Graduates to Present at AAG

For some, the coming of spring is signalled by the arrival of the purple martin. Perhaps for others, it's the rapid approach of SXSW or spring break. However, for those of us in geography, nothing signals the change of season like the annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers (AAG). This year's meeting will be held in New York City from February 24th to the 28th, and for five days will be the home to some 7,000 geographers from around the globe.

This year the University of Texas will be proudly represented by some 22 graduate and 14 faculty presentations, on a diverse array of topics from GIScience and river morphology to migration and agricultural systems. Like many academic conferences, the annual AAG meeting is not only just a good excuse to cancel classes for a week, but is also an excellent venue to present our latest research findings, mingle with old friends, and search for potential career opportunities.

Below is a list of student and faculty that will be presenting this year (click on name to view abstract):

• Students
• Jennifer Alexander
• Christine Bonthius
• Lindsey Carte
• Bisola Falola
• Jon Gehrig
• Paul Holloway
• Marina Islas
• Matt LeFevor
• Joomi Lee
• Robert Lemon
• Katherine Lininger
• Jonathan Lowell
• Niti Mishra
• Solange Munoz
• Edward Park
• Molly Polk
• Renata Ponte
• Vanessa Martinez
• Josh Rudow
• Pamela Sertzen
• Chris Ulack
• Shari Adams
• Xuebin Yang

• Faculty
• Paul Adams
• Ipsita Chatterjee
• Kelley Crews
• Bill Doolittle
• Rob Dull
• Rich Heyman
• Eugeneio Arima
• Steve Hoelscher
• Edgardo Latrubesse
• Jennifer Miller
• Rebecca Torres
• Eliot Tretter
• Ken Young

Graduate Students Present at Meeting of the Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers

Members of the UT Graduate Association of Geography Students presented at the 31^st meeting of the Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers in Mérida, Mexico. The meeting was held over three days, January 11-13, at the Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán.

Geography graduate student Lindsey Carte co-organized and co-chaired a session on alternative and participatory methodologies in Latin America along with UT geography professor Rebecca Torres. In the session, Carte presented a paper titled, "Using Participatory Action Research to Understand Central American Women’s Relationships with the State on the Mexico-Guatemala Border." Carte also co-authored another paper with Dr. Torres on community participatory appraisal in migration research. Additional UT geography graduate students presenting in the session included Marina Islas, who gave a paper titled "On a Shoestring and a Hope: Conducting International Graduate Fieldwork," and Pamela Sertzen, who discussed her research with children in Brazil in her paper, "Taking Pictures of Space: Research with Children in a Brazilian Favela."

In a session on exchange and appropriation in migration, Vanessa Martinez presented a paper titled "Transnationalism Revisited: Exploring Migration and Cross-Border Linkages between Chichihualco, Guerrero and Small Town Nebraska." Josh Rudow discussed his research on agricultural trajectories of the Tarahumara in Chihuahua, Mexico in a session on Latin American landscapes. Matt LaFevor presented a paper titled "Estimating the Impact of Explosives on New Spain's Silver Bonanza: A Geographical Interpretation of Archival Data" in a session on historical geographies. UT geography professor Bill Doolittle also attended the meeting, and many UT geography alumni presented papers.

Geography graduate student was panelist for a discussion on Moroccan-American relations and islamophobia

Graduate Student, M. Anwar Sounny-Slitine, served as a panelist for a screening and discussion of the documentary Crossing Borders at the Texas Union.  The event was sponsored by the International office of The University of Texas at Austin which featured the seventy minute documentary that followed four Moroccan and four American university students as they travel together through Morocco.  The film explored the group’s frank discussions, in which the students confront the complex implications of the supposed "clash of civilizations" between Islam and the West.  After the screening of the film, Sounny-Slitine and other UT affiliated students, faculty, and staff had a discussion about this complex issue of international relations and islamophobia.

Plaid Avengers Sweep Trivia Title!

It's not all fun and games for Texas Geography Grads. In a surprising victory this week, the Plaid Avengers won first place at the McCombs Business School International Week Trivia Night, narrowly beating out Talk Nerdy To Me by two points. The 12 teams of five that competed focused on such topics as geography, food, country flags, potpourri, and famous faces. The Avengers (pictured at right) started off slow, but picked up momentum as the event drew on, seizing the title with an almost unheard of 88 points. Said Team Captain, Brian Mills upon victory: "It was all possible worlds out there... it could really have been anybody's game. This was just one win for us. This game's just a matter of scale..."

Geography Students Take to the Field

In an attempt to break out of the classroom, Geography students with Dr. Edgardo Latrubesse's paired up with the Austin Water Utility's Center for Environmental Research (CER) this Saturday to study at the Colorado River at Hornsby Bend. After a brief overview of the cultural and political history of the Colorado River bottomlands, students marched to the field, learning how this unique river system has adapted in the face of human pressure. Once lined with dense forests of sycamore and maple, Kevin Anderson of CER explained to students how this bottomland has began to make the transition back to forest after the vegetation was stripped bare by settlers and cattle. Anderson, who received a PhD in Geography from Texas, instructed students in both contemporary river morphology and practical water testing through the collection of benthic macroinvertabrates (also known as bugs).

Willing students (above) took to the river with nets and wash tubs to collect a sampling of bugs that would indicate river health. With the help of Elizabeth Welsh from Austin Youth River Watch (also a UT Geographer!) students categorized critters from damselflies and caddisflies to freshwater shrimp, to determine that even in one of Texas' worst drought ever, the Colorado is still a flourishing healthy river.

The three and a half mile Hornsby Bend, which is owned by the City of Austin, is also the home of Austin's Biosolids Management Plant, which processes two-thirds of the city's solid waste. From tap to toilet, Anderson explained how the city disposes of waste water and how what we see as sewage can be sterilized and recycled into compost rather than being dumped in landfills. Even urban water systems have a unique ecology that must be carefully managed.

The take-home message: even urban areas have unique ecologies that are constantly changing and adapting to climatic and human pressures. All one needs to do is take a close look around to see that not all is in fact lost.