FSU Geography Newsletter 2010 Gaining a Reputation for ...

FSU Geography Newsletter 2010
Chair’s Column
Gaining a Reputation for GIScience
The Geography Department continues to
promote excellence in spatial research,
particularly the development and application of
geographic information science (GISci) for
dealing with many questions on human‐
environmental interactions. Indeed the
department is rapidly building an enviable
reputation for GIS research and teaching. The
master’s degree in GIScience has established
national credibility in the way it balances
theoretical developments in spatial
representation with technical operations in
spatial analysis. Demand for GIS from students
and employees was now high enough to
warrant the creation of an online graduate
certificate in fall 2010. Thanks are due to
Academic & Professional Program Services for
their financial support in allowing geography
faculty to be released from regular teaching and
develop online courses for the certificate.
GISci educates and trains students to not only
map or position the world using GPS but to also
synthesize problems and advocate alternate
solutions. The GISci alumni already stand at 91,
starting with 12 students in 2005‐2006 and
ballooning to 35 students currently enrolled in
the 2010‐2011 year. Many have secured
rewarding careers in the Florida public sector
with institutions such as the Department of
Environmental Protection, the Department of
Health, NW Water Management, Natural Areas
Inventory, the Department of Transport, and
Leon County GIS. Others have ventured beyond
Florida or into the private sectors; the Michael
Baker Corporation in Baton Rouge and Louisiana
Tech University, and Spatial Networks in Tampa,
UF Fort Lauderdale Research and Education
Center and Citizens Property Insurance in
Tallahassee respectively.
The job titles vary to some degree but
commonly orbit around “GIS manager,”
“geospatial analyst,” and “GIS technician.”
Collin Fridley (Masters GIS 2007) has been
working as a GIS Specialist for the US Army. He
says, “working for the Army has proved to be a
fruitful career that's full of great opportunities.
I'd recommend the master's in GIS program at
FSU to anyone interested in pursuing or building
upon a career in GIS”. Scott Weisman (Masters
GIS 2008) has been so successful at Leon County
GIS that he now teaches a class on the same
program he graduated from, his course is “GIS
and Government.” And finally, Brenda Green
(2006) works for the GIS & Communications
Services, at the John Scott Dailey Florida
Institute of Government. She says, “my time as
a GIS Graduate Student was time very well
spent, and I greatly appreciate the efforts of
each of my professors as they shared

information and insights into cutting edge
technologies, while instilling the ideals of best
practices and the benefits of good science to
humanity. I was fortunate to win a competitive,
12 month internship with the Florida Institute of
Government at Florida State University while
still in the MS‐GIS program and remain happy
with this group as a career professional, four
years later. One of our most recent
accomplishments is currently highlighted on the
FSU website. I am very pleased to have played a
role in this endeavor.”
http://www.fsu.com/Featured‐Stories/FSU‐
helps‐North‐Florida‐region‐secure‐30‐million‐in‐
federal‐funding‐to‐increase‐high‐speed‐
Internet‐connectivity‐in‐rural‐areas
In other news, three doctoral students
successfully defended their dissertations: Kelly
Watson who took up employment in the
Department as a full‐time teaching instructor in
geography; Kelsey Scheitlin who is now an
assistant professor of geography at Longwood
University in Virginia; and Sunny Sim who is an
assistant professor of geography at the
University of North Alabama. In addition, eight
master’s degrees in geography were awarded.
Faculty News
Victor Mesev
Victor Mesev, Professor
& Chair, Bellamy 323A,
850/645‐2498,
vmesev@fsu.edu.
Victor’s research is on
the integration of GIS
and remote sensing. He teaches courses on
maps and advanced geographic information
science. He recently presented his on urban
remote sensing at conferences in Chile and
China, as well as completing work on the use of
GIS in unraveling the distribution of sectarian‐
fueled deaths in Northern Ireland (Annals of the
Association of American Geographers).
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Jim Elsner, Shaw Professor,
Bellamy 310, 850/644‐8374,
jelsner@fsu.edu.
Jim’s research explores the
tracking of hurricane activity.
He teaches quantitative
methods courses and storm
chasing. An international expert on hurricane
tracking and damage Jim frequently publishes in
Geophysical Research Letters and for the
American Meteorological Society. He holds
annual meetings on hurricanes and climate
change.
Phil Steinberg, Professor,
Bellamy 305, 850/644‐8378,
psteinbe@fsu.edu
Phil is the director of FSU’s
Social Science & Public Affairs
Living‐Learning Community
and chair of the FSU chapter of the United
Faculty of Florida. Phil was recently awarded a
major grant ($377,000) from the National
Science Foundation to conduct research on
Arctic sovereignty claims and had articles
published in the Annals of the Association of
American Geographers and Political Geography,
as well as presenting at international confer‐
ences in Canada, Finland, and the United States.
Phil’s international reputation was further
recognized when he was asked to join the
editorial board of The Journal of the Indian
Ocean Region and named reviews editor of
Political Geography. His work on Arctic
sovereignty was widely publicized by a number
of media outlets including USA Today and The
Toronto Globe & Mail.
Jay Baker, Associate Pro‐
fessor, Bellamy 303,
850/644‐8380,
jbaker@coss.fsu.edu.
Jay investigates human
responses to natural
hazards and emergency
preparedness, especially as a result of hurricane

activity. He teaches courses in natural hazards
and physical geography. Recently Jay
contributed a chapter to a book dealing with
the use of survey methods in transportation
research and had an article about household
preparedness for hurricanes accepted for
publication in Applied Geography. He also
conducted a study for the Florida Department
of Community Affairs dealing with evacuation of
tourists in the Florida Keys and is starting two
studies concerning hurricane evacuation with
support from the Florida Catastrophic Storm
Risk Management Center. He was a keynote
speaker at the National Evacuation Conference
in February, and his work in organizing the
National Hurricane Conference continues.
Tony Stallins, Associate
Professor, Bellamy 317A,
850/644‐8385,
jstalllin@mailer.fsu.edu.
Tony continues his research
into urban lightning and
teaches biogeography and
research methods. This year
Tony made breakthroughs
in the climatological radar delineation of urban
convection (published in the International
Journal of Climatology) and urban cloud‐to‐
ground lightning (in Earth Interactions).
Xiaojun Yang,
Associate Professor,
Bellamy 321, 850/644‐8373,
xyang@fsu.edu.
Xiaojun works on estuarine
remote sensing and teaches
classes on geovisualization
and environmental GIS, remote sensing and
geovisualization. Recently he published Remote
Sensing and Geospatial Technologies for Coastal
Ecosystem Assessment and Management, and
co‐authored an edited volume, Remote Sensing
of the Earth Surface Process. Xiaojun also co‐
chaired the scientific committee for the Second
International Conference on Earth Observation
for Global Changes in Chengdu, China, and was
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honored as a senior investigator for an
international research partnership project
‘Ecosystem Processes and Services’ (funded by
the Chinese Academy of Sciences and China’s
State Administration of Foreign Experts) for the
next five years.
Mark Horner Associate
Professor, Graduate
Director, Bellamy 306,
850/644‐8377,
mhorner@fsu.edu.
Mark continues to
manage our graduate
students and continues to
work on research looking at GIS and hurricane
disaster relief. He teaches GIS, spatial data
analysis, and urban modeling. Mark continues
his research on the spatial modeling of
hurricane disaster relief (Environment and
Planning B) and the role of Voronoi diagrams in
GIS (International Cartographic Association’s
specialist meeting in Sweden).
Lisa Jordan, Assistant
Professor, Bellamy 311,
850/644‐8386,
ljordan@fsu.edu.
Lisa is focused on issues
of fertility, religion and
population. She teaches
classes in GIS and medical geography, and
recently helped develop a web‐based GIS tool
for USAID called ‘Population Explorer.’ It was
used in planning response to disaster in the
aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti, with plans
to formally incorporate the tool into the USAID
Famine Early Warning Systems website. Details
are currently featured in Field Exchange, a
magazine published by the Emergency Nutrition
Network.
Tingting Zhao, Assistant
Professor, Bellamy 304,
850/644‐8379,
tzhao@fsu.edu.
Our most recent faculty

addition, Tingting conducts research on
accounting carbon impacts from residential
development across the U.S. She teaches
environmental science, GIS customization, and
landscape ecology. Recently Tingting and Mark
Horner have both been involved with FSU’s
IESES (Institute for Energy Systems Economics
and Sustainability) initiative focusing on several
projects dealing with interactions between
transportation and energy consumption. They
jointly submitted two manuscripts to a special
issue on energy to be published by the
geography flagship journal addressing energy
sustainability and carbon mitigation.
Kelly Watson, Instructor,
Bellamy 309, 850/644‐
8375, kcw03c@fsu.edu.
Kelly is now a full‐time
instructor and our
undergraduate advisor for
the environmental studies
and geography majors.
She has also taken the role of program director
for the online graduate certificate in GIS. And
yet Kelly continues her research on environ‐
mental issues conservation and cultural impact.
Patrick O'Sullivan, Emeritus Professor, Bellamy
302, 850/644‐8381. Pat teaches classes on
Europe and Britain & Ireland.
Mort Winsberg, Emeritus Professor. Mort teaches
classes in Latin America and Florida.
John Fradel, Adjunct. John continues to teach our
very large classes in world geography, Europe,
and the Middle East.
Graduate Student News
Kelsey Scheitlin (PhD 2010) successfully
defended her dissertation, “Construction and
application of a spatial hurricane climatology.”
Sunny Sim (PhD 2010) successfully defended
4
her dissertation, “A geospatial approach to
measuring and modeling the impact of urban
growth on ecosystems: Orlando case study.”
Kelly Watson (PhD 2010) successfully defended
her dissertation, “Tupelo Forests and Honey
Production along the Apalachicola River of
Northwest Florida: Livelihood Preservation and
Forest Conservation in a Changing Rural
Landscape.”
Congratulations to Michael Nesius for been
awarded a National Science Foundation
Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement
Grant for "The Evolution of Food Networks:
Foodscale Connectivity, Egocentric Networks,
and Social Contagion in Community‐Supported
Agriculture."
Congratulations to Jill Malmstadt, whose paper,
“risk of strong winds to Florida cities” was
accepted in the American Meteorological
Society's Journal of Applied Meteorology and
Climatology. She also presented this work at the
29th Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical
Meteorology in Tucson, AZ.
Congratulations to Adam Keul for being
awarded a National Science Foundation
Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement
Grant, for his dissertation on "social spatializa‐
tion in the Atchafalaya Basin."
Staff

Congratulations to Brenda Daniels on her
marriage to Roosevelt Lamb. And to Christina
Dippre, and Shawn Lewers for keeping the
Department ticking.
Departmental Publications
Jay Baker 2010 Household preparedness for the
aftermath of hurricanes in Florida Applied
Geography
Jay Baker 2009 Capturing travel behavior during
exceptional events In Transport Survey
Methods: Keeping up with a Changing World
London: Emerald
Jim Elsner, T Jagger and R Hodges 2010 Daily
tropical cyclone intensity response to solar
ultraviolet radiation Geophysical Research
Letters 37
T Jagger and Jim Elsner 2010 A consensus
model for seasonal hurricane prediction
American Meteorological Society
K Scheitlin, Jim Elsner, J Malmstadt, R Hodges
and T Jagger 2010 Towards increased utilization
of historical hurricane chronologies Journal of
Geophysical Research 115
J Malmstadt, Jim Elsner and T Jagger 2010 Risk
of strong hurricane winds to Florida cities
American Meteorological Society
5
Mark Horner 2010 Exploring the sensitivity of
jobs‐housing statistics to imperfect travel time
information Environment and Planning B 37
367‐375
Mark Horner 2010 How Does Ignoring Worker
Class Affect Measuring Jobs‐Housing Balance?
Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis Transportation
Research Record
P Maliszewski and Mark Horner 2010 A spatial
modeling framework for siting critical supply
infrastructures Professional Geographer
F Asumda, Lisa Jordan 2008 Minority youth
access to tobacco: A neighborhood analysis of
underage tobacco sales, Health and Place 15
140‐147
Lisa Jordan, B Watkins, P Biegon, M Mwangi
and R Rose 2010 Practical approaches to spatial
estimation of disaster‐affected populations
International Journal of Applied Geospatial
Research 1
Victor Mesev 2010 Classification of urban areas:
inferring land use from the interpretation of
land cover In T Rashed and C Jurgens (Eds)
Remote Sensing of Urban and Suburban Areas
Berlin: Kluwer
S Myint and Victor Mesev 2010 A comparative
analysis of spatial indices and wavelet‐based
classification Remote Sensing Letters 1
Tony Stallins, M Nesius, M Smith and Kelly
Watson 2010 Biogeomorphic characterization
of floodplain forest change in response to
reduced flows along the Apalachicola River,
Florida. River Research and Applications 26
M Bentley, W Ashley and Tony Stallins 2009
Climatological radar delineation of urban
convection for Atlanta, Georgia International
Journal of Climatology
G Hannes, Phil Steinberg, J Tash, S Fabiano and

R Shields 2010 Contested sovereignty in a
changing Arctic Annals of the Association of
American Geographers 100
Phil Steinberg 2009 Key West’s conch republic:
building sovereignties of connection Political
Geography
Xiaojun Yang 2009 Artificial neural networks for
urban modeling In M Madden Manuel of
Geographic Information Systems ASPRS
Xiaojun Yang 2009 Spatial interpolation In H
Karimi Handbook of Research on Geoinformatics
IGI Global
Tingting Zhao, K Bergen, D Brown, H Shugart, V
Kraruk 2009 Scale dependence in quantification
of land‐cover and biomass change over Siberian
boreal forest landscapes, Landscape Ecology
S Qi, D Brown, Q Tian, L Jiang, Tingting Zhao and
K Bergen 2009 Inundation extent and flood
frequency mapping using Landsat imagery and
digital elevation models (DEMs) GIScience and
Remote Sensing 46
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We are always striving for excellence in
teaching and research and would appreciate
any tax‐deductible donations our alumni and
friends can give us to raise our international
reputation even higher. Last year many of you
kindly sent us generous donations which have
been used to purchase equipment and software
and to subsidize graduate student travel to
conferences. Please make out checks to the
“Harold McConnell Fund” and send to please
send to:
Chair, Dept. of Geography
323 Bellamy Building
113 Collegiate Loop
Florida State University
Tallahassee, FL 32306‐2190, USA
Visit us at:
http://www.coss.fsu.edu/geography/index.html
THANK YOU!
Support FSU Geography