University at Buffalo (UB)
Spring on UB's North Campus complete with clear skies, sunshine and flowering trees. 📸 Photographer: Douglas Levere
In this Issue:
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The newsletter for the Department of Geography at the University at Buffalo.
D. Scott Mackay writes:
I am pleased to share with you this Spring 2023 edition of The Compass, the newsletter for the Department of Geography at the University at Buffalo. This issue arrives at the end of an exciting academic year for the Department. As life on campus returned to near-normal pre-Covid-19 conditions, the department ran two open-rank faculty searches in Economic and Development Geography and Health Geography, as part of our disciplinary excellence foci in climate, geo-health and development. The searches, which ran from October to December 2022, brought in nine distinguished interviewees and yielded three new faculty hires, two of whom will be joining the department in August 2023.
During this academic year, we also saw the promotion of three of our current faculty. Professor Yingjie Hu was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure, and Professors Sara Metcalf and Marion Werner were promoted to Full Professor. The other 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 personnel changes. At the beginning of the 2022/23 academic year the Department welcomed our new Department Administrator, Kathryn (Katie) Piscitello, who succeeded Diane Holfelner upon her retirement. We wish Diane well in her retirement and welcome Katie to the UB GEO family. We also saw the departure of Professor Chris Renschler who resigned from UB to take a research leadership position with the USDA ARS in West Lafayette, Indiana. We wish Chris well as he embarks on this new chapter of his career. Professor Catherine Jampel (Teaching Assistant Professor, PhD Clark University) joined the department in August 2022 and is making her mark on a number of our economic geography courses. As mentioned above we have new faculty joining the Department in August 2023 (and another joining in August 2024). In August 2023, Dr. Meredith Palmer (Assistant Professor, PhD UC Berkeley) will join the department after having completed her two-year post doc position at Cornell University, Dr. Julie Silva (Professor, PhD Rutgers) is joining us from the University of Maryland, and Dr. Aniket Aga (Assistant Professor, PhD Yale University) is joining us from Ashoka University in India. We look forward to welcoming Drs. Palmer, Silva, and Aga to the family.
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, faculty searches, scholarships, and awards. Your contributions make a difference.
Best wishes,
D. Scott Mackay
Professor and Chair
Snowfall Prediction Contest
For the second year, students, faculty, staff and alumni were encouraged to submit their predictions for the 2022-2023 Winter Season to Dr. Evans as part of the Geo Snowfall contest. Buffalo snowfalls are unpredictable, and we never know when a blizzard will blow through WNY, but once again Buffalo did not disappoint with the snow.
We want to recognize last year’s winner, (right) Adam Grodek (PhD Candidate) and congratulate this year’s winner, (left) Dr. Chris Larsen.
Winners of the Snowfall Prediction Contest.
It was a tale of two winters this year. Historic snowstorms in both November and December led to the snowiest Oct-Nov-Dec ever. By the time the calendar changed to 2023, we were up to 101.6” of snowfall, with the snowiest months of January and February still to go. That 101.6” compares to 34” of expected snowfall before the new year and actually exceeds the average of 92.8” for entire winters. After three straight years of modest snowfall, it seemed like we were in for a huge year.
And then it stopped snowing. A normal January through April produces 61.4” of snowfall. But 2023 produced below-average snowfall every month this year, including a February in the 15th percentile and an April with no measurable snowfall, something that has happened in only 13% of Aprils. We ended up with 32” of snow in the new year, giving us a still impressive season total of 133.6”, good for 5th most on record.
And what was Chris’s prediction that won him the contest this year? 134” – less than half an inch difference!! It’s hard to get more perfect than that, but there’s an extra little bit of amazement. Chris was also the first person to submit their prediction this year, sending it a mere 39 minutes after the first announcement. This is either proof of incredible skill and preparation, or that when you all are considering your predictions next year you don’t have to think too hard about it. Or maybe Canadians just know snow.
The winner gets bragging rights and a frozen treat!
The “traveling trophy."
The Geography Football pool has been maintained for over two decades with players scattered around the country and sometimes even in Europe and Asia. It is a great way to maintain contact with friends from Geography. During the Fall football season, each week participants try and pick the winners in the NFL games. The “traveling trophy” is sent from winner to winner each year. The trophy was handcrafted in 2002 by Alum Jeff Brunskill, PhD 2005. The donuts represent an old tradition of having the winner bring donuts into the office each week. Look for the email each August inviting you to join the pool. Students, faculty, staff, alumni, friends....anyone can join! There was a tie for first place for the 2022 season. Congratulations to Diane Holfelner and Ben Huang for sharing the prize.
For more information on the pool and how to join in, you can contact the Pool Commissioner at ubgeogfootball@gmail.com.
Each year we honor students who exemplify their hard work in specific research and in-class performance. The Department hosted an award ceremony that was held on April 28, 2023, and partnered with our Geography Graduate Student Association (GGSA) for and End of Semester Celebration.
This year’s award winners are:
- Charles H.V. Ebert Scholarship for Physical Geography: Mogan Bowerman and Ethan Garcia
- Abrahams-Woldenberg Field Scholarship: Festus Adegbola
- Hugh W. Calkins Applied GIS Award: Qingqing Chen and Zhenqi (Ryan) Zhou
- Dr. L. Michael Trapasso Award for Weather and Climate Impacts: Collin O’Connor
Two of our PhD students were also chosen for the UB Excellence in Teaching Award: Qingqing Chen and Collin O’Connor. See Student News for more information.
The awards are funded by donations from our alumni and friends of the department, and you can direct your donation to a specific award by choosing the “search for more” option and typing in your preferred award choice. We are pleased to be able to continue these awards with your donations and we thank all for your most generous support.
In Memoriam:
Members of the Department of Geography family were saddened by the loss of SUNY Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Dr. David M. Mark, renowned Geography professor and extraordinary bird watcher, on September 24, 2022. David joined the UB faculty in 1981. He became an associate professor in 1983 and a full professor in 1987. He was named a SUNY Distinguished Professor in 2007 and continued his research after he became an emeritus professor in 2015.
David was also the Director of the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA), UB Site from 1995-2013. David visited the department quite often, joining fellow faculty members for coffee and conversation, and kept in touch with many of his graduate students. His friend and long-term collaborator, David Stea, honored David in his eulogy poem:
By David Stea
Geographer, bird watcher
Professor, colleague and dear friend
David Mark
Passed into the wherever,
The other world of geographers
Today
Within sight of Niagara Falls
We worked together
In Navajo Nation
For decades
Through many ceremonies
Perhaps one of these
Perhaps not in a hogan
Will honor him
someday
If not
He will still be remembered
By all his colleagues
As an expatriate Canadian
but by me
by our compatriots
always as a friend of the Dine’
The people
As they call themselves
And as they called him
simply “Mark”
the bird man
Of Window Rock
Someday
Coming over a hill
They´ll call out yaá´the
He won´t answer
But a part of him
Is still there
Dr. David M. Mark, SUNY Distinguished Professor Emeritus
Dr. Sara Metcalf, Associate Professor, receives Outstanding Service Award
The System Dynamics Society Outstanding Service Award recognizes individuals that have, on a volunteer basis, made exceptional and outstanding contributions to the Society, and that benefit the advancement and development of system dynamics over an extended period of time. As the name suggests, the awards have been given to people who have done a tremendous amount of work over many years. While the contribution of those above and many other people has been integral to the success of the Society and the field, this year, the Community Service Award Committee decided it was important to recognize people who are currently making a big difference in their contributions.
Dr. Andrew Crooks, Professor
Since joining the department as a professor in 2020, Andrew has been publishing multiple papers with his students, Qingqing Chen and Boyu Wang.
- Chen Q, Croitoru A, and Crooks A.T. (2023), A Comparison between Online Social Media Discussions and Vaccination Rates: A Tale of Four Vaccines. DIGITAL HEALTH, 9: 1–16. doi: 10.1177/20552076231155682.
- Chen, Q. and Crooks, A.T. (2022), Analyzing the Vaccination Debate in Social Media Data Pre- and Post-COVID-19 Pandemic, International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, 110: 102783. Available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2022.102783
- Wang, B., Hess, V. and Crooks A.T. (2023), Mesa-Geo: A GIS Extension for the Mesa Agent-Based Modeling Framework in Python, Proceedings of the 5th ACM SIGSPATIAL International Workshop on Geospatial Simulation (GeoSim 2022), Seattle, WA., pp 1-10.
Dr. Pete Rogerson, SUNY Distinguished Emeritus Professor
Dr. Rogerson has not let retirement slow him down. Pete was invited to deliver the 10th Annual Getis-Ord Lecture at the Western Regional Science Association on the Big Island, Hawaii this past February. His talk was titled, “The Getis-Ord Statistics: Extensions and Lessons.”
Boyu Wang (PhD Candidate)
Boyu joined us in Spring 2022 and has published his new paper.
- Wang, B., Hess, V., and Crooks, A. 2022. Mesa-Geo: A GIS Extension for the Mesa Agent-Based Modeling Framework in Python. In Proceedings of the 5th ACM SIGSPATIAL International Workshop on GeoSpatial Simulation (GeoSim '22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1–10.
Zhenqi Zhou (PhD Candidate) Ryan Zhou was awarded the NSF Research for Graduates (REG) Grant by Human-Environment and Geographical Sciences (HEGS) program in the National Science Foundation’s (NSF), 2022. He also had a first-author paper published and one poster and one oral presentation.
Publications:
- Zhou R.Z., Hu Y., Tirabassi J.N., Ma Y., & Xu Z. (2022): Deriving neighborhood-level diet and physical activity measurements from anonymized mobile phone location data for enhancing obesity estimation. International Journal of Health Geographics, 21, 22.
Presentations:
- Oral presentation (2022): Deriving neighborhood-level diet and physical activity measurements from anonymized mobile phone location data for enhancing obesity estimation, in the GEOMED 2022, Oct. 14, 2022, University of California, Irvine, California, USA.
Poster:
- Presentation (2022): Mapping the accessibility of medical facilities of Wuhan during the COVID-19 pandemic, in the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS) Symposium 2022, Jun. 7-9, 2022, Syracuse, New York, USA.
Collin O’Connor (PhD Candidate)
Also a Winner of UB’s Excellence in Teaching Award, Collin's award is based on his work as a TA for Geo 105 labs (Earth, Environment and Climate) and his role as the instructor of record for Geo 211 (Univariate Statistics). For Geo 211, Collin introduced coding to the course and designed the assignments himself to offer students the chance to learn basic coding while also gaining proficiency in spatial statistics.
Jonathan Townsend (PhD Candidate)
In the 2022 Compass we wrote about Jonathan’s publishing,
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. We’re very happy to announce that Jonathan is the recipient of the Regional Science Consortium’s Research Symposium, Jerry Covert Student Award, winning the 1st place oral presentation for his publishing.
Yue Ma (Masters Candidate)
Yue won 3rd place in the 2023 AAG RSSG Student Illustrated Paper Competition at the Annual Conference. Yue’s poster was titled “Forecasting Vegetation Dynamics in and Open Ecosystem by Integrating Deep Learning and Environmental Variables.”
Qingqing Chen (PhD Candidate)
Winner of UB’s Excellence in Teaching Award, Qingqing award is based on her work as a TA for two labs that she taught for GEO481/506: Geographic Information Systems. Students were enthusiastic about her effective teaching and her willingness to work with them through difficult material in the classroom and in her office hours.
Along with winning the UB’s Excellence in Teaching Award, second year student, Qingqing Chen, has worked on publishing three more papers:
- Chen Q-Q., Croitoru A., and Crooks A., 2023. “A Comparison between Online Social Media Discussions and Vaccination Rates : A Tale of Four Vaccines”, Digital Health. 10.1177/20552076231155682 2022
- Chuang I-T., Chen Q-Q. and Poorthuis A., 2022. “Categorizing Urban Space based on Visitor Density and Diversity : A View through Social Media Data”, Environment and Planning B : Urban Analytics and City Science. 10.1177/23998083221139848
- Chen Q-Q. and Crooks A., 2022. “Analyzing the Vaccination Debate in Social Media Data Pre- and Post-COVID- 19 Pandemic”, International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation. 10.1016/j.jag.2022.102783
Our Other PhD students
Check out our other PhD students who are outstanding in their fields.
Renad Aref, MA ’16: Renad launched La Reina Charm in February 2022, combining her love of coin collecting and jewelry making into a business. La Reina, translated as “The Queen Charm”, reflects Aref’s interest in showcasing powerful women in history, such as Cleopatra and Helvetica, the female national personification of Switzerland. She also showcases her family history with ties to Palestine and Puerto Rico. Renad Aref is a UB alumna, earning a bachelor’s degree in economics in 2011 and a master’s degree in geographic information science in 2015. She has worked at UB for about 10 years at GSE and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
Chunyuan Diao, PhD, ’17: Congratulations to Dr. Diao on receiving the UCGIS Early/Mid Career Research Award. This award is to celebrate the outstanding research record of innovative ideas or methods that lead to research impacts on the theory and/or practice of GIScience or GI Technology in her early-mid career. Chunyuan is an Assistant Professor in the Geography Department and GIScience at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Thank you for your support of the Department of Geography! With the support of alumni and friends, we can access vital resources to enhance our department and provide support for students, research projects and programs. We are grateful for your generosity.
You can support your department and help to provide for our students by making a gift online: