Department of Geography (DoG) News and Events Where it's at!

IMAGE OF THE WEEK

In Zagor, Morocco, watermelon production represents a general push toward the intensification of agricultural production and aggregation of smaller farms.The production of watermelons in this region relies entirely on pumping groundwater to irrigate desert fields which represents a radical departure from the traditional oasis agriculture built around date palms which has sustained this region for millennia. While watermelon has been viewed as an attractive commodity to generate increased economic activity, it has introduced a new set of interrelated and converging problems. Caption and Image: Cameron Franz

GOOD NEWS

Supporting Women in Geography (SWIG) is participating again in the Centre Safe Holiday Sponsorship Program. This year SWIG is sponsoring a family of three (two children: a boy and a girl, both are 15 years old), and again the target is to raise $250. The deadline for donations is December 9. Anyone who wishes to contribute can deliver donations to Jacklyn Weier’s office (335 Walker Building), mailbox, or over a digital medium (Venmo: @Jacklyn-Weier; Paypal: jacklynweier@gmail.com).

An Interdisciplinary Workshop on Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation will be held 12:30–4:30 p.m., Friday, December 6, in 134 HUB. Registration is required.

Alex Klippel will speak at the Sustainability Showcase, noon to 1:30 p.m., December 6, in 233AB HUB. He will talk about “Extended Realities-Creating Visceral Experiences for Sustainability.” For more information and to register.

COFFEE HOUR

Coffee Hour with Steve Norman

A “perfect storm” or the “new normal”?: Seeking resilience among Southern Appalachian forests and people after epic fire”

Wildland fire has long been a part of the Southern Appalachian landscape, but for decades wildfires were kept small with limited impacts to communities. But the area burned has sharply increased in recent decades and this resurgence reached a crescendo in the hot drought of 2016 when over 140,000 acres burned across state, federal and private lands. These fires forced the evacuation of thousands and led to an unprecedented and costly suppression effort. Tennessee’s Sevier County fires, in particular, destroyed 2,400 structures, killed 14 and injured hundreds, suggesting there is a pressing need for adaptation. Yet community and urban forest resilience are arguably more about “mountain tough” rebuilding than adaptive remaking. This presentation will review what we know about fire in this region, map the pattern of problematic fire that seems to be emerging, then communicate the various causes of our shifting fire regime in a way that relates to what can be done to mitigate risks.

• Friday, December 6, 2019
• Refreshments are offered in 319 Walker Building at 3:30 p.m.
• Lecture begins in 112 Walker Building at 4 p.m.
• Coffee Hour to Go on Zoom
• More information about Coffee Hour and view previously recorded talks

NEWS

Geographer invests in education to open doors for others

Growing up in a segregated part of Washington, D.C., in the 1970s, Tony Hutchinson didn’t see a lot of the kids in his neighborhood going on to college. Even though several members of his family had graduated from teacher’s colleges — for him — it didn’t seem like an option.

Center for Immersive Experiences opens at Penn State (Video)

When you think of virtual reality you may think of entertainment and video games. But VR is being used more and more by businesses and schools. Instructors and students say the new Center for Immersive Experiences takes research to a whole new reality.

“When I first came to Penn State, I had no idea what I wanted to study and then I was introduced to one of the spaces on campus that had virtual reality and I said, “That what I want to do,” Talia Potochny, Penn State Student, said.

Our best bet against tick infestations might be fire

Erica Smithwick is quoted

People hate ticks. In fact, they hate them so much that folks are willing to deal with the hazards that accompany fire, like smoke, in order to reduce their populations. That’s what Pennsylvania State University professor of geography Erica Smithwick learned during a survey of public attitudes towards controlled fires in northeastern regions of the United States like New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

From The New York Times
New York’s Subway Map Like You’ve Never Seen If Before

Designed in 1979, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s map is a record of how graphic design, politics and geography have shaped New York over the past 40 years.

Use our animated guide to travel around the city and see how the map evolved.

RECENTLY PUBLISHED

Geospatial Information Visualization and Extended Reality Displays

Arzu Çöltekin, Amy L. Griffin, Aidan Slingsby, Anthony C. Robinson, Sidonie Christophe, Victoria Rautenbach, Min Chen, Christopher Pettit, Alexander Klippel
Chapter in Manual of Digital Earth
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9915-3_7

In this chapter, we review and summarize the current state of the art in geovisualization and extended reality (i.e., virtual, augmented and mixed reality), covering a wide range of approaches to these subjects in domains that are related to geographic information science. We introduce the relationship between geovisualization, extended reality and Digital Earth, provide some fundamental definitions of related terms, and discuss the introduced topics from a human-centric perspective. We describe related research areas including geovisual analytics and movement visualization, both of which have attracted wide interest from multidisciplinary communities in recent years. The last few sections describe the current progress in the use of immersive technologies and introduce the spectrum of terminology on virtual, augmented and mixed reality, as well as proposed research concepts in geographic information science and beyond. We finish with an overview of “dashboards”, which are used in visual analytics as well as in various immersive technologies. We believe the chapter covers important aspects of visualizing and interacting with current and future Digital Earth applications.

IMAGE OF THE WEEK

Yanan Xin won the Best Presentation Award in the 3rd ACM SIGSPATIAL Workshop on AI for Geographic Knowledge Discovery (GeoAI’ 19). The title of her presentation was “Mapping Miscanthus Using Multi-Temporal Convolutional Neural Network and Google Earth Engine.”

GOOD NEWS

Professor Emeritus Deryck Holdsworth will give the 2019 GRID Lecture, “Above the Turk’s Head: Providence and Post-Maritime World,” at 3 p.m., Tuesday, November 19, in the Stuckeman Family Building Jury Space.

The following students were inducted in to the Gamma Theta Upsilon Alpha Tau chapter on November 15, 2019: Kayla Bancone, Seamus Gibbons, Jacob Grande, Sara Maholland, Kyle Myers, Jenna Pullice, Sophie Tessier, Lixun Wang.

Due to Thanksgiving break there will be no DoG enews next week.

An Interdisciplinary Workshop on Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation will be held 12:30–4:30 p.m., Friday, December 6, in 134 HUB. Registration is required.

Alex Klippel will speak at the Sustainability Showcase, noon to 1:30 p.m., December 6, in 233AB HUB. He will talk about “Extended Realities-Creating Visceral Experiences for Sustainability.” For more information and to register.

NEWS

Homeless female veterans: Out of sight, out of mind

Female veterans are the fastest growing demographic among the homeless population in the United States and face a double hurdle of distance and invisibility in getting the health services they need from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, according to research conducted by Penn State graduate student and U.S. Air Force veteran Elizabeth Elsea.

Conference explores role of institutions of higher education in extreme weather

Erica Smithwick to participate

As the number of extreme weather events associated to climate change continues to grow world-wide, it is becoming increasingly important that institutions of higher education reflect on their role both before and after catastrophic events.

NCSE report on climate scholarship

Today, the National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE) released a new report showing public universities are contributing significantly to America’s understanding of climate change. In Climate Science Research in the United States and U.S. Territories, NCSE analyzed the research of 80 public institutions from all 50 states and found that they had produced 10,004 studies on the impacts of climate change on their regions between 2014 and 2018.

RECENTLY PUBLISHED

Spatial Learning in Smart Applications: Enhancing Spatial Awareness through Visualized Off-Screen Landmarks on Mobile Devices

Rui Li
Annals of the American Association of Geographers
DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2019.1670611
Smartphones have become a significant platform in everyone’s daily lives. For example, maps and map-based services on smartphones bring great convenience for wayfinding. They affect users’ spatial awareness, however, due to their small sizes. That impacted spatial awareness can lead to degraded spatial knowledge and disorientation. This study intends to address these issues associated with spatial learning on smartphones by adapting cartographic and cognitive theories and investigating a new design for presenting spatial information on smartphones that can support users’ awareness of space. The design uses the distinctive identities of spatial locations beyond the mapped screen as landmarks and visualizes the identities and distances of landmarks in distance through visual variables. Following previous pilot studies, this study evaluates the effectiveness of using such a design on aspects related to spatial awareness. Results provide additional details on the advantage of using specific visual variables to enhance the acquisition of spatial knowledge and spatial orientation. Although smart devices are ubiquitous in everyone’s lives, it is still important to address the cognitive issues between those devices and their users. This study provides evidence that design can further contribute to the improvement of map-based applications on smartphones, which provides convenience and enhances users’ spatial learning of new places.

US Route 50: The Loneliest Road in America, Part 2

Wayne Brew
PAST: online journal of the International Society for Landscape, Place and Material Culture
https://indd.adobe.com/view/12e1ca68-2055-4fa1-ae95-1d0efa356b43
Part 2 of the loneliest road in America picks up the story in Missouri. For Part 1 of the story please refer to PAST 2018. For those starting the story here, I traveled the length of U.S. Route 50 (over 3,000 miles) from California east to Ocean City, Maryland (see Figure 1a). It is always a challenge tracing old interstates through major metropolitan areas because the exact route changes over time, usually to bypass the central business district. That is true for Kansas City and Saint Louis, Missouri. Sorting out the old routes can be done using historic USGS topographic maps, and it is the older routes that I travel.

The Blue Highway: US Route 10

Wayne Brew
PAST: online journal of the International Society for Landscape, Place and Material Culture
https://indd.adobe.com/view/12e1ca68-2055-4fa1-ae95-1d0efa356b43
rom 1926 to 1969 US Route 10 connected Detroit, Michigan, to Seattle, Washington. Starting in 1969 the western end of was subsumed by I-94 and I-90. In 1987, the eastern terminus was truncated to Bay City, Michigan, with the western end in West Fargo, North Dakota.

IMAGE OF THE WEEK

It’s GIS today, Nov. 12 at University Libraries. Several Department of Geography students, faculty, and alumni are presenting talks, which may be viewed on Mediasite.

GOOD NEWS

Undergraduate geography student Zhaogeng Ding will present a poster at the annual Penn State Student Engagement Expo on Wednesday, November 13, 2019

Earth Talks Seminar Series presents “The Dynamics of Deep Decarbonization,” with speaker Leon Clarke, research director, Center for Global Sustainability, University of Maryland, at 4 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 18, 2019, in 112 Walker Building. Clarke’s presentation is titled “US Climate Mitigation and the Paris Agreement.” The seminar series is co-supported by the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute (EESI), Power and Energy Systems Transitions Lab (PESTL) and Center for Climate Risk Management (CLIMA.

Alumni Update: Michael Sutherland, a 2016 graduate in geography,  is currently working as a spatial data analyst for commercial real estate company CBRE based out of the Conshohocken, Pa. office. “I mainly work with demographics, and as of late, tracking historic demographic change. Most of my work is nationally based so I’m helping out on GIS projects across the country,” he said.

COFFEE HOUR

Coffee Hour with Marel King
Chesapeake Bay: Lessons learned from 40 years of watershed management

Marel King is the Chesapeake Bay Commission’s Pennsylvania Director.  She received her juris doctor degree from the Penn State Dickinson School of Law and her bachelor of science degree in Dairy and Animal Science Penn State.

The Chesapeake Bay is the nation’s largest estuary, with a 64,000 square mile watershed spanning parts of six states and the District of Columbia. Despite the natural, social, and political diversity across the region, efforts to restore the Chesapeake are a model of success. Nevertheless, additional progress must be made before water quality goals are achieved.

Established in 1980, the Chesapeake Bay Commission will celebrate its 40th Anniversary in 2020. The Commission is a tri-state legislative commission advising the General Assemblies of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia on matters of Bay-wide concern. As a signatory to the series of Chesapeake Bay Agreements and its four decades of work within the state legislatures and the U.S. Congress to craft “Policy for the Bay,” several lessons have emerged about how to successfully manage a large-scale watershed restoration effort.

• Friday, November 15, 2019
• 3:15 p.m., refreshments are offered in 319 Walker Building
• 3:45, an induction ceremony will be conducted for the new members of Gamma Theta Upsilon in 112 Walker Building
• 4 p.m., the lecture begins in 112 Walker Building
• Coffee Hour to Go on Zoom
• More information about Coffee Hour and previously recorded talks

NEWS

Center for Immersive Experiences to host immersive technology open house Nov. 12

Members of the Penn State community are invited to attend an immersive technology open house taking place across the University Park campus on Nov. 12. The event is being organized by the Center for Immersive Experiences (CIE) and will showcase the University’s resources around virtual reality, augmented reality, 360-degree video and more.

GTU induction set

The Department of Geography will hold an induction for the newest members of Gamma Theta Upsilon, the geography honor society, immediately preceding the Coffee Hour lecture on November 15, 2019. Gamma Theta Upsilon was founded in 1928 and became a national organization in 1931. Members of GTU have met academic requirements and share a background and interest in geography. GTU chapter activities support geography knowledge and awareness.

Choosing most cost-effective practices for sites could save in bay cleanup

Robert Brooks was involved in the research

Using site-specific watershed data to determine the most cost-effective agricultural best management practices — rather than requiring all the recommended practices be implemented across the entire watershed — could make staying below the Chesapeake Bay’s acceptable pollution load considerably less expensive.

Online geodesign program adds geographic information systems expert to faculty

Robert Stauder, a geographic information systems (GIS) professional with more than 20 years of experience in geodesign, GIS analysis and GIS in planning, is joining Penn State’s online geodesign graduate program. He is teaching Geodesign History, Theory and Principles, which is the program’s longest-standing course and also the first step toward both the graduate certificate and the master of professional studies degree, which are offered entirely online through Penn State World Campus.

RECENTLY PUBLISHED

Slow and Fast Violence: A Feminist Critique of Binaries

Jenna Christian and Lorraine Dowler
ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies
https://acme-journal.org/index.php/acme/article/view/1692
Rob Nixon’s recent theorization of slow violence deliberates on specific forms of violence that unfold gradually and in unspectacular ways. However, discussions about the phenomenon that fall under slow violence are not new to the academy and echo the labor of feminist scholars who have for many years written about how violence is experienced in banal, everyday, intimate, and routinized ways. We argue that these Feminist traditions of analyzing violence are vital to touch on, because these contributions are largely overlooked in Nixon’s thesis. Further, this robust scholarship demonstrates how the invisibility of slow violence is shaped not only by its everyday nature, but also by larger gendered and raced epistemologies that privilege the public, the rapid, the hot, and the spectacular. We argue that a feminist epistemological approach to denaturalizing binaries can offer a deeper understanding of how the invisible nature of slow violence is shaped by ongoing gendered and raced epistemologies. Specifically, we believe that a feminist geopolitical framework aids in recognizing the co-constitution of fast and slow violence and engages new pathways that challenge impunity.

Complex interactions among successional trajectories and climate govern spatial resilience after severe windstorms in central Wisconsin, USA

Melissa S. Lucash, Kelsey L. Ruckert, Robert E. Nicholas, Robert M. Scheller, Erica A. H. Smithwick
Landscape Ecology
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-019-00929-1
Context: Resilience is a concept central to the field of ecology, but our understanding of resilience is not sufficient to predict when and where large changes in species composition might occur following disturbances, particularly under climate change.
Objectives: Our objective was to estimate how wind disturbance shapes landscape-level patterns of engineering resilience, defined as the recovery of total biomass and species composition after a windstorm, under climate change in central Wisconsin.
Methods: We used a spatially-explicit, forest simulation model (LANDIS-II) to simulate how windstorms and climate change affect forest succession and used boosted regression tree analysis to isolate the important drivers of resilience.
Results: At mid-century, biomass fully recovered to current conditions, but neither biomass nor species composition completely recovered at the end of the century. As expected, resilience was lower in the south, but by the end of the century, resilience was low throughout the landscape. Disturbance and species’ characteristics (e.g., the amount of area disturbed and the number of species) explained half of the variation in resilience, while temperature and soil moisture comprised only 17% collectively.
Conclusions: Our results illustrate substantial spatial patterns of resilience at landscape scales, while documenting the potential for overall declines in resilience through time. Species diversity and windstorm size were far more important than temperature and soil moisture in driving long term trends in resilience. Finally, our research highlights the utility of using machine learning (e.g., boosted regression trees) to discern the underlying mechanisms of landscape-scale processes when using complex spatially-interactive and non-deterministic simulation models.

IMAGE OF THE WEEK

Penn State University Libraries and the Department of Geography will observe GIS Day — an annual event celebrating the technology of geographic information systems (GIS) — on Tuesday, Nov. 12, with activities designed to bring together both new and experienced users of geospatial information across disciplines.

GOOD NEWS

Luke Trusel will present a talk on “The Greenland Ice Sheet in a Warming World,” on Wednesday, Nov. 6, 11:15 a.m.to 12:30 p.m. in 529 Walker Building as part of the fall 2019 Earth System Science Center Brown Bag Series.

Guido Cervone will present a talk on “Expanded Dimensionality Image Spectroscopy via Deep Learning,” at the Meteorology Colloquium on Wednesday, Nov. 6, 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. in 112 Walker Building

Erica Smithwick will be a panelist at the Women in Science Mixer on Wednesday, Nov. 6 at 5:00 p.m. in 114 Steidle Building. Meet and support women scientists from across the university. A panel discussion will be held on being a woman scientist, imposter syndrome, and work-life balance.

Earth Talks Seminar Series presents “The Dynamics of Deep Decarbonization,” with speaker Gary Geernaert, Director, Climate and Environmental Sciences Division, U.S. Department of Energy, on Monday, Nov. 11, 2019 at 4:00 p.m. in 112 Walker Building.The seminar series is co-supported by the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute (EESI), Power and Energy Systems Transitions Lab (PESTL) and Center for Climate Risk Management (CLIMA).

Ann Myatt James ’14g recently accepted an appointment as a Data Services Librarian at George Washington University’s Gelman Library in Washington DC. In this role, she’ll be supporting students, faculty, staff, and administrators to more effectively access and engage data resources, geospatial technologies, and visualizations in their research, teaching, and practice.

Academic job postings: The George Washington University in Washing, DC is hiring an assistant professor of geography and an assistant professor of geography and foreign affairs.

COFFEE HOUR

Coffee Hour with Emily Rosenman
Marketizing the wealth gap? Geographies of risk and power in the pursuit of an anti-racist finance

Historical and ongoing structural discrimination has created racialized geographies of inequality in the United States: wealth gaps, wage gaps, employment gaps, and so on. This history, coupled with continued constraints on state social services following the 2008 financial crisis, has prompted claims that private and charitable capital must fill these gaps. Many of these capital flows piggyback off state efforts to incentivize (rather than directly fund) social investment in dis/underinvested areas, bolstered by voluntary commitments from private and philanthropic capital to shrug off a racist past in favor of revitalizing disinvested communities with investments guided by a “lens” of racial justice. While at first glance these efforts might simply seem like another pretext for private profiteering, they partially align with the demands of marginalized communities and organizations like the Movement for Black Lives: demands for reinvestment in health, education, and social services in historically disinvested communities.

• Friday, November 8, 2019
• Refreshments are offered in 319 Walker Building at 3:30 p.m.
• Lecture begins in 112 Walker Building at 4:00 p.m.
• Coffee Hour to Go on Zoom

For more information about Coffee Hour and to view previously recorded Coffee Hour talks visit https://www.geog.psu.edu/calendar/coffee-hour-lecture-series

NEWS

Geography Awareness Week — Mark your calendars!

Get ready to celebrate the importance of geography and geographic education during Geography Awareness Week (#GeoWeek) from November 10-16, 2019! The theme for this year’s GeoWeek is Igniting the Spirit of Exploration. While previous years celebrated featured parts of geography, organizers now encourage highlighting any or all aspects of geography. Follow @theAAG on Twitter leading up to and during GeoWeek for more activities and announcements.

Event explores geographic information systems Nov. 12 at University Libraries

“Exploring the World Through Geovisualization” is the theme of this year’s event

Penn State University Libraries will observe GIS Day—an annual event celebrating the technology of geographic information systems (GIS)—on Tuesday, Nov. 12, with activities designed to bring together both new and experienced users of geospatial information across disciplines.

This year’s program, “Exploring the World Through Geovisualization,” aims to foster awareness of geospatial visualization, online mapping, and geospatial data science and the ways these applications are being used on campus, in the community, and beyond. GIS use across the University is enabled through access to Esri GIS software, including ArcGIS Pro and ArcMap, along with ArcGIS Online.

IMAGE OF THE WEEK

Rockefeller Archive Center in New York (and bust of John D. Rockefeller), where Emily Rosenman was researching the history of “program-related investments,” in which foundations make investments (rather than grants) to organizations that support charitable causes. Rosenman is looking at investments in Cooperative Assistance Funds, which were a civil rights-era initiative by the Ford and other foundations making investments in urban Black-owned businesses to inform her research on geographies of contemporary investing done with a racial justice “lens.” Image: Emily Rosenman

GOOD NEWS

Cynthia Brewer has been selected by The American Geographical Society to receive the O. M. Miller Cartographic Medal for outstanding contributions in the field of cartography. She will be recognized at the AGS fall symposium on November 22, 2019 at Columbia University, New York.

Emily Domanico ’19g won second place in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences Graduate Poster Exhibition held Wednesday, October 23, 2019.

Jessica Whitehead ’09g has just been named as North Carolina’s first chief resilience officer, tasked to think ahead in new ways to bolster the state against the effects of climate change.

Earth Talks Seminar Series presents “The Dynamics of Deep Decarbonization,” with speaker Tom Richard on Monday, November 4, 2019 at 4:00 p.m. in 112 Walker Building. The seminar series is co-supported by the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute (EESI), Power and Energy Systems Transitions Lab (PESTL) and Center for Climate Risk Management (CLIMA).

The GIS Coalition is holding a Youth Mappers event on November 4, 6:00 to 7:30 p.m., in 208 Walker Building. During the event, mappers will digitize imagery with Open Street Map ​to help relief efforts navigate and bring aid to those facing food insecurity in the Philippines. More information about the project can be found at https://tasks.hotosm.org/project/5461#bottom.

Erica Smithwick and Scott Showalter will present a seminar on NSF and NIH grantwriting for graduate students and post-docs, November 14, 2019, noon to 1:30 p.m. in 233A HUB. Register at: https://forms.gle/1MRBwcZp77agUtuq7

Federal job posting: Supervisory Geographer, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service. Open & closing dates: 10/21/2019 to 11/08/2019.

COFFEE HOUR

Coffee Hour with Andrew Anderson
The Landscapes of Oman: Nature | Culture | Place

The landscapes of Oman are at once beguiling, surprising and breathtaking. While intimately known to the people who have lived in this corner of Arabia for untold millennia, the landscapes of Oman slowly reveal their secrets – some of them, at least – to those willing to slow down, observe and experience nature, culture and place in this most fascinating of countries.

Following a brief introduction to his unique experience and expertise in the allied disciplines of landscape architecture and world heritage conservation, Senior Landscape Architect and World Heritage Advisor Andrew Anderson will guide a three-part introduction to the landscapes of Oman from the perspective of multi-disciplinary collaboration and research.

• Friday, November 1, 2019
• Refreshments are offered in 319 Walker Building at 3:30 p.m.
• Lecture begins in 112 Walker Building at 4:00 p.m.
• Coffee Hour to Go on Zoom

For more information about Coffee Hour and to view previously recorded Coffee Hour talks visit https://www.geog.psu.edu/calendar/coffee-hour-lecture-series

NEWS

Center for Immersive Experiences set to debut, serving researchers and students

Penn State will be equipped to meet the needs of students, faculty, and a society at large that is progressively more reliant on immersive technology with the opening of the Center for Immersive Experiences (CIE) on the University Park campus.

The center, with physical space in Pattee Library and collaborators in 11 different academic units at the University, will feature comprehensive services around teaching, learning and research involving immersive technology by increasing access to virtual reality, augmented reality, 360-degree video, mixed reality and more.

JOB POSTINGS: Post-doctoral fellows, Ph.D. and Masters, Developer, and Intern positions

The Center for Immersive Experiences at The Pennsylvania State University (immersive.psu.edu), in collaboration with other units at Penn State (such as ChoroPhronesis, chorophronesis.psu.edu, and Teaching and Learning with Technology), is hiring two Post-Doctoral Researchers focusing on areas such as immersive analytics, immersive learning, immersive decision-making, or serious games.

RECENTLY PUBLISHED

Smart Festivals? Security and Freedom for Well-Being in Urban Smart Spaces

Jeremy W. Crampton ’87g’94g, Kara C. Hoover, Harrison Smith, Steve Graham & J. Colette Berbesque
Annals of the American Association of Geographers
DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2019.1662765

In this article we use the natural lab of music festivals to examine behavioral change in response to the rapid introduction of smart surveillance technology into formerly unpoliced spaces. Festivals are liminal spaces, free from the governance of everyday social norms and regulations, permitting participants to assert a desired self. Due to a number of recent festival deaths, drug confiscations, pickpockets, and a terroristic mass shooting, festivals have quickly introduced smart security measures such as drones and facial recognition technologies. Such a rapid introduction contrasts with urban spaces where surveillance is introduced gradually and unnoticeably. In this article we use some findings from an online survey of festivalgoers to reveal explicit attitudes and experiences of surveillance. We found that surveillance is often discomforting because it changes experience of place, it diminishes feelings of safety, and bottom-up measures (health tents, being in contact with friends) are preferred to top-down surveillance. We also found marked variation between men, women, and nonbinary people’s feelings toward surveillance. Men were much less affected by surveillance. Women have very mixed views on surveillance; they simultaneously have greater safety concerns (especially sexual assault in public) and are keener on surveillance than men but also feel that it is ineffective in preventing assault (but might be useful in providing evidence subsequently). Our findings have significant ramifications for the efficacy of a one-size-fits-all solution of increased surveillance and security in smart places and cities and point to the need for more bottom-up safety measures.

IMAGE OF THE WEEK

The undergraduate GIS Coalition recently conducted a Geo-Caching activity on campus. This picture shows Erin Arndt, GIS coalition president, Harman Singh, coalition secretary, and Clarie Byrnes, a coalition member and anthropology major looking for a hidden cache near Deike building.The Geospatial Information Science (GIS) Coalition is an organization that offers students majoring, minoring, or sharing an interest in GIS opportunities to develop supplementary knowledge and skills necessary to succeed in the professional GIS industry.

GOOD NEWS

Esri Education and Directions magazine are offering a two-part webinar on GIS for classrooms Oct. 23 and Nov. 6

Humphrey Fellows Fall Presentation Series, this week in 102 Chambers; noon-1:00 p.m. October 24:

• Socio-political and economic considerations in higher education in the Anglophone Caribbean
• Higher education challenges in Afghanistan

COFFEE HOUR

Coffee Hour with Ted Toadvine
Climate Change and the Apocalyptic Image of Time

The prospect of climate disruption haunts contemporary culture and political debate today in a way that no environmental threat has before, and it is commonplace to hear climate change identified as the single most important challenge facing humanity. Is this prioritization of climate destabilization as the defining threat of recorded human history justified? Here I investigate the image of time underlying this apocalyptic narrative to show that it depends upon, and attempts to manage, the explosion of our horizons of time represented by “deep” geological timescales.

• Friday, October 25, 2019
• Refreshments are offered in 319 Walker Building at 3:30 p.m.
• Lecture begins in 112 Walker Building at 4:00 p.m.
• Coffee Hour to Go on Zoom

For more information about Coffee Hour and to view previously recorded Coffee Hour talks visit https://www.geog.psu.edu/calendar/coffee-hour-lecture-series

NEWS

Event explores geographic information systems Nov. 12 at University Libraries

“Exploring the World Through Geovisualization” is the theme of this year’s event

Penn State University Libraries will observe GIS Day—an annual event celebrating the technology of geographic information systems (GIS)—on Tuesday, Nov. 12, with activities designed to bring together both new and experienced users of geospatial information across disciplines.

This year’s program, “Exploring the World Through Geovisualization,” aims to foster awareness of geospatial visualization, online mapping, and geospatial data science and the ways these applications are being used on campus, in the community, and beyond. GIS use across the University is enabled through access to Esri GIS software, including ArcGIS Pro and ArcMap, along with ArcGIS Online.

Esri ArcGIS software now more easily accessible to faculty, staff, students

For a project in a geographic information systems (GIS) class in Penn State’s Department of Geography, Alexis Fisher sought to spotlight the wage gap in the United States. She had familiarity with the topic, but when she began plotting a story map using Esri’s ArcGIS online tools, the data really came to life.

Fisher, a senior majoring in cyber security analytics and operations with a focus in geopolitics, entered historical wage data broken down by counties with variables for gender and ethnicity, to create an interactive map with text, videos, and graphics.

RECENTLY PUBLISHED

Next Steps for Spatial Demography

Stephen A. Matthews
Spatial Demography
https://doi.org/10.1007/s40980-019-00055-1
I would like to open my first editorial by thanking the founding editors of Spatial Demography, Frank Howell and Jeremy Porter, and their editorial board for all their contributions over the past eight years. Frank and Jeremy recognized long before anyone else the importance of a signature journal for the field of spatial demography. I greatly appreciate the foundation they set and for initiating the later partnership with Springer. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to work with both Frank and Jeremy on an edited book and then more recently alongside Jeremy as co-editor of the journal. This was a valuable experience and certainly eased the transition to becoming sole editor.

IMAGE OF THE WEEK

Members of the department attended the Nature-Society Workshop at Syracuse University, NY. The workshop, which is held annually at universities across the Northeast, included panel discussions on climate politics; intersections of fire, livelihoods, and the state in the Amazon; and environmental justice. The workshop also included a keynote lecture by Dr. Wendy Wolford titled “The Social Life of Land” and a field trip to Onondaga lake and other sites exemplifying urban environmental (in)justice and history in and around the city of Syracuse. Photo taken at Syracuse University and Onondaga Lake.

GOOD NEWS

Jacklyn Weier’s first single-author research paper titled, “(Re)producing the Sexuality Binary: On Bisexual Experiences in U.S. Gay and Heterosexual Spaces,” has been accepted by Gender, Place & Culture.

COFFEE HOUR

Coffee Hour with Pablo Pacheco
Governing for sustainability in tropical forest landscapes

Halting deforestation and forest degradation are central in the efforts to protect forests and achieve sustainability goals in forest landscapes, particularly in the tropics. Forest sustainability has increasingly been framed within broader policy agendas of conservation, climate change and sustainable commodity supply. This has triggered disparate interventions with a growing involvement of the private sector, which have been implemented under different approaches including individual adoption of voluntary standards, sector-wide supply chain-based interventions, and mixed supply chain and territorial initiatives at jurisdictional level. This presentation will evaluate critically the progress and implementation challenges of these approaches and provide insights on what is needed to overcome those challenges.

This talk is co-sponsored by the Recreation, Park, and Tourism Management (RPTM) program.

• Friday, October 18, 2019
• Refreshments are offered in 319 Walker Building at 3:30 p.m.
• Lecture begins in 112 Walker Building at 4:00 p.m.
• Coffee Hour to Go on Zoom

For more information about Coffee Hour and to view previously recorded Coffee Hour talks visit https://www.geog.psu.edu/calendar/coffee-hour-lecture-series

NEWS

EarthTalks series brings experts to Penn State to discuss decarbonization

Reducing carbon emissions to combat rising global temperatures is a hot topic, but achieving deep decarbonization poses problems that require fundamental changes in the industrial, agricultural and energy sectors. The fall 2019 EarthTalks series, “The Dynamics of Deep Decarbonization,” brings prominent researchers to the Penn State University Park campus to discuss these changes. The series, which is free and open to the public, runs at 4 p.m. every Monday through Nov. 18, in 112 Walker Building.

RECENTLY PUBLISHED

For the Many, Not the One: Designing Low-Cost Joint VR Experiences for Place-Based Learning

Jan Oliver Wallgrün, Jack (Shen-Kuen) Chang, Jiayan Zhao, Pejman Sajjadi, Danielle Oprean, Thomas B. Murphy, Jennifer Baka, Alexander Klippel
In: Bourdot P., Interrante V., Nedel L., Magnenat-Thalmann N., Zachmann G. (eds) Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality. EuroVR 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 11883. Springer, Cham.
https://rdcu.be/bUlcc
The paper details the design and evaluation of a joint, multi-user immersive virtual field trip (iVFT). The setting for our work centers on academic disciplines that value place-based education. The reported user study is embedded into a developing research framework on place-based learning and the role immersive experiences play as supplement, proxy, or through providing experiences physically not possible. The results of this study are both practical as well as theoretical, demonstrating the feasibility of using entry level immersive technologies in regular classroom settings and showing that even low-cost VR experiences strongly relying on 360∘ imagery add value to place-based education. With quantitative analysis, we also identify potentially critical aspects in how individual differences shape the adoption of this technology. Finally, we report insights gained through two qualitative analyses on how to improve the design of future iVFTs for educational purposes.

IMAGE OF THE WEEK

Kirk Goldsberry’s Points per Shot map shows that the average value for 3-point shots is significantly higher than for mid-range shots. Image: Kirk Goldsberry

GOOD NEWS

Bronwen Powell has been invited by the UN Forum on Forests (UNFF) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) to participate in a meeting to set Global Forest Indicators (a set of indicators on the importance of forests that all countries will report on). She was invited to contribute to efforts to set indicators for the way Forests contribute to Food and Nutrition.

Luke Trusel’s research was cited in last week’s UN IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate.

Humphrey Fellows Fall Presentation Series starts this week in 102 Chambers; noon-1:00 p.m. October 10 talks:

• More than just books: The underestimated impact of academic libraries on Jordan.
• Use it, don’t lose it: A tale of highly educated housewives in Pakistan

SWIG is convening an Undergrad/Grad Round Table Discussion for students interested in applying to graduate school on Thursday, October 17 at 6:15p.m. in 319 Walker Building.

The 2019 Esri Mid-Atlantic User Conference will be held December 10–11 in Philadelphia, Pa.

Call for Proposals: UCGIS Symposium 2020, May 28–June 1, 2020, Honolulu, Hawaii.

COFFEE HOUR

A bye week for Coffee Hour,  next talk is October 18

For more information about Coffee Hour and to view previously recorded Coffee Hour talks, visit https://www.geog.psu.edu/calendar/coffee-hour-lecture-series

NEWS

For the love of maps and hoops: Geography alumnus excels in basketball analytics

As a geography student, Kirk Goldsberry never needed an excuse to make maps. The trick was finding ways to combine cartography with his other love — basketball.

The Penn State geography alumnus found professional success combining his passions. He is a leader in basketball analytics, having worked as an NBA front office executive and as a writer for ESPN.

In his most recent work, The New York Times best-selling book “SprawlBall: A Visual Tour of the New Era of the NBA,” Goldsberry examines how the proliferation of the 3-point shot, and other trends, have helped transform the league, perhaps in unexpected ways.

“My book is just another example of a geographer noticing a change, searching for its essential causes, and trying to explain them via the mighty combination of maps, stats and prose,” Goldsberry said.

RECENTLY PUBLISHED

Environmental Knowledge Cartographies: Evaluating Competing Discourses in U.S. Hydraulic Fracturing Rule-Making

Jennifer Baka, Arielle Hesse, Erika Weinthal & Karen Bakker
Annals of the American Association of Geographers
DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2019.1574549
In this article, we evaluate competing environmental knowledge claims in U.S. hydraulic fracturing (HF) regulation. We conduct a case study of the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) rule-making process over the period from 2012 to 2015, which was the first attempt to update federal oil and gas regulations in thirty years. Our study addresses a gap in the energy geographies and environmental governance literatures, which have yet to evaluate systematically HF-related decision-making processes at the policymaking scale. We mobilize theoretical insights from science and technology studies on boundary objects and critical environmental discourse analysis to conduct a “cultural cartography” of the BLM’s rule-making process. Our analysis of a subset of 1.4 million public comments submitted to the BLM, combined with fifteen stakeholder interviews, focuses on (1) who participated in the rule-making process; (2) the types of knowledge claims advanced in support or opposition of the rule; and (3) how these claims affected the rule-making process. In contrast to recent literature that finds increased “horizontality” of environmental knowledge production, we find a clear hierarchy that privileges government knowledge—including federal government–sponsored research and existing laws—above all other categories of evidence cited. As such, we argue that government knowledge—which in this case brought disparate stakeholder groups together to debate HF regulation—functions as a key boundary object in the rule-making process. We conclude with a discussion of implications for both research and policy.

IMAGE OF THE WEEK

Adviser Jodi Vender helps undergraduate student Harman Singh plan which courses to take to fulfill the requirements for a certificate in geography. Image: Penn State.

GOOD NEWS

Jamie Peeler was awarded a Graduate Research Innovation Award from the Joint Fire Science Program for her dissertation research in Wyoming.

The EMS Graduate Student Poster Competition and Recognition will take place on Wednesday, October 23. Emily Domanico, Ruchi Patel, and Jaiyan Zhao have been selected to represent our department in the poster competition.

Justine Blanford has a position paper accepted to the Spatial Data Science Symposium: Setting the Spatial Data Science Agenda, December 9–11, 2019

MGIS Student Brandon Green has had a paper “Estimating populations in refugee camps: a toolkit using remotely sensed data” accepted by Digital Government: Disaster Information, Technology, and Resilience Track.

Mikael Hiestand and Andrew Carleton have had a paper, “Growing Season Synoptic and Phenological Controls on Heat Fluxes over Forest and Cropland Sites in the Midwest U.S. Corn Belt,” accepted by the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology.

COFFEE HOUR

Coffee Hour with Laura Leites
Adaptation to climate in forest tree species and implications under a changing climate

More than a century of field studies has demonstrated that forest tree species with large geographic ranges are commonly composed of populations genetically adapted to the climate they inhabit. These populations occupy only a segment of the species climatic range, but their existence allows the species to accommodate the large spatial climate variability within their vast geographic ranges. Adaptation to climate is primarily achieved by synchronizing the trees’ annual growth cycle with the frost-free period of the inhabited climate in order to avoid unfavorable conditions through dormancy. As climate warms, genotypes and climate will be misaligned with important consequences for the growth and survival of forest tree species. However, there are opportunities for management to aid in maintaining well-adapted and productive forests. In this talk I’ll synthesize our knowledge of adaptation to climate in forest tree species, discuss implications under a warming climate, and review management practices aimed at re-aligning genotypes and climate.

• Friday, October 4, 2019
• Refreshments are offered in 319 Walker Building at 3:30 p.m.
• Lecture begins in 112 Walker Building at 4:00 p.m.
• Coffee Hour to Go on Zoom

For more information about Coffee Hour and to view previously recorded Coffee Hour talks visit https://www.geog.psu.edu/calendar/coffee-hour-lecture-series

NEWS

JOB POSTING

Assistant Professor of Health Geography

The Department of Geography at The Pennsylvania State University in State College, Pennsylvania invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor faculty position in Health Geography with a focus on Substance Use and Misuse. Preference will be given to candidates with a research focus in the United States and who utilize quantitative and spatial techniques to address subjects including but not limited to social determinants, population patterns, and health care delivery pertaining to substance use and misuse.

JOB POSTING

Faculty Positions in Understanding Land-Water Systems using Data Analytics

The College of Earth and Mineral Sciences through the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute (EESI) at The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, seeks to hire tenure-line faculty at the assistant or associate rank who study Earth and environmental sciences using new data-driven tools and methods. Candidates for the rank of associate professor typically will have several years of research experience and already hold tenure at another institution and/or qualify for immediate tenure at Penn State.

Geography certificates offer customized degrees for undergraduates

Penn State students who want to customize their bachelor’s degree in geography, add a specific topic in geography to their major, or enhance their career as a non-degree student can now complete undergraduate certificates in geography.

“Certificates are credentials that recognize mastery of a specific area in the discipline,” said Jodi Vender, undergraduate adviser in the Department of Geography. “Ours are 12 credits — fewer credits than a minor — so they fit more easily into a degree program. They can be used as milestones for accomplishment in a specific domain or can stand alone.”

Model helps choose wind farm locations, predicts output

The wind is always blowing somewhere, but deciding where to locate a wind farm is a bit more complicated than holding up a wet finger. Now a team of Penn State researchers have a model that can locate the best place for the wind farm and even help with 24-hour predictions of energy output.

IMAGE OF THE WEEK

Pictured at the Lion Shrine, left to right, the new geography faculty members: Luke Trusel, Trevor Birkenholtz, Emily Rosenman, Helen Greatrex, Manzhu Yu, and Panagiotis Giannakis. See news story below; full profiles of all six are forthcoming in the printed Geograph annual newsletter.

GOOD NEWS

Gamma Theta Upsilon & GIS Coalition will hold an internship round table and resume review to talk about how to find an internship as a geographer on Tuesday, Sept. 24 at 6:00 p.m. in 110 Walker Building to hear other students talk about internships, from the application process to the internship experience itself.

The College of Earth and Mineral Sciences’ 2019 International Culture Night will be held 6 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 24, in the Atrium of the Steidle Building on the University Park campus. The event is free and open to the public.

A free screening of the documentary film “Elephant Path / Njaia Njoku” will take place at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 25, in the HUB-Robeson Center’s Freeman Auditorium on Penn State’s University Park campus. A Q&A with the director will follow.

Sara E. Cavallo will give a brownbag talk on “Navigating Compounding Uncertainty: Farmer Strategies amid Biosecurity Crises in Western Uganda,” Wednesday, October 2, from 12:30–2:00 p.m. in 133 Sparks Building.

The EMS Graduate Student Poster Competition and Recognition will take place on Wednesday, October 23, in 401/402 Steidle Building. Poster Session and Catered Reception from 3:00 to 4:30 p.m. Awards Presentation and Special Recognition of Graduate Excellence from 4:30 to 5:00. RSVP by Friday, October 4, 2019.

The inaugural Geospatial Technology and Spatial Data Science Symposium will be held on November 11, 2019, as part of Geography Awareness Week and GIS Day at Penn State.

Call for Papers: The African Studies Program, 7th annual conference, on April 17-18, 2020, “Africa on the Rise! 60 years after 1960,” commemorates the “Year of Africa.” Abstracts of 200 words (max) are due by Dec. 5, 2019. Submit your abstract.

COFFEE HOUR

Coffee Hour: Critical Conversation in Geography

On September 20 and 27, 2019, the Fridays for Future movement has called for a global climate strike to demand an end to fossil fuels. We are responding to these calls from youth across the globe by convening an open conversation about the role of geography—and geographers—in responding to the climate crisis for the September 27 Coffee Hour.

Questions that may frame the conversation include: What kind of climate research is necessary and important? What are new opportunities? What is the role of advocacy, engagement, and outreach? Can the department follow other geography departments in calculating our departmental carbon footprint— and are there ways to reduce it?

• Friday, September 27, 2019
• Refreshments are offered in 319 Walker Building at 3:30 p.m.
• Lecture begins in 112 Walker Building at 4:00 p.m.
• Coffee Hour to Go on Zoom

More information about Coffee Hour and to view previously recorded Coffee Hour talks

NEWS

The new geographers: Six faculty hires are driving the future of the field

Six new tenure-line geography faculty started this fall in the Department of Geography, College of Earth and Mineral Sciences. They will conduct research on a wide variety of subjects including water, climate change, natural hazards, remote sensing, social networks, data mining, economics, and inequality and diversity.

“The new geographers are bringing in not only their scientific expertise but also experience in using multiple research methods, and a dedication to engaging livelihoods and environments,” said Cynthia Brewer, professor and head of the department. “Their expertise will also be used to create new courses for our students.”

Individual profile articles for all six new geographers are forthcoming in the printed Geograph annual newsletter.

RECENTLY PUBLISHED

Making an Anthropocene Ocean: Synoptic Geographies of the International Geophysical Year (1957–1958)

Jessica Lehman ’08
Annals of the American Association of Geographers
DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2019.1644988
Although the notion of the Anthropocene has generated a great deal of literature across disciplines, the geographic critique of this concept is still developing. This article contributes to justice-oriented engagements with the Anthropocene by highlighting the relationships through which planetary knowledge is constructed as sites of critique. I develop an analytic of synoptic geographies, which addresses the praxis of coordinated field measurements that creates the planetary knowledge on which concepts of the Anthropocene rest. Synoptic geographies require a geographic analytic that is capable of going beyond assertions that all knowledge is local. The International Geophysical Year (IGY; 1957–1958) provides a strategic opportunity to elaborate the stakes of synoptic geographies. The IGY was arguably the first attempt to understand the Earth as a planet through a program of widespread synoptic data collection. In particular, the synoptic geographies of the IGY’s oceanography program reveal the ways in which old and new forms of imperialism were knitted together to produce the world ocean as an object of knowledge in a new era of planetary-scale environmental politics.