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Current Department News
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The Department is pleased to
welcome two new faculty members, Dr. Eric Keys and Dr. Julie
Silva. Eric has a doctorate from Clark University and has
taught for 3 years at Arizona State University. His research
interests are in the area of Human-Environment interactions particularly
in Latin America. Julie carried out her doctoral research on
uneven economic development in Mozambique at Rutgers University, and
joins us after a year at the University of Akron. Julie is a joint
appointment with the Center for African Studies.
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The Department now boasts new
computers in all its undergraduate and graduate teaching labs thanks to
a very generous gift of 50 CPUs from Harris Corporation of Melbourne,
Florida. Harris' Geospatial division, which specializes in
remote Sensing and GIS applications, has employed many of our
graduates. We are extremely grateful for their generous
support.
- Mike Binford's research before state cabinet.
The findings of Prof. Mike Binford and his colleagues on the relative
value of commercial forestry in North Florida as a potential carbon
sink will be presented to Charles Bronson, Florida Secretary of Agriculture.
- Awards for graduate excellence in teaching.
As recognition of the contribution that graduate students make to undergraduate
teaching, the Department awards prizes of $100 to Teaching Assistants
who receive superior teaching evaluations in the previous semester.
Scot Crago and Forrest Stevens were rewarded in the Spring for
their efforts during the Fall of 2006
- Congratulations are in order to two members of our department. Prof
. Jane Southworth has been awarded a prestigious University of Florida
Foundation Research Professorship for the next 3 years. Jane follows
Prof. Binford as the second such awardee in the department. Jackie
Hall will receive a fellowship from the American Association of
University Women Educational Foundation while she completes her doctoral
research.
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Dr. Julie Silva is the winner of the American Association
of Geographers' Nystrom Award awarded annually for the best doctoral
thesis in our discipline. Her paper is titled 'Neoliberalization
and inequality in Mozambique: A case study in the use of iterative
mixed methods.' Dr. Corene Matyas was a finalist last year,
and in the year before that UF graduate Dr. Andres Guhl made it to
the same stage. For three consecutive years the Nystrom final has
had some sort of UF representation.
- Risa Patarasuk, a doctoral student was recently awarded a Marilyn
Little Fellowship by Altrusa International to support travel costs for
her fieldwork on environmental change in her native Thailand.
- Joshua Robinson won the prize for the best undergraduate presentation
at the Florida Society of Geographers' Meeting in Jacksonville. The
best poster award went to Daniel Godwin.
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The Department is pleased to welcome two new faculty members, Dr.
Eric Keys and Dr. Julie Silva. Eric has a doctorate
from Clark University and has taught for 3 years at Arizona State
University. His research interests are in the area of Human-Environment
interactions particularly in Latin America. Julie carried out
her doctoral research on uneven economic development in Mozambique
at Rutgers University, and joins us after a year at the University
of Akron. Julie is a joint appointment with the Center for African
Studies.
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The Department now boasts new computers in all its undergraduate
and graduate teaching labs thanks to a very generous gift of 50 CPUs
from Harris Corporation of Melbourne, Florida. Harris'
Geospatial division, which specializes in remote Sensing and GIS applications,
has employed many of our graduates. We are extremely grateful
for their generous support.May 2006: Jane Southworth
and Brian Child received a grant with Granville Barnes
of Geomatics, to investigate the relationship between land tenure
and changes in land use and land cover in southern Africa.
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2007 Recipient of the John and Fawn Dunkle Fellowship Award
May 2007. Cammryne Anderson is the 2007 recipient of the Dunkle Award.
This award of $1000 is made annually to an undergraduate Geography
major who shows sustained academic excellence, involvement in departmental
activities, leadership and strong promise for graduate study. This
year was the sixth year this scholarship was awarded. Previous winners
are Jordan Wright, David Rosenblaum, Nicholas Campiz, Cerian Gibbes
and Lila Schaller.
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2007 Recipients of the Edward Fik Fellowship
May 2007: An award of $500 is made annually to a graduate student
in the process of writing their thesis . The Fik Award is supported
by Prof. Timothy Fik in memory of his late father. This year's winner
is Ashish Patel. Ashish will be writing up his Master dissertation
this summer and starting his doctoral program in the Fall. The results
of Ashish's research were recently presented at the meeting of the
American Real Estate Society. Previous winners are Lin Cassidy, Joel
Hartter and Cerian Gibbes.
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The Glenn R. Anderson Visiting Lectureship
· The Glenn
R. Anderson Visiting Lectureship
The Anderson Visiting Lectureship was created to provide funding to
bring to leaders in various areas within Geography to talk with students
and to learn about the great things going on here at UF. Dr. Stephen
Laposa, Director of the Global Strategic Real Estate Research
Group of Price Waterhouse Coopers delivered two lectures, on the role
of Geography on Foreign Direct Investment policies and spoke to the
graduate students.
- Feb 2006: Jane Southworth and Peter Waylen
received a grant to upgrade the content of the Physical Geography
Lab. course from traditional to digital format, to include interactive
simulations, searches and gaming. The conversion is taking place in
concert with the Center for Instructional Technology and Training, and
is in response to requests for innovations in using technology in instruction.
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2006 Recipient of the Ryan Poehling Fellowship Award
December 2006. An award of $1000 is made annually to a graduate student
who best exemplifies the sustained academic excellence, commitment
to departmental service and leadership of the graduate program which
Ryan displayed. The 2006 fellowship winner is Lin Cassidy ,
joining past winners: Ann Angelheart, Andrés Guhl, Natalia
Hoyos, Jim Rasmussen and Matt Marsik.
- Nov. 12, 2005: Corene Matyas will be one of only
5 finalists for the Nystrom Award at this year's AAG Meetings in Chicago.
We will all benefit from having the Department's name associated
with this prestigious competition for the second year running (last
year Andrés Guhlwas a finalists)
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2004 CLAS Outstanding Alumni Award Recipient for Geography Awarded
to Mr. Juan Del Valle
Sep. 2005. Mr. Juan Del Valle has been awarded the
CLAS 2004 Outstanding Alumni Award for Geography. Mr. Del Valle received
his bachelors in Geography from UF and graduated with a Masters Degree
in Business Geography in 1995. He initially worked with the Geographic
Information Systems division of Blockbuster Entertainment, with whom
he rose to the position of Global Director of Geographic Information
Systems and Strategic Development. Earlier this year he accepted
a position as Senior Vice President of Washington Mutual Bank, and
is responsible for managing the expansion plans of the Seattle- based
$16B bank. The bank presently adds 250 new branches each year. This
is the 3rd year that a Geographer has been one of the CLAS Awards
recipients. He is preceded by Dr. Dick Witmer and Drs. Storm
Richards (PhD 1987) and Jeanne Fillman-Richards (PhD 1990).
- Oct 28, 2005: NigelSmithand
Mike Goulding have just received $240K from the MacArthur
Foundationation for a project titled "Migratory Fish Monitoring and
Capacity Building Project for Madre de Dios River, Southern Peru."
Department News Archive
November 11, 2004 Update (PDF Format)
Sinkhole - Geography Department Newsletter
2003 (PDF Format)
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