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Colloquium Series: Spring 2012

All colloquia are held on Friday afternoons, 3.30 pm-5.00  pm, in the Callcott Building, Room 201, unless otherwise noted.  Pre-colloquium reception starts at 3.00 pm.  All university faculty and students, as well as members of the public, are welcome.  Please contact Caroline Nagel, colloquium coordinator, for further information (cnagel@mailbox.sc.edu).

A number of Carolina Geography students received honors or awards during the last year. Read the details here.

Several Carolina faculty and students received honors or awards at the 2011 AAG held in Seattle. Read the full story here.

Dr. Cary Mock recreates 'The Great Louisiana Hurricane of 1812' using maritime records, and has uncovered new information about its intensity, how it was formed and the track it took. His account of the 'Great Louisiana Hurricane of 1812' appears in the current issue of the Bulletin of the American Met Soc, a top journal for meteorological research.

“It was a lost event, dwarfed by history itself,” said Mock. “Louisiana was just in possession by the United States at the time, having been purchased from France only years before, and was isolated from the press.” ... read the complete article from the USC Media Relations website.

Dr. John Kupfer, Dr. Greg Carbone and doctoral candidate Kimberly Meitzen, along with Carolina biologist Dr. Dan Tufford have been studying the effects of climate change on the largest remaining old-growth floodplain forest remaining in North America, Congaree National Park. Congaree N.P. is just a short 30 minute drive from the campus and provides an extended laboratory for research on a variety of climate and climate change issues. The project is one of about a dozen around the country being funded by the National Park Service to look at the impact of climate change at the nation’s parks. Read the complete story written by the University's Office of Media Relations at: http://www.sc.edu/news/newsarticle.php?nid=1394&pg=1

Dr. Dave Cowen will serve as Chair of the National Geospatial Advisory Committee. His appointment came from Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar. The Committee will provide advice and recommendations to the Federal Government related to the management of national geospatial programs and the development of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure. The Committee will review and comment on geospatial policy and management issues and provide a forum to convey views representative of non-federal partners in the geospatial community.

Dave has also been named an “Esri Hero". Read the article at:
http://www.esri.com/news/arcnews/spring11articles/saving-the-world-one-parcel-at-a-time.html

Drs. Ed Carr, Susan Cutter, and Kirstin Dow will have key roles in upcoming reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Dow and Carr will be involved with the compilation of a volume on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability associated with climate change. Dow will serve as a lead author for the report’s chapter on adaptation, opportunities, constraints and limits, while Carr will serve as a review editor for a chapter on rural areas. Cutter is a coordinating lead author of Chapter 5 of the IPCC Special Report on “Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation."

Dr. John Kupfer is this year's recipient of the Southeast Division of the Association of American Geographers Research Honors Award. The award recognizes John's biogeographical and landscape ecology research, emphasizing spatial analysis and dynamics of ecosystems across space. John's work on the processes associated with fragmented forests has particular relevance as land use change causes increasing fragmentation of wooded areas. Collectively ,his contributions have spanned from theoretical to applied, from geography outlets to those across a broader range of disciplines, and from process-based studies to the geographical techniques that enhance our understanding of the spatial traits of these processes. Dr. Kupfer's findings have direct application to ecosystem management, including the location and extent of tree harvesting or buffering around rivers. It is no surprise that he has developed a very close working relationship with scientists at the Congaree National Park. He has aided their understanding of riparian forests and the role of forests on river flow and channel adjustment.

Dr. David Cowen (Carolina Distinguished Professor Emeritus) been awarded this year's Robert T. Aangenbrug Distinguished Service Award from the Geographic Information Science and Systems Specialty Group of the AAG.  The AAG GISSG established its Distinguished Career Award in 2004 and named it in honor of Robert T. Aangeenbrug. The GISSG-SG makes this award to a scholar in Geographic Information Science and Systems for their substantial contributions to the field. 

Previous recipients are:
2005       Roger Tomlinson
2006       Michael F. Goodchild
2007       Duane Marble
2008       Arthur Getis
2009       Jerome E. Dobson
2010       J. Ronald Eastman
2011       Donna Peuquet      

NOAA announced a new Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) award to the Carolinas Integrated Sciences and Assessments (CISA) program here at the University of South Carolina. CISA's principal investigators (PI) from the university include Dr. Kirstin Dow and Dr. Greg Carbone of the Geography Department and Dr. Daniel Tufford from the Biology Department. Other co-PIs include Dr. Chip Konrad from UNC-Chapel Hill, who is also the director of the Southeast Regional Climate Center and Dr. Jessica Whitehead, Regional Climate Extension Specialist with North and South Carolina Sea Grant. Other members of CISA at USC include Kirsten Lackstrom, Research Coordinator; Ashley Brosius, CISA's Climate Outreach Specialist, and alumni Dr. Jinyoung Rhee, Post-Doctoral Researcher. CISA also benefits from the participation of many graduate students. More details about their contributions and person research interests are available at our website. The program also collaborates with other RISA teams and the North and South Carolina State Climate Offices.

The award provides CISA with $3.7million in funding over the next five years. During that time, CISA will pursue projects in five core focus areas including: drought monitoring and assessment, climate and watershed modeling, coastal climate issues, health, and adaptation. In the coming year, CISA will complete research on climate needs and networks in the Carolinas for the Congressionally-mandated National Climate Assessment due out in 2013. CISA is also partnered with other RISAs in the Southeast to convene authors for the Southeast Regional climate assessment. That report will serve as a technical input to the national climate assessment and become a standalone resource publication for the region.

Dr. Amy Mills has received the Jane Jacobs Urban Communication Book Award, for Streets of Memory: Landscape, Tolerance, and National Identity in Istanbul (University of Georgia Press, 2010). This interdisciplinary award is from the Urban Communication Foundation, connected to the National Communications Association, recognizes an outstanding book that exhibits excellence in addressing issues of urban communication. It is named in honor of the late social activist and author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities." See: http://urbancomm.org/awards.php#gpm1_3.

Dr. Will Graf co-authored "Reclaiming Freshwater Sustainability in the Cadillac Desert" in the December 14, 2010 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The piece supports Mark Reisner's Cadillac Desert conclusions that water resources would be unable to support the growing demand of cities, agriculture and industry in the Southwest. Graf and colleagues further argue that the Southeast, with the exception of Florida, does not have enough water capacity to meet its future needs. Graf notes that “For more than a century, the Southwest has been the focus of long-running legal disputes over water resources, but the Southeast is now becoming a more contentious region for water use,” Indeed, the water-resource picture in the Southeast is becoming similar to the Southwest, where water disputes have long been a prominent part of policy and resource management. In South Carolina, the Water Withdrawal and Permitting Act, which became law this year, and the agreement between North Carolina and South Carolina on managing their common rivers, such as the Catawba-Wateree system, demonstrate that water resources are gaining increased attention. Find the full text at: http://www.pnas.org/content/107/50/21263.full.

Dr. David Cowen (professor emeritus) is featured as part of a Penn State initiative titled the Geospatial Revolution. View his comments and others on the changing roles of geospatial information at: http://geospatialrevolution.psu.edu/episode1/complete.

Dr. Cary Mock has amassed approximately $700,000 in grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to research and reconstruct the hurricane and severe weather history of the Atlantic Coast.

While meteorologists are busy forecasting and tracking this year's crop of hurricanes using the latest satellite technology, Dr. Cary Mock is combing through 300-year-old British ship logs for weather data to detail hurricanes of the past.

Mock is the only academic researcher conducting historical maritime climate research.

Cary Mock

Read the complete University article at: http://www.sc.edu/news/newsarticle.php?nid=1157
(August 2010)

Dr. Amy Mills has a new book published by the University of Georgia Press. Her book is entitled Streets of Memory: Landscape, Tolerance, and National Identity in Istanbul.

The book is a study of nostalgia, interethnic social relations, and the built environment of Istanbul, Turkey. This geo-ethnography examines the social relationships between Greeks, Jews, and Turks as they are experienced in neighborhood life today, and as they are remembered in narratives of the past. The role of women in perpetuating or breaking nationalist categories of belonging and exclusion in neighborhood life is another major focus of this book.

While “Turkification” drove out most of Istanbul’s minority Greeks, Armenians, and Jews in the mid-twentieth century, they left behind potent vestiges of their presence in the cityscape. Based on a study of one formerly multiethnic neighborhood, Streets reveals that the neighborhood’s landscape not only connotes feelings of belonging connected to a narrative of historic multiethnic harmony, but also makes these ideas appear to be uncontestably real. The urban landscape thus plays a role in perpetuating a version of Turkish nationalism that seems cosmopolitan and benign. This study of memories of interethnic relationships in a local place examines why the cultural memory of tolerance has become so popular and raises questions regarding the nature and meaning of cosmopolitanism in the contemporary Middle East.
(August 2010)

Dr. Will Graf has been awarded the distinction of AAAS Fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Election as a Fellow of AAAG is an honor bestowed upon members by their peers in recognition for meritorious efforts to advance science or its applications. Dr. Graf was recognized for advances in physical river sciences and for fostering the connection between river science and public policy for river management.

Joining Dr. Graf as Fellows this year are five other professors from the University of South Carolina's College of Arts and Sciences: Ron Benner (biological sciences), Austin Hughes (biological sciences); James Morris (Baruch Institute and biological sciences); Robert Thunell (earth and ocean sciences); and Hanno zur Loye (chemistry and biochemistry). Click here for more details.
(February 2010)

Oxfam America Applies SoVI to examine issues of social vulnerability. Oxfam commissioned the Department's Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute to develop a series of layered maps that depict social and climate change related vulnerability. The maps assist in identifying hotspots in the Southeastern U.S. that are a significant risk in the face of four particular climate change related hazards. Click here for more details.