Department of Geography The George Washington University F A L L 2 0 1 3 Notes from the Chair This fall marks the 70th year of the University of Singapore where she is teaching, Department of Geography at GWU. Our conducting research and enjoying her much deserved In this Issue... department continues to thrive with over 150 year-long sabbatical. She will be back in July 2014. Visiting Scholar from Iran P.3 majors in Geography and Environmental Studies, Nikolay Shiklomanov was awarded tenure this spring 25 graduate students, and the creation of a new and promoted to Associate Professor. We also have New Graduate Award P.4 GIS Certificate Program to begin in 2014. We just added two new faculty members to our department; completed a major Academic Program Review that Dr. Dmitry Streletskiy, a climatologist and Arctic Funded Research P.12- 13 demonstrated the growth of the department and specialist, changed his status from Research Student & Alumni News P.18 the need for new faculty lines in human, physical Associate to Assistant Professor and Dr. Nuala and technical aspects of the discipline. Last year Cowan (MA in Geography in 2004) rejoined our we taught over 2,000 students in our courses! department as a fulltime faculty member and Geography is alive and well at GW—a Director of the GIS Certificate Program. Dr. Qin Yu, a point underscored by the recent senior seminar post-doc from the University of Virginia, is Professor camping trip at Mason Neck, Virginia, October 11- contributing to our research on environmental 13, 2013 where 32 geography majors and change in the Arctic as a Research Associate. We are Mona Atia’s professors David Rain and Marie Price bonded in now 12 fulltime faculty. New Book the rain, gathering data on topics ranging from If you have not visited the department invasive species, birdlife, trail access, and landuse recently, there are several events detailed in the Page 5 changes. We are one of the few departments at newsletter to entice you to return to Foggy Bottom The Department is pleased the university that has such a program, and it this fall. On the back of this newsletter are three would not be possible without financial scheduled talks held on Friday afternoons in the to announce the release of contributions from our alumni for which we are department seminar room, all are welcome. We also exceedingly grateful. In fact, many of our recent have a book signing party on November 14th for Dr. “Building a House in Heaven: alumni participated in the senior field trip. Mona Atia’s new book, Building a House in Heaven, Pious Neoliberalism and As the following pages attest, there is based on years of fieldwork in Cairo, Egypt. That much happening as our faculty, graduate students same evening Professor Joe Dymond with the Islamic Charity in Egypt” by and undergraduates are busy conducting research International Development Studies program has an from Siberia to Ghana; receiving grants from the event on the relevance of Open Source software to Assistant Professor Mona NSF and NASA; interning with organizations such development. For more information about these as the National Geographic Society and the events, see our webpage. Finally, our thanks to Atia. Environmental Protection Agency; and sharing our Socorro Lopez, a Geography junior, for her invaluable findings at conferences and in academic assistance in preparing the newsletter. Studying the publications. This fall our chair, Elizabeth Chacko, Urban Transition is a visiting Fulbright Scholar at the National — Marie Price, Acting Chair in Ghana Page 13 Dr. Engstrom is part of a team that was recently awarded a $1 million dollar NASA grant to study the urban transition and its relationship to land use and land cover change in Ghana. The growing Department of Geography — (Top row from left) David Rain, Michael Mann, Richard Hinton, Joe Dymond, Ryan Eng- strom & Lisa Benton-Short. (Bottom row from left) Qin Yu, Mona Atia, Mojtahed-Zadeh (Visiting Scholar), Marie Price, Nuala Cowan & Melissa Keeley. Not pictured: Elizabeth Chacko, Nikolay Shiklomanov & Dimitry Streletskiy P A G E 2 New Faculty: Dr. Dmitry (Dima) Streletskiy Born in Moscow, Russia, Dr. Streletskiy completed his degrees in geography (Moscow State University, MS 2005), and climatology (University of Delaware, PhD 2010). His research is focused on understanding the diverse impacts of cli- mate change on ecosystems, population and overall sustainability of the Arctic regions. After completing his PhD, Dr. Streletskiy worked on various NSF-founded projects and taught several courses for the GWU Deparment of Geography. Dr. Streletskiy’s research combines field observations, GIS and modeling tech- niques to link cross-disciplinary approaches in evaluation of diverse impacts of cli- mate change in the Arctic. Two NSF-founded projects reflect this work. One five- year project, established in collaboration with the Elliott School of International Affairs, is focused on supporting a research network on urban sustainability in Arc- tic Russia. The other is a three year project in collaboration with the University of New Hampshire that studies the impacts of climate change on hydrology in North- ern Eurasia. In July, Dr. Streletskiy went to Siberia where he conducted field research for the projects. He also led an International Field Class on Permafrost. The field class, co- organized with Moscow State University for the third time, brought together nine students interested in various aspects of Arctic systems ranging from climate change to human impacts. Upon returning from Siberia, he went to Alaska to join the CALM team to collect field data on the permafrost active-layer. Dr. Streletskiy is excited to continue working at the Department in his new position. New Post-Doctoral Research Assistant: Dr. Qin Yu Dr. Qin Yu is a post-doctoral research scientist, currently working with Dr. Ryan Engstrom, Dr. Nikolay Shiklomanov and Dr. Dmitry Streletskiy on various Arctic and Africa projects at the George Washington University. Her primary research interests focus on modeling and monitoring vegetation dynamics in various re- gions. She expects to establish and expand her research based on her previous work in the Arctic and other vulnerable ecosystems. She hopes her research can be part of the growing Arctic research group here at the Department of Geogra- phy. Dr. Yu received her B.S. (2001) in Earth Sciences from Zhejiang University and M.S. (2004) in Cartography and GIS from the Institute of Remote Sensing Applications, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Dr. Yu obtained her Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences from the Department of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia in 2012. Her dissertation research examines the individual and interaction effects of environmental controls (climate and climate change, soil, herbivore and land use change) on tundra plant communities using ecological modeling and remote sens- ing methods at local, regional and circumpolar scales. After graduating, she col- laborated with Dr. Amato Evan as a Research Associate on Sahara dust impact on four major regions based on CMIP5 data analyses. Dr. Yu is author of several peer- reviewed and edited publications. P A G E 3 New Director of the GIS Certificate Program: Dr. Nuala Cowan Nuala Cowan has been teaching a range of geospatial techniques courses with the Department of Geography since 2006. During this time Ms. Cowan has also conducted research for the Center for Urban & Environmental Research, the ge- ospatial research arm of the Geography Department. Nuala recently returned to the department as the Director of the GIS Certificate Program, due to launch in Fall 2014. Ms. Cowan completed her doctorate at the GWU Institute of Crisis Disaster & Risk Management (ICDRM) in 2013. Her thesis research focused on developing a geospatial analysis framework to reconcile humanitarian needs with resource provision, and the application of GIS to this issue. To learn more about the GIS Certificate Program, contact Dr. Cowan at [email protected]. The Department Welcomes Visiting Scholar: Dr. Pirouz Mojtahed-Zadeh from Iran Pirouz Mojtahed -Zadeh is an Iranian political geographer and historian. Professor Mo- jtahed-Zadeh obtained his Ph.D. in Political Geography from the University of Oxford. Pirouz Mojtahed-Zadeh is a well-known auk-scholar of cations in Persian include; The Philosophy of Geopoli- Iran with expertise on territorial and boundary dis- tics and Geopolitics of the Virtual Space, and his publi- putes, especially those in the region of the Persian cations in English include Small Players of the Great Gulf. He contributed to the adjudication process of the Game and Boundary Politics and international bound- Bahrain-Qatar disputes at the International Court of aries of Iran, while Maritime Political Geography: The Justice (judgment delivered in March 2001). Persian Gulf Islands of Tunb and Abu Musa is in the process of publication in the USA. He currently teaches geopolitics and political geogra- phy at the University of Tehran. He has been an advi- Dr. Mojtahed-Zadeh is a member of the Academy of sor of the United Nations University (Tokyo) and has Persian Language and Literature and a number of aca- published more than 30 books, many book-chapters demic societies. He retired from Chairmanship of the and a large number of research papers and encyclope- Urosevic Research Foundation of London in 2011, af- dic entries in English and Persian, some of which have ter reaching the age of 65. been translated into other languages. His latest publi- P A G E 4 New Dorn C. McGrath, Jr. Award Created to Recognize Graduate Student Achievement In May 2013 the Department of Geography created the Dorn C. McGrath, Jr Award to recognize outstanding scholarship by a graduate student in the Department of Geography. The Award is named for the former Department Chair, Dorn McGrath, who led the Department of Geography from 1996 to 2003.