my Mother retired after a career that included elementary, junior high, and school district librarianships. The excitement of a new school year was signaled by the faint odor of dry grasses, star thistle, and oak leaves rehydrating in the cool, dewy September mornings of northern California. My educator parents encouraged me to follow any profession I desired, and gave me the confidence as a young girl to embrace science. My mother bought me my first microscope for my birthday while I was an elementary school student. In my windowsill, I grew protozoa from the science kit and studied them, along with rocks and minerals collected with my parents, under that microscope. Parents and teachers comprise an important partnership to inspire young students to succeed, and I encourage all of us to actively engage our students in Geography in the classroom and in research, to do outreach, and to practice inclusion.

For our non-academic professional Geography community, I pause to thank you for your research partnerships, your innovation and entrepreneurship, and for the internship opportunities and inspiration you offer to our students. I owe my career in water resources to an internship with the California Department of Water Resources. Geography professionals are also our university alumni, and as such are members of our extended academic communities; we thank you for your support and salute your successes. Looking ahead to Fall 2018, we have many AAG regional division meetings to attend. I encourage professional and academic geographers and students to take full advantage of these opportunities to exchange ideas and renew connections with friends, colleagues, alumni, and alma maters. We members of the AAG Executive Committee will be fanning out to attend the regional meetings, stretching from Keene, NH, to Reno, NV, and we look forward to connecting with all of you there. Please also remember that registration for the AAG Annual Meeting in Washington DC is now open.

Professional Meetings and Inclusiveness

An extremely important matter of AAG concern is creating and maintaining an inclusive, professional environment for meeting attendees. At our Spring meeting in New Orleans, the AAG Council created a task force to address harassment at AAG Meetings. They will have their first meeting in Washington, DC, in mid-September to consider data gathering, best practices, and policies that other professional societies employ for their meetings, to make the AAG Annual Meeting a safe space for all participants. The Task Force will report back to the AAG Council later this Fall. Derek Alderman’s January 2018 Presidential Column, co-authored with Lorraine Dowler, provides an excellent summary of the issues and resource links. This new Task Force is empowered by the AAG Professional Conduct Policy and AAG Statement on Professional Ethics. We also have a Standing Committee on AAG Annual Meeting Disciplinary Matters, and it has acted when called upon. We need to make our policies more visible, create safe spaces at our meetings, and provide a clear path of due process, to proactively reduce the number of incidents of inappropriate behavior, and to deal with those that do happen with firm consequences. In a future column I will report back on the progress of this Task Force.

Reflections on Rio: Geographers as Global Ambassadors

Speaking of conferences, this August I attended the World Congress of Soil Science in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Four Thousand soil scientists assembled under the theme of “Beyond Food and Fuel.” This conference called to attention the importance of soil as both a natural and cultural resource, and its multiple functions ranging from ecosystem support to biogeochemical cycling, to archiving environmental change and cultural history. Exhibits and activities included geographically curated Brazilian soil profiles, soil art, and a student “soil judging” competition with teams from around the world. We are reminded by this gathering of scientists that much of Geography studies the Critical Zone we humans inhabit. Rio is a city of contrasts, from wealthy to impoverished communities all perched side by side in a stunning geological and biogeographical setting, including the coastal Atlantic shore. More drama is added by granitic domes looming around the city and offshore as islands. Lush greenery clings to the steep slopes, as do houses, highways, and bike paths. The living natural heritage is preserved in The Botanical Garden of Rio de Janeiro. Not a week and a half after our return from Rio, however, it is shocking to see that Rio, Brazil, and in fact the world has just suffered a huge loss of cultural and scientific heritage with a fire destroying the National Museum of Brazil over the September 1 weekend. Sources have compared this fire to that which destroyed the ancient library of Alexandria in 48 BC. Helping Brazil to rebuild cultural and scientific heritage lost from this tragedy will take time and a global effort. I urge Geographers to assist in this recovery, and I offer my deepest condolences to our Brazilian hosts.

Geo-existential Legislation: S.2128 The Geospatial Data Act

Alerted by the AAG, one of my last official acts as Geography Chair at UT Austin, and an early action as AAG President, involved writing a letter to a Texas Senator, requesting support and sponsorship of S.2128, the Geospatial Data Act (GDA) of 2017. This legislation will be voted on in a Senate sub-committee soon. The AAG, led by our Executive Director, has worked tirelessly for many years to support Geographers’ professional access to participate in federal research and contracts involving mapping and geospatial data analysis. This important current legislation has the potential to save U.S. taxpayers millions of dollars by reducing duplication in geospatial data activities across all federal agencies, and has been endorsed by numerous prominent geospatial and geography organizations, including the AAG; the National States Geographic Information Council (NSGIC); and the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF). It has also been supported by private-sector leaders, including Google, Esri, Boundless, and many others. If enacted, the GDA will improve coordination between the numerous agencies that use geospatial data as a critical asset in many endeavors, including responding to disaster situations such as Hurricanes Harvey and Maria, which impacted Gulf and Caribbean coastal communities a year ago. You can follow this and other policy issues affecting Geography on the AAG Policy Page. As always, feel free to write to your legislators and share your opinion on this and other matters. Thank you!

Please share your own ideas with me via email: slbeach [at] austin [dot] utexas [dot] edu

— Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach
President, American Association of Geographers
Professor, and Fellow of the C.B. Smith Sr. Centennial Chair in U.S.-Mexico Relations
Geography and the Environment, The University of Texas at Austin

DOI: 10.14433/2017.0043

Post

Researchers with disabilities in the academic system

September 1, 2018

Although researchers with disabilities are an exceptional category, they are a still very much underrepresented group in Academia worldwide. With 1.5 billion people with disabilities worldwide, the percentage of academic positions filled in by academics with disabilities is surprisingly low. For example at the University of California at Berkeley, it was indicated that of 1,522 full-time faculty members, only 24 (approximately 1.5 percent) are disabled (Grigely 2017). We still lack the data on employment of academics with disabilities for many academic institutions. Nevertheless, some national scale reports suggest that academics with disabilities are twice as likely to work only part-time, and about half as likely to have jobs in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields in comparison to their non-disabled peers (CaSE 2014). Another report by the National Science Foundation in the U.S.A states that “about one in nine scientists and engineers ages 75 and younger has a disability. Scientists and engineers with disabilities are more likely than those without disabilities to be unemployed or out of the labour force” (National Science Foundation 2015).

The low number/percentage of Academics with disabilities in top class universities and other research institutions is alarming, and we have to ask why this is the case and what are possible solutions to change this situation for the better.

Answering this question is particularly important in light of the fact that in 2006 the United Nations (UN) adopted the hitherto most comprehensive Human Rights treaty, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), that has been ratified by 177 members, emphasising the importance of education and employment for disabled people.

Though some laws and policies prohibiting employment discrimination on the basis of disability do exist, they are still very rarely followed or implemented. For example, sentences in job advertisements such as “Disabled applicants with identical experience are preferred” or “Taking Action for Equality” or “Disability Confident Employer.” What does this really mean for disabled researchers? There is still misinterpretation of the phrases ‘equal opportunity’ or ‘equal opportunity employer.’ The principle of equality, which is guaranteed and supported by non-discrimination laws, precludes comparable situations from being treated differently, and different situations from being treated the same way.

Hence, any direct comparison with non-disabled applicants in the job screening process is a presentation of inequality, discrimination and unfortunately just creates an illusion of equality.

Historically, persons with disabilities have faced higher unemployment rates and “many persons with disabilities are denied employment or given only menial and poorly remunerated jobs” plus they have lower access to education (Degener and Koster-Dresse 1995).

Moreover, in some developed countries the rate of unemployment among job-seekers with disabilities is double that of able-bodied applicants ‘Persons with disabilities still face hurdles in job market’, (The Washington Times, 5 December 2005). “Persons with disabilities are frequently not considered potential members of the workforce. Perception, fear, myth and prejudice continue to limit understanding and acceptance of disability in workplaces everywhere.” (UN 2018).

Universities worldwide are generally perceived as the fore-runners in promoting a progressive social agenda advancing society towards human rights, justice and equity. Therefore, Academia should serve as a leading example, at the fore-front of ensuring that people with disabilities have the abilities for employment and higher education and most importantly, we have the skills, ability and education to work as Professors, Lecturers and/or Researchers. Disabled academics can be role models and mentors to disabled and non-disabled students alike. Employing disabled academics reinforces the process of raising awareness in civil society. Universities represent the top of the educational pyramid, and they need to provide not only intellectual encouragement for all but also be proactive recruiting and learning to properly value the contributions of disabled professors/lecturers or researchers. In this way Academia can put to the end the centuries of exclusion and marginalization.

To be at the fore-front of progressive social change, academic institutions should demonstrate how to embrace diversity and inclusion. Developed countries may have access to more resources to accommodate academics and students with disabilities, as these are not temporarily and spatially homogeneous (Hansen and Philo 2007). Academia is not free from larger social perceptions concerning disability (e.g. associating disability with lower productivity), and this might explain in part why non-disabled academics may not fully understand that the academic path of disabled researchers may differ from theirs (Hansen 2009). For example, we may approach fieldwork from a different angle and ‘Speed’ and timing may differ from non-disabled scientists and researchers. Is it fair or reasonable then to expect that our research output (i.e. papers, books) will be of the same quantity as those of non-disabled researchers? Furthermore, the measured pace of research sometimes impacts quantity, but not necessarily the quality of the work.

Thus far, mainstream academy discussions on the experiences of researchers with disabilities have focused on accommodation and architectural barriers, whereas there is very little discussion on the qualitative differences in paths or trajectories of non-disabled and disabled researchers. Hence, there is a lack of understanding the causal effect of the circumstances (Grigely 2017) and how they affect researchers with disabilities over time.

Following along from the concept of “perfect body syndrome,” disability is looked at only from a negative perspective without consideration of various positive attributes (Hansen 2009). Academia benefits from a more diverse workforce (Schaal 2018), and yes, disability does not need to come always with a negative sign. Many people with disabilities have developed numerous proficiencies (i.e. creativity, concentration, flexibility, coping with adversity, peak under pressure, etc.). Therefore, some scientists believe that the “challenges of everyday life have helped them to develop unusual skills and expertise” (Brown 2016). However, these positive traits are rarely emphasised, as they are still unknown to the non-disabled population due to a lack of understanding and the fear of someone who is ‘different.’ Academia urgently needs to facilitate a shift in the current negative perception and “understandings” (Hansen 2009), and in that way reduce the stigma around disability. This will not only support the inclusion of people with disabilities but also contribute to the efforts of the UN towards the global goals of sustainable development.

Important Considerations Moving Forward

There a serious need to raise the awareness for the needs of persons with disabilities in Academia
the University Administration must take action and show leadership by opening Academic positions for and recruiting disabled researchers.
Arrange a setting for specific cooperation to jointly work on solutions AND promote and examine individual/personal/specific solutions if necessary
Monitor and evaluate the success of strategies for an inclusive university

DOI: 10.14433/2017.0042

References:

Brown, E. (2016) Disability awareness: The fight for accessibility. Nature, 532, 137-139. doi:10.1038/nj7597-137a

CaSE. 2014. Improving Diversity in STEM. ed. A. r. b. t. C. f. S. a. E. (CaSE). London.

Degener, T. & Y. Koster-Dresse. 1995. Human rights and Disabeled persons: : Essays and Relevant Human Rights Instruments. Dordrecht. The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.

Grigely, J. 2017. The Neglected Demographic: Faculty Members With Disabilities. In The Chronicle of Higher Education. Washington D.C.

Hansen, N. (2009) Remapping the Medical Terrain on Our Terms. Aporia, 1, 28-34.

Hansen, N. & C. Philo (2007) The normality of doing things differently: bodies, spaces and disability geography. Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie, 98, 493-506.

National Science Foundation. 2015. Women, minorities, and persons with disabilities in science and engineering: 2015. Washington, D.C.

Schaal, A. (2018) Science must rise up to support people like me. Nature, 556, 275. doi: 10.1038/d41586-018-04598-z

2018. Disability and Employment. ed. U. Nations. New York