grants - awards - kudos - news
2012 May
Åsa Rennermalm is co-principal investigator of an award of $189,809. The project titled "Towards Hydrologic Understanding of the Greenland Ice Sheet", is being supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Kim Thomas has received a Critical Language Scholarship to study Bengali in Dhaka, Bangladesh for nine weeks this summer through the American Institute of Bangladesh Studies and the Independent University of Bangladesh. A program of the United States Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, the Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) Program is administered by the Council of American Overseas Research Centers and American Councils for International Education. In 2012, 631 scholarships were awarded in thirteen languages. Over 5,200 students applied for the award, which places CLS among some of the most competitive scholarship competitions in the United States. Details on the CLS Bengali summer institute are available at this link.
Kim was also awarded a Foreign Language Area Studies Award to study Bengali for eight weeks at the South Asia Summer Language Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, another highly competitive program. Kim unfortunately had to decline this second award in order to accept the CLS grant. The FLAS Program is administered through the United States Department of Education.
Marion Clement has won a prestigious Henry Rutgers Scholars Award. This honor recognizes the best honors theses written by School of Arts and Sciences undergraduate students. Marion's thesis project, "New Opportunities in Mapping Ethnic Settlement: A Case Study of Mapping Census Ancestry in Middlesex, New Jersey, Using ArcGIS and Google Earth," was supervised by Trevor Birkenholtz. Congratulations to both Marion and Trevor for this outstanding accomplishment.
Robin Leichenko is the Principal Investigator on a research projected titled: "Economic Vulnerability to Climate Change on the Jersey Shore: Promoting Adaptation, Resilience and Sustainability in Coastal New Jersey". Co-PIs on this project are Rick Lathrop, Melanie McDermott and Lisa Auermuller.
2012 April
Amelia Duffy-Tumasz has won two competitive awards to support her dissertation project, "Gendered Seascapes in Senegal." She won the Society of Women Geographers' Pruitt Dissertation Fellowship for fieldwork in Senegal next year. She was also selected to receive a US Dept. of Education Title VI Foreign Language and Area Studies(FLAS) grant to attend an intensive summer language institute for Wolof language training at the University of Florida. Her dissertation examines how seascapes are gendered in Senegal. Fishermen's wives have historically enjoyed first dibs to their husband's daily catch, for example, but in the wake of economic and environmental sea changes kinship-based claims appear to be eroding. To assess how heightened competition for fish is changing the terms of marriages that have historically doubled as business partnerships, she concentrates on two fish production systems: grouper, which is a highly exported and overfished species, and sardines, which are largely consumed in domestic and intra-regional markets.
Irene Zager received a PhD student award to participate in a Quantitative Landscape and Environmental Sustainability Workshop to be held in Durban, South Africa from 3rd-7th July. The Workshop is organized by the Center for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science (DIMACS), the Mathematical Biosciences Institute (MBI), and the University of KwaZulu-Natal with funding provided by the US National Science Foundation, the Society for Mathematical Biology, the International Council for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, the University of KwaZulu-Natal, and other sponsors. The workshop aims to introduce US and African students to each other and to leaders and resources in the field of Quantitative Landscape Ecology in order to lead to long-term contacts and collaborations, and to introduce students to the special problems unique to Africa.
Tabby Fenn received a meritorious fellowship from Hutcheson Memorial Forest from the School of environmental and biological Sciences here at Rutgers, for her proposal: “Generating and Assessing the Accuracy of LiDAR-Derived Data to Map Variability in Sub-Canopy Structure at HMF".
Marion Clement receives the Andrew Hill Clark Award in recognition of outstanding academic acheivement, and for her contributions to the Geography Department as president of RUGS.
Kae Yamane & Sonia Szczesna have been selected for induction into the Phi Beta Kappa national honor society.
2012 March
2012 Summer/Fall Internship opportunity. Kaart Data is seeking to work with students enrolled in the Rutgers Geography Department to assist in the creation, editing & maintenance of our geographic data for emerging markets around the world. Slideshow about the intership (pdf format)
2012 Graduate Student Awards
Bevier Fellowship Award: Abidah Setyowati
Bevier Fellowship Alternate: Kalpana Venkatasubramanian
Dissertation Teaching Award: Eric Sarmiento
Pre-Dissertation Travel/Special Study Award:
Divya Karnad, Charlene Sharpe, Luke Drake, Kim Thomas
Graduate Program in Geography Graduate Teaching Excellence Award: Jennifer Bjerke
Marion Clement and Kae Yamane's "Shantytown Mapping Project" poster, which they created to show the results of their Aresty undergraduate research project. They came in 2nd in the student illustrated paper session at the 2012 Association of American Geographers meetings.
2012 February
Lindsay Campbell is part of a research team which received a grant from the TKF foundation. It is a $47K planning grant to begin working with communities and pulling a team together to submit a full proposal, which will focus on creating/enhancing/restoring urban open spaces and conducting research on open space as sacred space. While TKF was really interested in researching park-user experiences, the team instead proposed a resilience frame in order to study community-based decision-making, planning, and stewardship in response to acute and chronic stressors.
David Robinson explains why the weather has been so warm.
2012 January
Lindsay Campbell's work was featured in the "Faces of the Forest" section of the USDA blog.
2011 December
Kevin St Martin awarded a $125,000 NSF grant for a collaborative project titled: "Marine Spatial Planning and the Role of Community and Environmental Actors." Lisa Campbell at the Duke University Marine Laboratory will serve as Kevin's primary collaborator, and Bonnie McCay is a co-PI.
Asher Siebert's co-authored paper:"Future Occurrence of Threshold-Crossing Seasonal Rainfall Totals: Methodology and Application to Sites in Africa" was selected as the Association of American Geographers Climate Specialty Group 2012 John R. Mather Paper of the Year, to be presented at the AAG New York meetings in February 2012.
Kelly Bernstein has been appointed Business Specialist in the Department of Geography. Kelly has a BA in Psychology (1998) from the University of Maryland and a Master's degree in Educational Policy, Theory and Administration from Rutgers University (2007). She has managed a $5 million annual budget and performed a broad range of other administrative duties on behalf of over 70 Rutgers study abroad programs since 2006.
Briavel Holcomb awarded Distinguished Teaching Honors from the Association of American Geographers. AAG Honors are the highest awards offered by the Association of American Geographers. They are offered annually to recognize outstanding accomplishments by members in research scholarship, teaching,education, service to the discipline, public service outside academe and for lifetime achievement. Although the AAG and its specialty groups make other important awards, AAG Honors remains among the most prestigious awards in American geography and have been awarded since 1951
Trevor Birkenholtz and Åsa Rennermalm each recieved awards from the Rutgers Faculty Research Grant Program. Trevor's project is entitled "Urbanizing Water: Urban Growth and Irrigation in India" ($15,572);Åsa's is "Towards Understanding Greenland Ice Sheet's Riverine Runoff ($18,520).
Trevor Birkenholtz was awarded a $10,000 grant from American Institute of Indian Studies to run a conference at Rutgers on Indian water issues.
2011 November
Marla Emery completed her doctorate in geography at Rutgers University and began work on understanding how and why people use forests. Emery works at the Forest Service's Northern Research Station in Burlington, Vermont. (full article)
Mark Barnes invited to serve as a panelist at the 3rd Annual Barack Obama and American Democracy (BOAD) conference, to be held at Tufts University from March 1st-3rd, 2012. The conference will bring together scholars, activists, academics, and students to discuss, debate, and analyze the wider implications of the Obama administration’s foreign and domestic policy agendas after over three years in office.
Asher Siebert won an "Outstanding Poster Presentation" award at the World Climate Research Program Open Science Conference in Denver (October 24-28 2011). View the poster (pdf file)
Elizabeth Ann Abbatemarco retires from her position as Department of Geography secretary.
2011 October
David Robinson has been elected a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society. "The election recognizes his 'outstanding contributions to the atmospheric or related oceanic or hydrological sciences, or their applications, during a substantial period of years.' This honor is only extended by the society to a maximum of only two-tenths of one percent of the membership."
Dave also received a $265,685 grant from Global Science and Technology, Inc to be part of a national team on a project entitled, "NOAA National Weather Service National Mesonet Expansion".
Theresa Kirby leaves the Department of Geography to become a Research Contract/Grant Specialist for the SEBS Dean's Office.
2011 September
Mark Barnes has been selected to receive the 2012 Jeanne X. Kasperson Student Paper Award from the Hazards Specialty Group. The award will cover his registration fee for the 2012 AAG Annual meeting in New York City, and his presentation will be featured in the Jeanne X. Kasperson Hazards Specialty Group Session at this meeting.
Divya Karnad's research profiled in Southern Fried Science
2011 August
Åsa Rennermalm's research profiled in the NY Times
2011 July
David Robinson profiled in the Star Ledger
Robin Leichenko becomes Director of the Initiative on Climate Society.
Rick Schroeder becomes Chair of the Geography Department.
2011 June
Joanna Regulska has been appointed Vice President for International and Global Affairs, effective July 1, 2011.
Abidah Setyowati wins NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement grant.
Department of Geography wins grant to establish undergraduate research laboratory.
2011 May
Ali Horton awarded the first America's Unofficial Ambassadors scholarship, and was selected for an internship by the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee. Read more
Amelia Duffy-Tumasz was selected as having the best student paper by the African Geographer Specialty Group at the National AAG meetings.
Ken Mitchell was successfully nominated as Aresty Undergraduate Research Mentor of the year by his mentorees, Kae Yamane and Marion Clement.
2011 April
Monalisa Chatterjee won of the 2011 Gilbert F. White Award sponsored by the AAG's Hazards Specialty Group. Since 1994 this annual award has been given to a graduate student whose recent thesis or dissertation is considered to be an outstanding example of hazards geography research.
Laura Schneider has been promoted to Associate Professor.
Richard Schroeder won the Rutgers Graduate School Teaching Award for 2010-2011.
James Jeffers won the Rutgers Graduate School Research Award for 2010-2011.
Mark Barnes won a Graduate Program in Geography Graduate Teaching Excellence award for 2010-2011.
Saemi Ledermann won a Graduate Program in Geography Graduate Teaching Excellence award for 2010-2011.
Debby Scott is the recipient of an IGERT Graduate Training Fellowship from the Rutgers - NSF IGERT Project on Renewable
and Sustainable Fuels.
Sean Tanner has won a Conference on Latin Americanist Geographers, James J. Parsons PhD award for fieldwork.
2010 December
Abidah Setyowati has been awarded a UN Development Program Asia-Pacific Human Development Fellowship
2010 November
Michael Siegel, staff cartographer in the Rutgers Geography Department was selected to receive an Award of Recognition from the NJ Historical Commission, presented to "individuals who have helped to preserve New Jersey history and who have increased public awareness of and appreciation for that history. Photo of Maxine Lurie presenting the award to Michael Siegel.
2010 October
Michael Siegel, staff cartographer in the Department of Geography at the School of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers–New Brunswick, and Peter O. Wacker, emeritus professor in the Department of Geography at the School of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers–New Brunswick, have been selected by the New Jersey Studies Academic Alliance’s Author’s Award Committee to receive the 2010 Author’s Award. The award is for the atlas Mapping New Jersey: An Evolving Landscape. Learn more about Mr. Siegel here or Professor Wacker here.
2010 September
Dr. Tania Lopez Marrero (Assistant Professor) will join our Department and the Department of Latino and Hispanic Caribbean Studies, in the Fall of 2011. For the 2010-2011 academic year she is a Visiting Researcher. Dr. Lopez Marrero received her PhD in Geography from Penn State with an emphasis in human-environment relationships and cartography. Her work includes the widely acclaimed Atlas Ambiental de Puerto Rico (San Juan, Puerto Rico: U Puerto RicoPress, 2006) which she published with Nancy Villanueva Colon.
Samuel Ledermann awarded NSF Dissertation Improvement Grant, “Organic Justice: Non-Traditional Exports and Inequalities in Tanzania.”
Sean Tanner wins AAG Middle State student paper award, "Lawless Lands: the experience of land titles in Guatemala"; and 2010 Hunter Shuster Award, “Ambiguous Territory: Landscapes of Landownership in Post-Civil War Guatemala,” and an RU Grad School predissertation travel award
2010 April
Latoya Jones, who is majoring in geography, has won an all expenses paid internship to Ghana this summer through
the Center for African Studies and the Women and Gender Studies Program. Latoya is Rick Schroeder's RA this year
under the Aresty Program.
2010 March
Stella Capoccia awarded a Rutgers Graduate School Dissertation Teaching Award
2009 November
Sean Tanner won the student paper award at this year's AAG middle states conference in New Paltz, N.Y.
The title of his paper was, "Lawless Lands: the experience of land titles in Guatemala"
2009 October
Mapping New Jersey, An Evolving Landscape is published
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2009 May
James Jeffers, doctoral student in the Department of Geography, has been awarded a PERISHIP Fellowship in Hazards, Risks and Disasters. The award, up to $10,000, supports Jim's dissertation entitled "Confronting Climate Impacts: Local Decision-making, Adaptation and Vulnerability to Climate Change in Ireland's Coastal Cities." The fellowship was inaugurated in 2004 as a collaboration between the Public Entity Risk Institute, University of Colorado's Natural Hazards Research and Applications Center, the National Science Foundation and SwissRe (one of the world's largest reinsurance companies.) Among its missions, the fellowship "supports research that is crucial to advancing the knowledge in the hazards field, as well as ensure that the next generation of interdisciplinary hazards professional has a source of financial and academic support to foster sound development."
Mark Barnes, doctoral student in the Department of Geography, Rutgers University, has been awarded an Eagleton Governor’s Executive Fellowship for the 2010 academic year. Established in 2003, the fellowships are awarded to twelve graduate students from various disciplines and supported by Eagleton and the New Jersey Governor’s Office. Governor’s fellows are provided stipends and participate in the Eagleton Seminar in American Politics in the fall semester and, in the spring semester, each fellow is placed in a NJ state agency or the Governor’s Office.
Adelle Thomas, graduate student in the Department of Geography, Rutgers University, has been awarded the prestigious National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship for her proposal Climate Change: Implications for Caribbean Tourism and Society. The award, totaling over $100,000 includes stipend, tuition and travel support over three years The NSFGRFP “recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees in the US and abroad.”
Neiset Bayouth, doctoral student in the Department of Geography, Rutgers University, has been awarded a Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) for the Arabic Intensive Summer Institute in Amman, Jordan. The Program is sponsored by the US Department of State and the Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC). As part of the program, Neiset will be traveling to Jordan where she will receive instruction in Modern Standard Arabic and participate in socio-cultural, and political excursions aimed at exploring Jordan's history, and its geographical and archeological sites, including the Dead Sea, Madaba, Umm Qais, Ajloun, Dana Nature Reserve, Shawbak Castle, Beidha, Petra, Wadi Ramm, and coastal Aqaba.
2009 April
MaGrann Conference on Climate Change & South Asia (April 16-17, 2009)
"Climate Change In South Asia: Governance, Equity and Social Justice"
Global Goods Workshop (April 23-24, 2009)
"Global Goods: Changing Perspectives on Trade, Human Rights and the Environment"
Robin Leichenko's book "Environmental Change and Globalization: Double Exposures" has been selected for the 2008 AAG Meridian Book Award for Outstanding Scholarly Work in Geography.
click here for more
Joanna Regulska's book is now available "Cooperation or Conflict? The Union, The State and Women, 2008"
co-authored by Malgorzata Fuszara, Magda Grabowska, Joanna Mizielinska
Kevin St. Martin receives tenure and promotion to Associate Professor.
David Robinson, Chair of the Geography Department and State Climatologist,
received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the AAG's Climate Specialty Group.
Dr. Robinson was also received an Environmental Hero Award from NOAA. http://www.noaa.gov/earthday/
Dinali Nelun Fernando, has been awarded the inaugural William H. Greenberg Fellowship for research on climate and environmental change. The fellowship is awarded to a post-qualifying student in a Rutgers Ph.D. program. Administered by the Rutgers Climate and Environmental Change Initiative, the fellowship includes six (6) tuition credits and a twelve (12) month stipend to support Ms. Fernando's research on predicting and monitoring drought in the humid tropics. Ms. Fernando was selected by a committee of faculty members appointed by the CECI leadership.
Elizabeth S. Barron, a doctoral student in the Department of Geography at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, working under the supervision of Richard Schroeder, was awarded the American Association for the Advancement of Science's 2007 Canon National Parks Science Scholarship. The project is titled "Our Morel Dilemma: A Theory of Macro-Fungi Conservation for the U.S. National Park Service." The $80,000 award is for three (3) years and will examine the emergence and development of fungal management and conservation in the US and elsewhere from both sociological and ecological perspectives, using morel mushrooms as a case study.
Laura Schneider, Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, is the Principal Investigator on a new Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation three-year grant totaling $989,934. The project is titled "Ecosystem-level Response to Large Scale Natural Disturbance in Southern Yucatàn: Evaluating Forest Resilience in Protected Areas." Co-PIs on the project are John Rogan (Clark University), Deborah Lawrence (University of Virginia) and Birgit Schmook (El Colegio de la Frontera Sur). The award underwrites investigation into the impact of weather extremes on forests in the Southern Yucatan Peninsula following hurricane events. The research seeks to increase understanding of the forest ecosystem and landscape- level responses following large-scale disturbances and to increase the technical and scientific capacity for science-based approaches to long-term management at agencies at the Calakmul and Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserves.
Kevin St. Martin, Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, is the PI on a $74,108 grant from the Marine Ecosystem-based Management Tool Innovation Fund underwritten by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Called the "Communities-at-Sea Mapper," this project aims to develop a computer-based tool to automate mapping the at-sea domains of fishing communities. The software will serve as a resource for fisheries and marine scientists, fisheries managers, marine-protected area initiatives and coastal communities. Co-PIs on this grant are Bonnie McCay, Human Ecology, also at Rutgers, and Julia Olson, NOAA-Fisheries, Northeast Fisheries Science Center.
