University at Buffalo (UB)
The newsletter for the Department of Geography at the University at Buffalo.
📸 Photo by: Geography professor Chris Renschler
In this Issue:
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D. Scott Mackay writes:
I'm pleased to share with you this 2022 edition of The Compass. This issue arrives (we hope) at the tail end of the COVID-19 pandemic, and just a little over two years since the university moved to online teaching in response to the pandemic. Our faculty and students faced this challenge head-on, and as you will read here, they remained productive in their scholarship, education, and outreach activities. During the 2021/22 academic year we saw a return to near-normal in-person activity at UB. Notably for the Department, this return to on-campus activity allowed us to have an exciting slate of colloquium speakers. The success stories herein shared by faculty, students, and alumni are illustrative of the continued impact of UB GEO within the profession and world at large.
I should note some key changes we are seeing to the composition of our faculty. During the 2021/22 academic year Professors Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen and Peter Rogerson retired from UB. But in fall 2020, Professor Andrew Crooks joined the faculty, in spring 2022 we welcomed Clinical Assistant Professor Dennis Choi (UB SIM Programs), and in fall 2022 Clinical Assistant Professor Catherine Jampel will join the faculty. In fall 2023 we anticipate the arrival of Dr. Meredith Palmer to the faculty as an Assistant Professor. Moreover, we will begin the next academic year with searches for two new tenure line faculty to grow our strengths in health geography and economic geography. With these changes come enormous opportunities to strengthen the diversity of our faculty scholarship and education.
This coming year, we invite you to share your updates with us and to participate in our scheduled events, including the colloquium. Finally, I thank everyone who has generously contributed to department activities, events, scholarships, and awards. Your contributions make a difference.
Best wishes,
D. Scott Mackay
Professor and Chair
The Department of Geography once again hosted GIS professionals and UB Geography alumni for a panel discussion on GIS Day. The topic was, “What’s Next? Finding and Keeping a Job in GIS.” The panel included Karyn Tareen, Geocove, Inc.; Lisa Matthies-Wiza, Erie County; Jim Jones, Mode Choice Engineering, PLLC; Greg Coniglio, LaBella Associates; and Rich Quodomine, City of Philadelphia. The event was moderated by GGSA President Alexandra Gould. We are grateful to the many UB alumni and GIS professionals that also served as judges in our Storymaps contest.
A-GIAL Earth Day virtual showcase event held on April 23, 2021
The following presenters were chosen by attendees of the showcase.
The Winners are...
🥇 1st Place: Alexandra Gould
🥈 Runner-up: Vanessa Neff
🥉 Honorable Mentions: Sun Ho Hwang and Kevin Griswold
This award is given by a panel of Geography Alumni judges that evaluate the competitor’s poster during 2-hour session with poster authors being present.
The Winners are...
🥇 1st Place: Qiuyi Zhang
🥈 Runner-up: Jena Jendrowski
🥉 Honorable Mentions: Chenyang Wei
UB - Singapore Institute of Management (SIM)
🥇 1st Place: Li Yun Ooi, Plant-Based Food in Singapore
🥉 Honorable Mentions: Darrel Ang, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Singapore, and Jacylin Tham, The Rojak culture of Singapore
UB - Buffalo Campus
🥇 1st Place: Anthony Bertalli, Tifft Nature Preserve
🥈 Runner-up: Sun Ho Hwang, Green Infrastructure around
🥉 Honorable Mentions: Jonathan Townsend, Bat Conservation in Western New York How GIS can help us better understand and protect regional keystone species
A special thanks to Kimberly Plassche. Kim is the UB Libraries Subject Liaison for Geography. She manages the map collection (housed in the basement of Lockwood Library) and is available to assist with any library research! If she doesn’t know how to find the resource you need, she can help find someone that does.
Dr. Scott Mackay
WBFO-FM 88.7 | By Mike Desmond
Published November 15, 2021
Scientists are learning more and more about how much the fate of trees is determined by what you don't see: the soil water content around the roots.
The general view is that trees are vital in cleaning the air we breathe, that the leaves absorb and store carbon for the lifetime of the tree. For the tree to live and thrive sufficient moisture at the roots is critical. Not enough and the tree will eventually die. Too much can mean the same thing.
University at Buffalo researchers Dr. Scott Mackay and UB alum, Xiaonan Tai ’18 developed new modeling tools that work with data collected in a study of a forested area near Lethbridge, Alberta, looking at water flowing around the tree roots. Mackay is professor and chair of UB Department of Geography and Tai is now an Assistant Professor of Biology at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, after finishing her doctorate at UB.
Dr. Marion Werner
Scholars meet at UB to discuss the social, economic and environmental challenges of glyphosate and other pervasive agrochemicals. Participants from UB included Dr. Werner (back, second from the right), and Geography PhD students Caitlyn Sears (front, center) and Poushali Bhattacharjee (front, right).
Scholars from eight countries gathered over two days in-person and virtually in November 2021 at the University at Buffalo to discuss new social science research challenges in the study of glyphosate, the world’s most widely used herbicide. The workshop allowed scholars from various backgrounds to dialogue on the political, economic, environmental and public health implications of the pervasive use of agrochemicals. Researchers spent the initial day in breakout groups covering topics including agrochemical industry restructuring, social science lenses on toxicity, and emerging geographies of regulation. On the second day, a larger group gathered to share themes, major points of discussion and raise questions. Ultimately, participants in the workshop planned to move forward with a research agenda based on the knowledge gained and shared over the two-day gathering. Dr. Marion Werner co-organized the workshop with colleagues at Ohio State University and the University of Zurich. The event was supported by UB’s Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy, the Department of Geography, and the Community for Global Health Equity.
Dr. Werner was awarded two grants to pursue her research on pesticides using economic geography approaches. In 2020, along with her collaborators, Dr. Werner (PI) received a grant from the National Science Foundation to support research activities and a UB Geography PhD student. The grant (on-going) funds data collection to understand restructuring in the herbicide industry and its development implications. In 2021, Werner (co-PI) was part of a team awarded a grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation to study herbicide trade and production links between China and Latin America.
In May 2022, Dr. Werner completed her three-year term as Editor-in-Chief for Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography after completing two years as a Handling Editor. Antipode publishes six issues a year and is a highly regarded outlet for human geography research.
Dr. Yingjie Hu
National Science Foundation funding will support work by UB faculty members Yingjie Hu and Kenneth Joseph focusing on how Twitter users describe their locations during disasters.
A UB interdisciplinary research team has been awarded a $378,940 grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation to explore how to better utilize the social media platform Twitter for improving disaster response.
Dr. Yingjie Hu, assistant professor in the Department of Geography, College of Arts and Sciences, is the project’s principal investigator, with Kenneth Joseph, assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, serving as co-principal investigator. The team also includes an industry partner, Geocove — a geographic information system (GIS) and disaster management company started by UB alum Karyn Senneff Tareen '98. Graduate and undergraduate students in both geography and computer science will be involved.
In January 2021, Dr. Hu introduced Geospatial Technologies and AI for Britannica Kids’ Encyclopedia. You can watch the video below.
And research by Dr. Hu was also referred to in Forbes on how Americans coped during the COVID-19 pandemic.
New scientific methods let researchers adjust the heat or the moisture provided to trees and see what difference it -- and, in turn, climate change -- can make. - Dr. Scott Mackay
Andrew Crooks, PhD
In 2020, the department hired one new Professor Andrew Crooks, PhD.
Andrew joined us in September 2020, during the pandemic, however, that has not slowed him or his research down. His most recent publication, “Analyzing the Vaccination Debate in Social Media Data Pre- and Post-COVID-19 Pandemic” was published this May with Geography PhD student Qingqing Chen. In the paper they utilized over 11 million tweets from January 2015 to July 2021 to measure and map vaccine sentiments (Pro-vaccine, Anti-vaccine, and Neutral) across the nation. Andrew’s also uses tools such as social network analysis, GIS and agent-based modeling to explore and understand urban areas and more information about this research can be seen at: http://www.gisagents.org. Prior to joining the Department, Andrew was an associate professor of Computational Social Science at George Mason University and he received his PhD in Geography from University College London.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen and Pete Rogerson
After 28 and 35 years with the department, respectively, Professors Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen and Pete Rogerson have moved on to sunnier pastures at Arizona State University. Professor Bagchi-Sen is the Director of the School of Geographical Science and Urban Planning there, and Professor Rogerson is a Professor in the School. Professor Rogerson was chair of the department at UB for five years, and Director of Undergraduate Studies for about 23 years. Professor Bagchi-Sen was chair of the department at UB for six years and Director of Graduate Studies for two terms.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen
Pete Rogerson
During the past year, Professor Rogerson was named to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The fifth edition of Professor Rogerson’s Statistical Methods for Geography was published last year, as was his new Spatial Statistical Methods for Geography. In her last year at UB, Dr. Bagchi-Sen served as the program director of the Human Environment and Geographical Sciences at the National Science Foundation. After arriving at ASU, she and three colleagues founded a new university-wide Global Center for Technology Transfer. They are currently working together on a project looking at the small-town industries and companies of New York State that grew to have national and international markets.
They both look forward to return visits to Buffalo and the department (probably less likely during the winter months, and more likely during the months where Arizona experiences its heat, even though it is a ‘dry heat’). They also look forward to the Buffalo AAG party and maintaining contact with alumni.
Hannah Stokes-Ramos (PhD Candidate)
Hannah’s dedication to designing and leading the Earth, Environment and Climate Lab resulted in winning the UB Graduate School’s Excellence in Teaching Award. Below is a list of awards she has been awarded since 2019.
- Grant recipient, Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Travel and Research Grant, 2020
- Grant recipient, Mark Diamond Research Fund, University at Buffalo, 2020
- Department of Geography Teaching Award, University at Buffalo, 2021
- Excellence in Teaching Award for Graduate Teaching Assistants, University at Buffalo, 2021
- Evelyn L. Pruitt Fellowship for Dissertation Research, Society of Woman Geographers, 2021-22
- PRODiG Fellowship, State University of New York, 2021-23
Jonathan Townsend (PhD Candidate)
Along with teaching, Jonathan has been publishing his work:
Townsend, Jonathan P.; Renschler, Chris S., Aldstadt, Jared. (2021). Chiropteran Chatter in Chautauqua, NY (USA): Using Acoustic Sampling and Geographic Information Systems to Create a Baseline Bat Habitat Dataset for a Changing World. Science Total Environment, 810:152410, doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.152410
Youngseob Eum (PhD Candidate)
Youngseob was named the 2021 awardee of the Dr. L. Michael Trapasso Award for Weather and Climate Impacts. His work investigated the association between extreme temperatures and emergency dept. visits for mental disorders and identified population subgroups more vulnerable to extreme temperatures. He has also co-authored with his advisor, Dr. Eun-hye Yoo entitled “Using GPS-enabled mobile phones to evaluate the associations between human mobility changes and the onset of influenza illness.” Eum, Y., & Yoo, E. H. (2022). Using GPS-enabled mobile phones to evaluate the associations between human mobility changes and the onset of influenza illness. Spatial and Spatio-temporal Epidemiology, 40, 100458.
Naiima Khahaifa (PhD Candidate)
Naiima has been named as an awardee for 2022 of the Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship. This is a nationally prestigious award, administered by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine to advance URM in higher ed. Naiima is the first ever UB student to receive this honor.
Qingqing Chen (PhD Candidate)
Qingqing joined the Geography this spring and has worked hard on publishing.
Journal papers:
- Qingqing Chen, Ate Poorthuis (2021). Identifying home locations in human mobility data: an open-source R package for comparison and reproducibility. International Journal of Geographical Information Science.
- Qingqing Chen, I-Ting Chuang, Ate Poorthuis (2021). Entangled footprints: Understanding urban neighbourhoods by measuring distance, diversity, and direction of flows in Singapore. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems.
Conference paper:
- Qingqing Chen, Andrew Crooks (2021). Delineating a ‘15-Minute City’: An Agent-based Modeling Approach to Estimate the Size of Local Communities. Association for Computing Machinery.
Our Other PhD students
Check out our other PhD students who are outstanding in their fields.
(Jessica Gilbert, Trina Hamilton, Marissa Bell)
Marissa Bell, PhD ’21 and Jessica Gilbert, PhD ’21: Marissa (alumna PhD '21) graduated with her PhD in February of 2021, followed by a celebration with her advisor, Trina Hamilton, and fellow PhD partner in crime, Jessica Gilbert (Alumna PhD '21), at the summer graduation ceremony. In Spring 2021, Marissa started a position as a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Community at Cornell University. Her dissertation was awarded the Gilbert White Dissertation Award from the AAG Hazards, Risks and Disasters Specialty Group and she was elected as the Vice Chair of the Energy and Environment Geography Specialty group of the AAG. She's now working on several publications from her dissertation on nuclear waste siting and new postdoctoral research on engaged research-practice partnerships between communities and academia. Marissa and David also welcomed a furry and hyperactive Siberian husky, Aurora, to the family. Jessica is a PRODiG Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Geography, SUNY Geneseo.
Christine Tjahjadi-Lopez (MA '17): A producer found out about me and my mission in Guatemala via the article below which was published in 2018 by Charles Anzalone. It was an alumni spotlight piece.
Basically, Angelino's Coffee, is creating a docuseries on Coffee and Culture which they are going to share with their customers and then pitch to Netflix and Hulu. After going through a few interviews, Transformación Ballet was selected to be included and they will be filming in Guatemala later this month! They said it will be great exposure and at minimum, will reach their 600,000 customers. Nothing is of course solid, but I just wanted to share and thank you.
The second great news is that, Dance Teacher, the premier dance magazine for dance teachers in the US contacted me to set up an interview to premier my dance program in their magazine! The magazine house has about six other magazines and in middle school I was obsessed with their dance magazine for pre-teens and always wished to be in it. Actually, two years ago I tried to get into Dance Teacher and they never responded. At that moment I wanted publicity for personal gain. I realigned my heart since then to be humbler and now God is opening the doors. It's an exciting process to see!
As an update, the documentary went well and they are donating $10,000 USD which will go towards the academic program's funding for the next 2 years! We are also now working with 3 orphanages and students in the community as before, teaching dance (community and at 3 orphanages), giving English classes, providing group therapy, giving academic support and tutoring!
Chi Ho Sham (MA ’80, PhD ‘84): Over the past two years, despite COVID-19, my journey has stayed exciting and productive. In January 2021, I was humbled to be elected by the Board of Directors as the 140th President of the American Water Works Association (AWWA) for the term from June 2021 to June 2022. AWWA (awwa.org) is an international, nonprofit, scientific, and educational society dedicated to providing effective solutions to manage water. Founded in 1881, the Association is the largest organization of water supply professionals in the world. Later in 2020, I was honored to receive the UB College of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Award as an alumnus of the College for my service. Because of COVID, I received the award at a virtual event from Dean Schulze in April 2021. In June 2021, I received the gavel as the President of AWWA from Melissa Elliott (see photo below). As the world gradually returning to some form of normalcy, I have started traveling to various AWWA in-person events across the country to meet our approximately 50,000 members, 5,000 volunteers, and 150 staff.
A lot is going on with AWWA to address issues such as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, lead, microbial and disinfection byproducts, legionella, and cyanotoxins. Given population increase, economic growth, natural resource extraction, technological evolution, and climate change, we need more bright and young minds to work on drinking water issues from multiple disciplines. For that reason, I have set up a scholarship for an undergraduate student living in the upstate New York region, who has determined a field of study in water research, public health, engineering, finance, IT, communication, or project management with the intent of benefiting the water community.
Samarth Joseph (PhD ’11): Samarth Joseph is the Founder/Executive Director of ESPOIR Youth Programs Inc. and Vice President of Westbury/Carle Place Chamber of Commerce. In February 2020, she received an award for promoting education, multiculturalism, human rights, justice and peace, love and conscience in my community and the world from the United Nations, the Federation of World Peace and Love (FOWPAL), and COJEP International at the United Nations 58th Commission Convention. This included receiving the Clock of Conscience by FOWPAL. Samarth published a three-book series titled It's Not Over Yet in July 2021. The first book is available on Amazon
John Kavanagh (BA ‘02): Early in 2021, John joined Project Kuiper at Amazon with a focus on software product management. Project Kuiper is an initiative to build, launch and operate a constellation of more than 3,000 low Earth orbit satellites to provide low-latency, high-speed broadband connectivity to underserved communities around the world. Starlink from SpaceX is providing a similar service. Both satellite mega-constellations face the interesting geospatial challenge of optimizing the technical possibilities of different orbital mechanics to reach the broadband frontier of human geography. What distribution of satellites at which orbital inclinations can reach the neediest customers soonest? Where to place satellite ground stations on Earth to connect with terrestrial network backbones to minimize round-trip data transport times? How many different customers of different types can be served per geospatial cell given the radio frequency band? At the policy level, government analysts face a 3D geospatial challenge: how to maximize public benefit by "stacking" satellites in orbital shells at different altitudes above Earth to avoid collisions between different constellation systems as thousands of new satellites are delivered to orbit to provide communication and remote sensing capabilities? The space satellite website offers a great visualization of the broadband satellite traffic and geographic coverage today.
Elise Rueckert Esprit (BA ’96): Elise Esprit is currently a partner with Investment Banking Company: Symbol Inc. She lives in San Diego, CA. Symbol specializes in the creation of Variable Rate Demand Notes (VRDN's/bonds) for the nationwide real estate and construction industries. Elise is also a California Real Estate Broker and a lifelong Buffalo Bills fan. For anyone who wishes to contact Elise, eliseesprit@yahoo.com or 858-336-5735.
Daniel Howard (MA ’84, PHD ’06): Dan has been serving the community as Planning Director for the Town of Amherst since 2017.
Paul Scipione (MA ’71): Paul, a former Professor at Monclair State University and SUNY Geneseo (Emeritus), has been enjoying his time with family. His Christmas newsletter, so elegantly displays how proud he is of them and their accomplishments. He has also been enjoying visits from his siblings and former Lew-Port classmates and their families. He has encountered some health issues, but his spirit and good thoughts are aiding in his recovery. His words “Life is good”, are wonderful to hear. Paul has also finished his 2003 Iraq invasion heist novel, Three Wise Men, which is currently being edited. Four of his non-fiction articles and short stories were published in 2021, including his first in the WSJ. He is currently busy on book #13, a thriller about U-boats, Nazi Enigma Machines and a German plot to steal atomic secrets from our Manhattan Project lab at Los Alamos, NM.
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