John Whitling Hall

John Hall (1934- 2017) was born in Tulsa, OK, but grew up in Lafayette, Louisiana, and always considered it “home.” He graduated from Lafayette High School, and later served in the Army for three years in an intelligence unit in Germany. Upon return, he enrolled at the University of Southwestern Louisiana (U.S.L., now the U. of Louisiana-Lafayette) where he majored in geology. John attended Southern Illinois University-Carbondale for his master’s degree. Since his bachelors was in geology, he wrote a thesis on physical geography, titled “Lithology of Missouri, South of the Missouri River,” completed in 1963. He returned to Lafayette, and taught at USL for about three years, and started part-time studies toward the Ph.D. at Louisiana State University, taking one course each semester. John soon came under the influence of Prof. Fred Kniffen, and his interests changed from physical geography, to cultural and historical geography. His dissertation was titled “Louisiana Survey Systems: Their Antecedents, Distribution, and Characteristics.” There are five land survey types in Louisiana, 1) the French long-lot, 2) the American long-lot, 3) metes and bounds, 4) the Spanish sitio, and 5) the American rectangular system. He researched the origin and distribution of these systems in great detail, as well as the settlement patterns that were established as a result of each. It was a classic study, and completed in 1970.

John accepted a position at LSU-Shreveport, where he stayed for all of his career (1967-1999). He taught both geography and anthropology, and particularly enjoyed teaching and researching American Indians. He was instrumental in establishing the “Pioneer Heritage Center” on the campus of LSU-Shreveport, which emphasized the settlement and development of NW Louisiana.

John was an excellent teacher, and he attracted a great number of students to his classes. He gave many talks across northwest Louisiana (to civic groups, schools, and the like), many of them supported by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. As well, John had a beautiful singing voice, was very involved in music at his church, and was a member of a barbershop quartet. He passed away on Sept. 28, 2017. He is survived by his wife of 60 years, Carol Ann, and two daughters, Cathryn Angeles, and Carla Minor, and granddaughter, Hannah Minor.

—Malcolm L. Comeaux

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Frank Boscoe

Education: Ph.D. in Geography (Penn State University), M.A. in Geography (Kent State University), B.S. in Civil Engineering (Carnegie Mellon University)

Describe your job. What are some of the most important tasks or duties for which you are responsible?
I would describe my primary responsibility as finding interesting and useful applications of the vast amount of cancer data collected by the State of New York. These tend to revolve around several themes: Why are there different cancer rates in different places? What makes some people live longer with cancer than others? Which cancer treatments work better than others? In pursuing these questions, I get to work with many outside researchers from hospitals and universities.

What attracted you to this position/career path/organization/industry?
As with so many careers, there was an element of chance. In 1999, before my Ph.D. was even completed, I applied for a number of jobs from government to private industry to academia. The job I landed is the one I thought I was least likely to get. But at the time, New York was interested in producing some detailed cancer maps, and my graduate school work on the design of a digital disease atlas made me attractive for the job.

How has your education/background in geography prepared you for this position?
What has been most valuable has not been the specific technical skills (I don’t do a whole lot of GIS, in fact), but the repeated application of geographical thinking: repeatedly asking the question, why does something exist more in one place than in another place? Approaching problems from that angle often leads to an insight no one else has had before.

What geographic skills and information do you use most often in your work? What general skills and information do you use most often in your work?
I find that if an effect is strong enough to matter to public health, it will be evident through maps and scatterplots and straightforward regression models. More sophisticated methods can help tease out subtle differences, but while these may be statistically significant, they are rarely clinically significant. In other words, we needn’t worry too much about differences of 10% when there are enough 50% and 100% differences to go around. Accordingly, I still rely quite heavily on the spatial analysis techniques and methods I learned in my master’s level courses, in particular.

A general skill that I use daily is the seemingly simple one of counting and categorization. Do these two different records represent the same person, or not? Did this patient have cancer, or was it pre-cancer? Did these people actually live in New York during the study period? Is this person still alive, or just lost to follow-up? Ignore these questions, as many researchers do, and your study will be biased. But spend too much time on them, and you’ll never finish anything. The trick is to make quick but defensible decisions, something that sounds easy but really benefits from years of experience.

Are there any skills or information you need for your work that you did not obtain through your academic training? If so, how/where did you obtain them?
I use a commercial statistical software package called SAS every day; it is ubiquitous in public health. I had to teach myself on the job. During graduate school, I had done some coding in other (now obsolete) languages, so it was not too difficult of a transition.

Do you participate in hiring, screening, or training of new employees? If so, what qualities and/or skills do you look for?
I am involved whenever a junior research scientist position opens up, typically once every few years. I have found the most useful part of an interview is to show the candidate a cancer map and ask them to speculate on what might be causing the patterns and trends they see. No one has ever given an especially accurate answer; we choose the ones who generate the most interesting hypotheses.

What advice would you give to someone interested in a job like yours?
Take an introduction to public health or introduction to epidemiology course while pursuing your geography degree. If these disciplines are not available at your school, there are outstanding courses available online through sites like Coursera. Don’t worry that it will not appear on your official transcript; I have never looked at anyone’s official transcript.

What is the occupational outlook for career opportunities in your field/organization, esp. for geographers?
It is still strong despite some current short-term funding pressures. The average age within my field is in the 50s, and retirements are outpacing recruitment. I myself am almost 50 and still occasionally find myself to be the youngest person attending a meeting. There has been some progress against cancer during my career, but there is still much more that we don’t know than we know. We will need plenty of smart people to help collect and interpret cancer data for the foreseeable future.

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Adelle Thomas

Education: Ph.D. in Geography (Rutgers University), M.S. in Geography (Rutgers University), B.S. in Civil Engineetring (University of Minnesota), B.A. in Engineering Science (Macalester College)

What attracted you to a career in education?
After graduating from undergrad and taking on a full time job in engineering, I realized that I missed the rhythm of the school year and the constant learning required when being in school. After two years of an office job with only two weeks of vacation per year, I decided to pursue a career in academia. I knew that I wanted a career where I would be constantly learning and challenging myself as well as creating new knowledge.

How has your education in geography prepared you for this position?
I specifically chose geography as a field for my graduate studies due to the broad nature of the field. In graduate school I was able to take classes in both physical and human geography as well as in other related social sciences. This exposed me to a plethora of schools of thought and approaches to understanding the world that we live in. In my research field of human dimensions of climate change, it is particularly beneficial to be able to understand both the physical processes that lead to climate change as well as the implications for society. Having a background in geography has prepared me to understand the multiple aspects of climate change as well as other environmental issues.

What geographic skills and information do you use most often in your work? What general skills and information do you use most often in your work?
Geographic skills: explaining human-environment relationships, GIS skills, deep understanding of globalization and how the world is connected.

General skills: analysis of literature, critical thinking, writing for both scientific and general audiences, presentation skills, teaching students of all ages and backgrounds.

Are there any skills or information you need for your work that you did not obtain through your academic training? If so, how/where did you obtain them?
Organizational skills have been imperative when trying to juggle teaching multiple classes, conducting and publishing research and acting as an advisor for governmental institutions. The ability to break down complex concepts and ideas into easily digestible information for sharing with the general public, as well as presentation skills.

These skills were obtained through trial and error and through involving myself in situations that were outside of my comfort zone. Speaking at public events forced me to hone my presentation skills and learn to translate my research into information that anyone can understand and want to explore further. You can’t be afraid to challenge yourself and learn some new skills.

Do you participate in hiring, screening, or training of new employees? If so, what qualities and/or skills do you look for?
Yes. I look for people that are comfortable in their own skin, that recognize their past challenges and have grown from them, that are confident in what their research has to offer, that are open to learning new skills, that are open to a challenge, and mostly those that have a sense of humor!

What do you find most interesting/challenging/inspiring about your work?
There’s always something new. As a geographer in a small island setting, I am constantly being called upon to be involved in projects that have anything to do with the environment. I’ve been involved in projects that are far outside of my area of specialization, but since I am a trained geographer, I am often viewed as the most suitable to learn about the new area and to offer insight. This has exposed me to things as diverse as marine protected areas, sustainable development planning, ballast water management, access and benefit sharing for genetic materials and climate change adaptation planning. All of these opportunities have allowed me to interact with different groups of people and to increase my knowledge about the particular challenges facing small island states.

What advice would you give to someone interested in a job like yours?
Be open to new opportunities and don’t be afraid to get involved in areas that may be outside of your area of study. Translate your research to be understood by people outside of academia and get involved with NGOs. Involve students in your research efforts.

What is the occupational outlook for career opportunities in your field/organization, esp. for geographers?
There are many opportunities in the area of climate change that are specifically looking for geographers. The way that geographers understand the world and spatial relationships are in high demand as we attempt to pursue a global solution to climate change. With our broad backgrounds, geographers are in an ideal position to engage in many different research areas and we bring a unique perspective to understanding issues. GIS is in high demand so having this skill set will also be a bonus.

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Anne Buttimer

Anne Buttimer, emeritus professor of geography at University College Dublin, died July 15, 2017.

Buttimer was Fellow of Royal Irish Academy, Royal Geographical Society (UK) and Academia Europaea. She served as Council Member of the American Association of Geographers (AAG) from 1974 to 1977; of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) from 1996 to 1999; and as President of the International Geographical Union (IGU) from 2000 to 2004, the first female and first Irish person to be elected to that role.

During her distinguished career, she held research and teaching positions in Belgium, Canada, France, Scotland, Sweden, and the USA. She was appointed Professor of Geography at University College Dublin (UCD) in 1991, where she remained until she retired in 2003. However, she continued to work relentlessly, attending overseas meetings, giving invited lectures and engaging in debates on the promotion of social science, European cooperation and the world of geographical knowledge production and its circulation.

She has received many awards and honours, including a post-doctoral fellowship from the Belgian American Educational Foundation 1965 1966; Fulbright Hays Visiting Professor in Social Ecology to Sweden 1976; Association of American Geographers Honors Award 1986; Ellen Churchill Semple Award, University of Kentucky 1991; Royal Geographical Society (UK) Murchison Award 1997; Royal Scottish Geographical Society Millenium Award 2000; Member of the Jury for the Prix Vautrin-Lud 1998-2012; Appointed to Board of Science for the Austrian Academy of Sciences 2010; Doctor, honoris causa, University of Joensuu, 1999; Doctor honoris causa, Tartu University 2004; August Wahlberg Medal in Gold from King of Sweden 2009; appointed Chair of the Social Sciences Section of Academia Europaea 2010; elected as Vice-President of Academia Europaea 2012; Doctor honoris causa, University of Grenoble 2012.

Anne’s colleagues Alun Jones and Stephen Mennell write:

She was a powerful advocate of the discipline. She was truly international in her work, vision and activities; a gifted multilingual scholar with a sharp intellect. Her scholarship on place, space and the spirituality of everyday human existence was truly groundbreaking. One paper that had exceptional impact was “Grasping the dynamism of lifeworld”, which appeared in the Annals of the Association of American Geographers in 1976, and has been cited well over 700 times. It drew upon the social phenomenology that was then widely influential in the other social sciences, and applied it to the culturally defined spatiotemporal setting or horizon of everyday life. In her work she promoted the emancipatory role of humanism, and championed calls for Western scholars to seek better communication with colleagues from other cultures to address global environmental challenges. Anne’s work received deservedly numerous international awards and honours. Most recently these included: the Wahlberg Medal of the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography in 2009; the Lifetime Achievement honour from the Association of American Geographers, presented to her at the Annual Conference of the AAG in Tampa in 2014; and the Vautrin Lud prize (often referred to as the ‘Nobel Prize’ in Geography) in 2014.

Buttimer conducted her undergraduate studies at University College Cork in geography, Latin, and mathematics. She earned a master’s degree in geography from the National University of Ireland. After earning her master’s degree in 1959, she became a Dominican nun in Seattle, serving in the order for 17 years. In 1965, she earned a doctorate from the University of Washington.

Anne was deeply committed to her family, friends, and colleagues and she will be greatly missed.

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Masatoshi Yoshino

Masatoshi Yoshino, a distinguished Japanese physical geographer who served the IGU as the founder and the Chair of the Commission on Climatology (1988-1992) and as a Vice President (1992-1996), died on July 4, 2017, at the age of 89.

He was a devoted scholar and kept writing and publishing quality articles till the very last moment of his life. Many people might remember him not only as a respectable scientist but also as an able and reliable organizer or leader, as can be seen in the success of the International Geographical Congress in Tokyo in 1980 which he conducted as the Secretary General.

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GeoMentor Case Study

AP Human Geography High School Classes in Virginia

June 10, 2017

GeoMentor Volunteer: Blake Mailhes

Location: Virginia Beach, Virginia

Grade level of participating students: 9th-12th

Activity Theme/Focus: AP Human Geography

Number of Participants: 50

How did you connect with your collaborator? I connected with the teacher through the GeoMentors site; however, I knew her through my family and from high school.

Describe your collaboration process. We planned everything entirely via email over the course of a month or two. I asked about her classroom and her classroom needs, and then I went from there to come up with a challenging and fun lesson for her students. She read through my notes, and we went from there.

Describe your tasks/involvement. I shared career related information, as I am a GIS analyst at an engineering firm. I also talked with the students about the different ways that GIS is used in the world and engaged in conversation with them about how they use maps. Additionally, I taught students about the basics of GIS: data and data management, types of data, and advances in technology today.

What did you gain from the experience? What do you think your educator collaborator and/or the students gained? This was such an enriching opportunity for me. I enjoyed thinking critically about my career and about GIS. I loved interacting with the students: their enthusiasm and eagerness to learn was outstanding. My educator collaborator is such a gem; she’s bright, creative, and hilarious. It was exciting to share GIS and geography with everyone and hopefully inspire kids to continue to learn and grow in this sector.

Additional comments: This was great! Can’t wait to keep working with kids in some capacity. Thank you!

GeoMentor Case Study

Introduction to Maps & GIS with 7th graders in Washington

June 8, 2017

GeoMentor Volunteer: Blake Mailhes

Location: Virginia Beach, Virginia

Grade level of participating students: 9th-12th

Activity Theme/Focus: AP Human Geography

Number of Participants: 50

How did you connect with your collaborator? I connected with the teacher through the GeoMentors site; however, I knew her through my family and from high school.

Additional comments: This was great! Can’t wait to keep working with kids in some capacity. Thank you!

GeoMentor Case Study

General Geography with 2nd Graders and Social Studies & ArcGIS Online with 6th Graders in Illinois

June 8, 2017

GeoMentor Volunteer: Blake Mailhes

Location: Virginia Beach, Virginia

Grade level of participating students: 9th-12th

Activity Theme/Focus: AP Human Geography

Number of Participants: 50

How did you connect with your collaborator? I connected with the teacher through the GeoMentors site; however, I knew her through my family and from high school.

Additional comments: This was great! Can’t wait to keep working with kids in some capacity. Thank you!

Marvin W. Mikesell

Marvin W. Mikesell, Professor of Geography in the Committee on Geographical Studies, died unexpectedly Wednesday morning, April 26, 2017, at the University of Chicago Hospital in Hyde Park, aged 88, in the midst of teaching his seminar on problems in the human geography of the Middle East this Spring Quarter.

Marvin Wray Mikesell was born on June 16, 1929, in Kansas City, Missouri, attended high school in Los Angeles and received his B.A. (1952) and M.A. (1953) from UCLA. He earned his doctorate at the University of California–Berkeley in 1959 under the tutelage of the celebrated cultural geographer Carl Sauer. He joined the Department of Geography at the University of Chicago in 1958 and spent his entire 59-year teaching career, from instructor to professor, at the University.

Mikesell’s interests in research and teaching ranged over the whole orbit of global cultural geography, while his special concerns included the ethnic and environmental diversity of North Africa and the Middle East, the bases of ethnic conflict and self-determination worldwide, and the ominous trends in regional environmental degradation. He placed great emphasis on fieldwork in research. His books include Northern Morocco: A Cultural Geography (1961); Geographers Abroad: Essays on the Problems and Prospects of Research in Foreign Areas (1973); Perspectives on Environment (1974), and, most notably, Readings in Cultural Geography (published by the University of Chicago Press, 1962). This last volume brought together classic articles written by authorities around the world, many translated from their original language; the book quickly became a standard work that shaped the international field of cultural geography for more than a generation.

At the University, Mikesell was chairman of the Department of Geography (1969–74, 1984–86), and Master of the Social Sciences Collegiate Division (1981–84), among many administrative responsibilities. Nationally he was a member of the U.S. National Commission for Unesco (1973–78), and an advisor to the National Science Foundation (1977–79). Marvin was a long-time AAG member, and served the Association in many capacities over the years, particularly as Assistant Editor of the Annals (1962), Editor of the AAG Monograph Series (1966–72), the Commission on College Geography (1970–73), National Councilor (1972–74, Vice President (1974–75) and President (1975–76).

Marvin is survived by his wife Reine M. Mikesell. A memorial service for Marvin Mikesell will be arranged for early this coming fall.

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John Davey

John Davey, a prodigious figure in academic, trade and reference publishing for almost 50 years, died at home with family at his side on April 21, 2017. He had just celebrated his 72 birthday days earlier.

After making his mark in publishing in the 1970s, John joined Blackwell as their first full-time academic editor. During the 1980s he took the company from obscurity to being a major force in the industry. He rapidly became an editorial director, appointed several specialist editors, initiated Blackwell’s reference publishing, acquired and started several new journals, and had responsibility for rights and contracts.

In 1989, John went to Blackwell in the USA where he ran the business for three years, expanded the editorial and production staff, and transformed several years of losses into a profit. His personal contribution to geography publishing was so distinguished that in 1992 he was awarded a certificate of special recognition by the Association of American Geographers and in 1997 the Gill Memorial from the Royal Geographical Society. The field of geography was being radically reconstructed during this time and John was the go-to publisher for a younger generation of scholars. He had a similar impact on urban studies, publishing key works such as David Harvey’s Social Justice and the City and Manuel Castells on The Urban Question. His endeavors in these fields were transformative and remain legendary to this day.

Derek Gregory wrote in his touching tribute to Davey, “[He] was one of those rare publishers who believed passionately that books created their audiences and that geography was so much more than a textbook machine. He didn’t spurn textbooks, but he had a non-mercenary and thoroughly ambitious sense of what they ought to strive for.”

A man of many talents, John was a keen fly-fisherman, gardener, cook and poker player. He is survived by his wife, four children from two marriages, and five grandchildren.

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