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Volume 17, Issue 1 • Summer 20182018 GeogSU18Newsletter24pp.indd 1 8/8/18 10:59 AM GEOGRAPH Volume 17, Issue 1, Summer 2018 This newsletter is a publication of the Department of Geography in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences at Penn State. Designer/editor: Angela Rogers Cover illustration: Tara Mazurczyk Additional editors: Cynthia Brewer, Patricia Craig For inquiries about this newsletter, contact the Department of Geography, 302 Walker Building, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802-5011. Phone: 814-865-3433 Fax: 814-863-7943 Send your news and updates to [email protected] website: www.geog.psu.edu/ blog: sites.psu.edu/dogblog/ www.facebook.com/pennstategeography/ twitter.com/psugeography/ www.linkedin.com/groups/731847 IN THIS ISSUE 3 • From the department head 4 • Students and colleagues remember Peirce Lewis 8 • Cracking the code for sustainable energy 10 • Female firefighters defy old ideas of who can be an American hero 12 • Seed grant supports collaborative research in immersive technologies for research and teaching 14 • Q&A with Robert Brooks 16 • Community updates 17 • MGIS students study abroad while studying online This publication is available in alternative media on request. The University is committed to equal access to programs, facilities, admission, and employment for all persons. It is the policy of the University to maintain an environment free of harassment and free of discrimination against any person because of age, race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, creed, service in the uniformed services (as defined in state and federal law), veteran status, sex, sexual orientation, marital or family status, pregnancy, pregnancy-related conditions, physical or mental disability, gender, perceived gender, gender identity, genetic information or political ideas. Discriminatory conduct and harassment, as well as sexual misconduct and relationship violence, violates the dignity of individuals, impedes the realization of the University’s educational mission, and will not be tolerated. Direct all inquiries regarding the nondiscrimination policy to the Affirmative Action Office, The Pennsylvania State University, 328 Boucke Building, University Park, PA 16802-5901, Email: [email protected], Tel 814-863-0471. U Ed. EMS 19-03 2 Department of Geography Summer 2018 GeogSU18Newsletter24pp.indd 2 8/8/18 10:59 AM From the Department Head Chalking Up Clusters ne of the many pleasures access to employment, education, of leading a department health care, and food that are of geographers is the wide accentuated as urban areas grow rangeO of topics we study and are and lower income regions become passionate about. This year we integrated into global economic all got into a room together and systems. brainstormed about the research Geospatial Big Data Analytics uses themes that draw us together and a rapidly expanding array of sources make us distinctive (a.k.a. faculty that include sensors, GPS-enabled meeting—not your usual source of devices, volunteered geospatial data, fun). It got loud. We laughed. We public health records, and geoparsed complemented and contradicted one place references in text and speech. another and threw a mix of brilliant and silly ideas onto the wall, literally. Justice, Ethics, and Diversity There was an old-fashioned aspect to explores how power and difference it, with me wildly scribbling in chalk operate from the local to the global, on our wall-size blackboard to keep asking how different groups envision up with the storm of interrelated alternative futures and transform the ideas. world around them in more just and sustainable ways. We arrived at a set of research clusters that are inviting to students Population, Environment, and and to collaborators looking for the Governance examines the spatial emphases that resonate with their organization of cultural, political, interests. In conversations with and economic relationships, as well visitors and administrators, the as how these social systems interact clusters elicit surprised interest: “Oh, with the natural environment. I didn’t know that is geography.” The Spatial Modeling and Remote department continues to use the Sensing includes developing tools traditional four subfields of geography and models to understand, detect, to structure our hiring, teaching, and predict interactions within and and curriculum planning—Human, between ecosystems, the atmosphere, Physical, Environment and Society, and the critical zone across scales and GIScience. The six new clusters that range from local to global. show how we are connected across As we’ve built these research the four-field breadth. clusters into our public presence and What are these research and recruiting, an added bit of fun has specialization clusters for Penn State been choosing scalable glyphicons Geography? that are graphic identifiers for each Environmental Change cluster—kind of like nerdy emojis. and Prediction emphasizes Check out how we have used them understanding the biophysical on the department home page and linkages and feedbacks in threading through the images in the environmental systems that sustain research clusters section of our new biodiversity, livelihoods, and website at www.geog.psu.edu. ecosystems services. Food Security and Human Health focuses on spatial disparities in Summer 2018 Department of Geography 3 GeogSU18Newsletter24pp.indd 3 8/8/18 10:59 AM Students and colleagues remember Peirce Lewis Geography professor emeritus Peirce F. Lewis (pictured above) died at Mount Nittany Medical Center, State College, on February 18, 2018. The following article Lewis fit everybody’s I had always thought of is an excerpt from, idea of a geography geography as nothing “Classroom Masters,” professor. more than maps of originally published in “I’m going to show you places; I had never the May/June 1992 issue the cultural landscape considered the impact of The Penn Stater. of the United States and of people on those give you the tools to places or of the places understand why things on people. are where they are, and Lewis handed us how they got to be that a five-page list of By Jodi Vender way,” Lewis continued. important dates in n energetic “Then you will show the history of North man in his late yourselves and me America, along with fifties greeted what you have learned the basic geographical usA by switching off the by going out there features of the United lights and switching on and reading the local States and Canada. a slide projector. landscape yourselves. “Your first assignment “As we plunge into This first slide ... ” is to identify all of these intellectual darkness, let The lights snapped places and features me assure you that after on again. I blinked, not on a blank map and this class, you will never just because my eyes to commit all of these be able to look at the rebelled against the dates to memory.” world in the same way sudden brightness, but We all looked at each again. At least, I hope also because my mind other and groaned. not.” In spectacles and a reeled at the revelations “Before you can khaki field jacket, Peirce I had just encountered. begin to understand 4 Department of Geography Summer 2018 GeogSU18Newsletter24pp.indd 4 8/8/18 10:59 AM Peirce was an inspiration, a mentor, a friend, a window on the world and a giant presence in so many ways. I’m grateful for having had the opportunity to spend as much time with him as I did at Penn State and through our correspondence and occasional visits in the years after. I last saw Peirce when I visited in 2008 for the fortieth anniversary of Coffee Hour. A bunch of us went out for dinner that evening, a group that included Wilbur Zelinsky and Greg Knight, who are now also missed. I also stopped by Peirce and Felicia’s house the next day before leaving town to return to Toronto and spent a couple of hours visiting there, too. It was right before the first Obama election and I know we talked politics. As was his wont, Peirce sent me home with a couple final mementos which I now hold dear along with all the other memories. —Brian Banks ’84g Students and colleagues remember Peirce Lewis why things are,” he talking about. Three: teacher must come to a explained, “You must you have to like the common ground.” know what, when, and students. The question He says the most where they are.” is whether you can successful experiences Chris Gazze ‘91 was a make an impact on occur when students fellow student in that somebody’s mind and teach themselves. soul.” geography course. “I A great example is the was surprised when he He believes that State College walk we started the first class by teaching is a two- had to take for GEOG showing a picture of a way street, that both 102: The American barn and insisting that students and teacher Scene. It consisted of a it was an interesting must provide positive nine-mile trek through cultural artifact,” Gazze reinforcement. “In the streets and alleys of commented. “Come on, some classes “ he the town, after which what could be remotely noted, “students behave we had to write a interesting about a as if they’re brain- twenty- to thirty-page barn? But Lewis’s dead, but even these paper about what we enthusiasm really rubs can sometimes be saw. The amount of off on everyone, so I stimulated.” effort I put into that was willing to suspend Lewis claims to be project was almost my disbelief for a while. “somewhat resentful” as tremendous as the And pretty soon I saw of students who don’t blisters on my feet, but his point.” want to be there, those I learned to see things Lewis himself sees who cross their arms about my environment three prerequisites for and say, “I gotta be here.