Clark Geography in the Media

Ruth Fincher, PhD '80, Professor of Geography at the University of Melbourne was awarded Member of the Order of Australia during the 2014 Australia Days Honours for her dedication to teaching and promotion of geography. A rare honor for geographers.  read more

Doctoral Student, Jim Thatcher was interviewed by Brooke Gladstone of NPR's On the Media in an article called "Tracking your Steps" which explores the use of GPS tracking on mobile apps by large coprorations like Google Maps and others and what that means to consumers. listen here. Jim was also quoted prominently in a smilar article on GPS tracking in the September 6, 2013 issue of The Atlantic on the broader social context and implications of new mobile apps. read more

Asst. Prof. Alex Gardner was interviewed by Al Jazeera's Tarek Bazely and explains the findings of his recent research on global glacier contributions to sea level rise which was published in the prestigious journal Science on May 17th, 2013.

Asst. Prof. Chris Williams is interviewed by CNBC on the stress put on many areas of the U.S. important watersheds that may cause them to fail.  read more

Asst. Prof. Christopher A. Williams was involved in a live radio broadcast of Locus Focus (KBOO-FM out of Portland, OR) where he discussed the current severe drought conditions being experienced throughout many parts of North America in the context of historic droughts, and the role that climate change is playing in the intensification of extreme weather events.

NECN visits Clark University for the announcement of $329K National Science Foundation grant for the HERO program. Geography Assoc. Professors John Rogan and Deb Martin, (co-PI's) as well as Geography student A.J. Shatz (BA '12, MA GIS '13) are interviewed for upcoming work in helping to solve the Asian Longhorn beetle infestation in Worcester. News link

Asst. Prof. Chris Williams communicated elements of the recent paper on droughts in the American West as an Opinion piece in the NYTimes, during an interview with Tom Ashbrook on NPR’s On-Point, and in the NYTime’s Dot Earth Blog maintained by Andrew Revkin. This work also initiated a local TV news spotlight with New England Cable News.

Prof. Anthony Bebbington has recently released the Spanish version to his book "Social Conflict, Economic Development and the Extractive Industry: Evidence from South America" (Routledge, 2011), titled "Industrias Extractivas, Conflicto Social y Dinamicas Institutionales en la Region Andina" (Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos/Centro Peruano de Estudios Sociales, 2013). His book release sparked the attention of news stations such as RPP, La Mula, and La Prensa.

Latest Departmental News

The Graduate School of Geography and Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies have joined together to launch a joint pilot PhD track in Geography and Genocide made possible by a generous gift. Students on the program will combine core courses in Geography and Genocide as well as electives, and will work on topics including, though not limited to: the visualization of space and place, population displacements and threats to collective identity, natural resource conflicts and loss of territory, and the geographies of mass and organized violence.

Assist. Prof. Christopher Williams recently conducted a study which was released in Global Change Biology.  This study is the first detailed account of how carbon, water, and energy balances shift in the three years following the clearcut of a deciduous forest. Please see the Clark News Hub or the Harvard Forest website for more on this story.

2012 YSSP participant Pheakkdey Nguon has won a scholarship from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to fund his research on REDD+ in Cambodia. He accepted the award September 30, 2013 from Prince Albert II of Monaco. read more. For more on the project Pheakkdey was interviewed by IIASA for their science blog.

Director of the GSG, Prof. Anthony Bebbington has been chosen as 2014 recipient of CLAG (Conference of Latin Americanists Geographers) Carl O. Sauer Distinguished Scholarship Award. This award is given in recognition for a corpus of important published work or other significant contribution towards Latin American geography.  Prof. Bebbington has been invited to CLAG's 2014 meeting in Panama City, Panama, in January to receive the award.

Congratulations to Assistant Prof. Christopher Williams and Adjunct Assistant Prof. Yelena Ogneva-Himmelberger for both receiving the 2013 Hodgkins Junior Faculty Award from Clark University. The award is given to un-tenured junior faculty members to promote and recognize their outstanding research successes.

Congratulations to Assoc. Prof. Karen Frey for receiving the 2013 Oliver and Dorothy Hayden Junior Faculty Fellowship award. The award is given to an assistant professor or recently tenured associate profesor to promote and recognize their outstaining excellence in teaching and in scholarship, research or creative work.

Asst. Prof. Alex Gardner led an international team of scientists that determined the global contribution of glaciers to sea level rise. The team used satellite data from the NASA’s Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) and Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) missions and field observations to show that glacier wastage accounted for 30% of the observed sea level rise between 2003 and 2009, an amount comparable the sea level contribution from the much larger ice sheets.

Assoc. Prof. Jim Murphy was recently appointed to the Editorial Board of the journal Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers and in February 2013 he held a one-month Distinguished Visiting Fellowship at Queen Mary University, London (UK). In April 2013 he gave an invited presentation at Cornell University’s Institute for African Development as part of a Symposium titled: Growth, Poverty, and Inequality: Confronting the Challenges of a Better Life for all in Africa.

Asst. Prof. Kulakowski testified about his and his students’ research before a subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulation of the Committee on Natural Resources of the United States House of Representatives in Washington D.C.

Asst. Prof. Kulakowski has been awarded $170,000 from the National Science Foundation for a project titled "Spruce Beetle and Wildfire Interactions Under Varying Climate in the Rockies"

Prof. Yuko Aoyama has been invited as one of nine social scientists nationwide to serve on the NSF panel on Interdisciplinary Behavioral and Social Science Research (IBSS). It is a competition conducted by the NSF Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences to promote and support interdisciplinary research by teams of investigators in the social and behavioral sciences.

Nuria Benach (University of Barcelona) who visited Clark in the autumn of 2010 has published a book on Prof. Richard Peet (the third of the series “Espacios Críticos” aimed to make geographical radical thought more available for a spanish-speaking audience). The book includes an anthology of texts written by Prof. Peet as well as an interview and a couple of essays on his intellectual trajectory and the scientific debates, in which he has been involved along his career.  The book was launched last October with public lectures given by Prof. Peet in a crowded Center of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona and at the Catalan Geographical Society.

Asst. Prof. Karen Frey has submitted two NSF proposals that are being recommended for funding. One is a five-year, $2,304,973 proposal titled “Collaborative Research: The Distributed Biological Observatory (DBO) – A Change Detection Array in the Pacific Arctic Region” and the second is a three-year, $943,326 proposal titled “Collaborative Research: Investigating the Influence of Sea-Surface Variability on Ice Sheet Mass Balance and Outlet Glacier Behavior using Records from Disko Bugt, West Greenland."

Asst. Prof. Chris Williams co-authored a study which was recently featured in the high-profile journal Nature Geoscience. The study looked at the ways in which the major drought that struck in Western North America from 2000-2004 impacted the area's carbon uptake and water resources.

Asst. Prof. Dominik Kulakowski was featured in an article titled "Fighting Western wildfires: Does Forest Service have enough air power?" in the Christian Science Monitor, which addressed the issues related to the recent wildfires across the West Coast.

Assoc. Prof. Deb Martin has agreed to take on the newly established position of Special Features Editor for the publication Urban Geography. Her work in this role will include the evaluation of proposals and manuscripts for Special Features, and she will be pro-active in identifying themes for potential Special Features.

Report co-authored by Asst. Prof. Karen Frey stuns scientists with remarkable findings: phytoplankton mega-blooms beneath Arctic sea ice. Read more

Congratulations to the Class of 2012! Please see our web album for photos of faculty, students, friends, and family at the Commencement Ceremony.

Recent PhD research grant awards. Read more