Current Department News

 

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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)

• 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)