Our faculty are present in the classroom and in the field. Majors will have many opportunities to work with them on various research projects; here are some current departmental highlights. All faculty members are conducting research; details available in each faculty member's profile.
DR.PABLO BOSE had a new publication titled, “Home and Away: Diasporas, Developments and Displacements in a Globalizing World” in William Safran, Ajaya Kumar Sahoo and Brij V. Lal (eds.) Transnational Migrations of the Indian Diaspora, 136-163. He will soon be organizing a conference at UVMwith support from the Government of Canada on the subject of Settlement, Security and Social Justice: Immigrants and Refugees in US-Canada Border Regions. THOMAS BENOIT, a geography major, will be assisting Pablo.
DR MEGHAN COPE traveled to Vadstena, Sweden in October to attend a European Science Foundation workshop on the theme "The Right to the City." There she presented her work on young people, public space, and citizenship to an international audience of scholars, hobnobbed with famous urban theorists, and ate a lot of Swedish pastries. As a follow-up to this, Meghan participated in a panel on The Right to the City with some of the same scholars at the March AAG conference. Since last summer, Meghan has also had publications come out in Environment and Planning A, Antipode, and Professional Geographer.
DR SHELLY RAYBACK attended the Arctic Change 2008 Conference in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada and presented a paper entitled, "Multiproxy Reconstructions: Combining stable isotope analysis and dendrochronological techniques to reconstruct climate in the Canadian Arctic.”
DR LESLEY-ANN DUPIGNY-GIROUX, gave an invited talk titled "Challenges to Promoting Climate Literacy at the Secondary and Undergraduate Levels" at the January 25-28 Global Climate Change Research and Education Workshop, World Meteorological Organization, Geneva Switzerland. She presented a paper at the AAG meeting entitled, new indicator-based drought index for quantifying spatio-temporal fluctuations in 18th century New England.
This Fall, DR.BEVERLEY WEMPLE saw publication of a book examining the effects of forest management on water resources across the U.S. The book, titled Hydrologic Effects of a Changing Forest Landscape, was published by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences and was co-authored by Beverley and thirteen colleagues from academia, industry, and government. The book lays out the progress made in forest hydrology over the last century since the initiation of the first paired-watershed study in Colorado in the early 1900's and issues a call for a new research agenda for the 21st century to address emerging changes in the forested landscape in an era of changing climate conditions, new land use pressures, and the emergence of new pests and exotic species in the forest.
DR. CHERYL DUNKLEY CHERIE devoted much her time in summer 2008 to providing professional development opportunities to Vermont K-12 teachers through the Vermont Geographic Alliance. Over the academic year she has developed a new course, "Rural Geography", which she is thrilled to be offering this spring, brought National Geographic's "Giant Traveling Map of North America" to UVMas well as local Vermont schools, and delivered, along with Richard Kujawa of Saint Michael's College, a graduate level course on Geography Education She continues to collaborate with the Fleming Museum to enhance their Abenaki Teachers Kit and is beginning a new research project on rural women and outdoor pursuits. She plans to present a paper on Gender, the 'Great Outdoors', and Rural Outmigration at the Rural Sociological Society meeting in Wisconsin this summer.
Secrets in the Rings In the Fall of 2008, DR. SHELLY RAYBACK led a seminar class in the broadly eclectic field of dendrochronology. Dendrochronology is the study of tree rings and what tree rings can tell us about the past. The technique may be used to examine such diverse topics as the dating of the Messiah violin to understanding long-term patterns in climate change, forest fire occurrence and insect outbreaks. Ten Undergraduate and Masters level students enrolled in the class and participated in two outdoor labs and an original final research project. They used dendrochronological techniques to reconstruct the history of a small floodplain in Richmond, VT and were able to connect the age of nearby trees to the flood of 1927. They also reconstructed the history of a stand of trees in the Hinesburg Town Forest and learned about the ecological process of succession. Senior Brandon Dickerman has shared that, The dendrochronology course with Dr. Rayback was a fantastic course which allowed the students to go out into the field and apply the skills that were learned in the classroom. With the guidance of Dr. Rayback, we were able to work on a final project of our choosing in which I was given the opportunity to canoe down the Winooski River stopping at the islands to collect cores to analyze and draw conclusions about the rivers history.
In Fall 2008 DR. MEGHAN COPE taught a service- learning seminar, “Children’s Geographies: Young People, Place, and Identity” in which students learned about the emerging field of youth geographies, got hands-on experience with community-based qualitative research, and worked with middle-school aged children in three local areas (Burlington, Essex Junction, and Williston). The theme of the course and the research experience was youth independent mobility and access to public spaces; that is, how do young people between 10 and 14 get around to places they want to go, what places do they wish to go but can’t (because of transportation or other restrictions), and how do their daily patterns reflect a combination of opportunities and constraints. The three research teams produced maps, reports, and photo galleries for their respective towns in collaboration with the young people at each site. The knowledge produced from the project will be shared with each community and inform the research planned for next Fall’s offering of the course.
Last modified August 19 2009 06:38 PM
