2020 Lifetime Achievement Award
Dr. James Campbell, Virginia Tech

2020 Outstanding Service Award
Dr. Katherine Hankins, Georgia State University

2020 Excellence in Teaching Award
Dr. Robert Oliver, Virginia Tech
Doctoral Student Paper Winner
Yasin Wahid Rabby, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Title: “Exploring the effects of Mahalanobis distance-based absence data sampling method on the landslide susceptibility mapping”
 

Master’s Student Paper Winner
Reagan Yessler, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Title: “Talking Back”: Louise Jefferson’s Life and Legacy of Counter-Mapping”
 

Master’s Student Poster Winner
Yvonne Marsan, University of North Carolina, Wilmington
Title: “Changing Landscapes in the South, 1970 – 2020:
Emergence of Asian Indian Temples and Sanctuaries in North Carolina”

Undergraduate Poster Competition (Tie)
Lilian Hutchens, University of South Carolina
Title: “Improving Conservation Planning for the Congaree Biosphere Reserve”
– and –
Sierra Moore, Conservation Management Institute, Virginia Tech
Title: “Effects of Clearing Linear Features through Forest Patches in WV and VA”

Southeastern Geographer Best Paper Award
Evaluating Exposure to Coastal Hazards in the Supervised Offender Population Using Social Disorganization Theory. Ashleigh Price, David M. Cochran Jr, George Raber, Joshua Hill. Southeastern Geographer, Volume 60, Number 3, Fall 2020, pp. 215-234 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/sgo.2020.0018

Southeastern Geographer Cover Art Contest Winners (Tie)
A. (Alex) Cooper, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
– and –
Caleb Smith, Jones College

World Geography Bowl Student Winners
5^th Place, Kyler Stanley, Virginia Tech
4^th Place, Thomas Vogel, East Carolina University
3^rd Place, Sarah VanSchoick, University of Florida
2^nd Place, Peter Forister, Virginia Tech
1^st Place and Most Valuable Player, Nicholas Grondin, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

The 2020 SEDAAG election results are here:

Vice President: Jennifer Rahn
Secretary: Craig Ramseyer
GA Rep: Eric Spears
MS Rep: Brian Williams
NC Rep: Sarah Praskievicz
TN Rep: Ingrid Luffman
VA Rep: Anamaria Bukvic

Congratulations!!

Newly elected officers will take charge immediately after the 2020 SEDAAG Virtual Meeting.

Congratulations to all elected officials.

Each issue of the Southeastern Geographer includes a front-cover photograph of the American South by a member of SEDAAG accompanied by a short essay.  To solicit images for the upcoming year, the Southeastern Geographer will hold a virtual photo contest to select the potential covers for the four issues.  The photos will be displayed on the SEDAAG Virtual Annual Meeting Website and will be judged by virtual conference attendees via a Google Form ballot.  Attendees will be asked to vote by noon on Saturday, November 7th with the results announced at the SEDAAG Awards Ceremony.

To enter a photo in the contest:

Send by email a high-resolution digital photograph and a maximum 150-word description of the geographic phenomenon related to the American South captured or evoked in the photograph to Southeastern Geographer Editors at (segedit@uncg.edu) by midnight on October 30, 2020. Please indicate “SEDAAG Photo Contest 2020” in the subject line.

The Southeastern Division of the American Association of Geographers (SEDAAG) Nominations Committee is seeking individuals willing to serve as VICE PRESIDENT and SECRETARY. These positions are two-year terms beginning immediately after our 2020 SEDAAG Virtual Conference in November. We are also seeking STATE REPRESENTATIVES for Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. These positions are also two-year terms beginning immediately after the upcoming meeting.

The Vice-President serves as Head of the Program Committee and as a member of the Executive Committee. Please contact the current Vice President, Bill Graves at bgraves@uncc.edu for additional information.

The Secretary serves as a member of the Executive Committee and is responsible for communicating with members through the webpage, newsletter, and email. The Secretary also coordinates the election of SEDAAG officers and elected committees and takes meeting minutes. Updating the SEDAAG website is also a current the duty of the secretary. Please contact the current Secretary, Shrinidhi Ambinakudige at shrinidhi@geosci.msstate.edu for additional information.

State representatives represent their state on the SEDAAG Steering Committee and prepare a state-of-geography annual report for their state. Please feel free to contact Lynn Resler at resler@vt.edu or any of the current state reps for more information.

Nominations are due September 4, 2020. You may nominate yourself or another individual by emailing the nominations committee chair Dr. Thomas Chapman at  techapma@odu.edu. Please provide the nominee’s name, institution, and email address. Nominees will be asked to submit a brief 1 paragraph biography for ballot purposes that includes their involvement with SEDAAG. Members of SEDAAG will then vote for these positions via an online poll. State Representatives will be elected by the voting membership of the respective states.

The Wetland Landscape Ecology lab in the University of Texas Department of Marine Science seeks a postdoctoral researcher interested in the remote sensing of landscape-scale wetland flood and habitat dynamics. The successful applicant will work on a funded project conducted in partnership with Ducks Unlimited. The project goal is to evaluate surface water flooding and other wetland habitat characteristics in the Prairie Pothole region, a depressional wetland landscape in U.S. Great Plains. This project will develop open-source models that can serve as the basis of long-term monitoring and conservation programs by research and non-profit organizations.

The position is a one-year appointment with a possible extension in later years, and has a tentative start date of 1 September 2020. The position is located at the UT Marine Science Institute (www.utmsi.utexas.edu), in Port Aransas, TX, and a possible remote start is negotiable. The Marine Science Institute is situated on Mustang Island, with close proximity to sandy beaches, estuarine habitats of the Gulf of Mexico, and the city of Corpus Christie, TX. The successful applicant will also have access to the resources available at the University at Texas at Austin, such as the Texas Advanced Computing Center (www.tacc.utexas.edu).

Required qualifications: The applicant should have experience in remote sensing analyses, as well as experience programming in the R statistical language. A track record of successful publications and a PhD degree received within the last 3 years in ecology, geography or a related field are also required.

Desired additional qualifications: Experience working with LiDAR, SAR and spectral reflectance data will be helpful for this position, as well as experience with Google Earth Engine, data science and/or reproducible workflows. Past experience researching wetland landscapes will also be useful.

To apply: please send a cover letter outlining your research interests and goals (no more than 2 pages), a curriculum vitae, and contact information for three professional references, including their name, email, phone, and address. These materials should be emailed as a single pdf to Jessica O’Connell (jessica.oconnell@utexas.edu), Assistant Professor in the Department of Marine Science at the University of Texas. For more information about the work conducted in my lab, see the web page: www.landscapemodeling.net. Applicant review will begin 25 June 2020 and continue until the position is filled.

The University of Texas at Austin is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. Women, minorities, and other underrepresented groups are strongly encouraged to apply. The University will perform background checks on all new hires prior to making a final offer of employment.

June 13, 2020

The Wetland Landscape Ecology lab in the UT Austin Department of Marine Science seeks PhD students to start January 2021. Research in the lab centers around remote sensing of landscape-scale wetland dynamics, and is related to coastal ecosystem resiliency and long-term landscape change. Successful applicants will work on funded projects related to coastal marsh plant phenology and plant productivity modeling, blending together tools from landscape ecology, remote sensing, and data science. Students will be supported with a competitive stipend.

Required qualifications: Candidates must be able to conduct independent research and to work as part of a scientific team. Experience in data analysis, strong quantitative skills, and the ability to work outdoors in a hot, muddy coastal marsh environment are also required. A minimum 3.0 GPA in upper division course work is required for admission to the UT Austin graduate school.

Desired additional qualifications: Experience in wetlands research, remote sensing analyses, programming in the R statistical language, and working with Google Earth Engine, data science and reproducible workflows. A strong background in either ecology or remote sensing and a track record of successful publication are also desired. A master’s degree or relevant experience is also preferred.

Students will join the O’Connell Wetland Landscape Ecology lab. The lab is located at the UT Marine Science Institute (www.utmsi.utexas.edu), in Port Aransas, TX. This is on Mustang Island, with close proximity to sandy beaches, estuarine habitats of the Gulf of Mexico, and the city of Corpus Christie, TX. Graduate students in the Marine Science Department spend most of their time in residence at Port Aransas, but will typically spend a semester or more at the main campus in UT Austin to complete course work and gain valuable teaching experience. Students will also have the opportunity to network with a broad  set of potential collaborators, through interaction with the Georgia Coastal Ecosystems Long-term Ecological Research Project (https://gce-lter.marsci.uga.edu/)

To apply: please contact Dr. Jessica O’Connell directly. Send a cover letter outlining your research interests and career goals (no more than 2 pages), a curriculum vitae, and contact information for three professional references, including their name, email, phone, and address. These materials should be emailed as a single pdf to Jessica O’Connell (jessica.oconnell@utexas.edu), Assistant Professor in the Department of Marine Science at the University of Texas. For more information, see the lab web page: www.landscapemodeling.net. Applicant review will begin immediately and continue until the positions are filled.

The University of Texas at Austin is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer and all qualified candidates, including underrepresented groups, are strongly encouraged to apply.

Dear Colleagues,

Given the uncertainties of travel, safety, and budgets in Fall 2020, we announce that our in-person Florence, AL meeting scheduled for November 22-23, 2020 will be postponed to November 2021.  We are disappointed that we will not have an in-person gathering at a time when many of us seek the comfort of community, but feel this decision is in the best interest of our attendees.

We are excited, however, to announce that we are moving to a virtual conference presence for the 2020 SEDAAG Annual Meeting! The board is in the process of gathering ideas about ways to make this online meeting a truly “SEDAAG-style” gathering; we seek to celebrate the strong community of SEDAAG, and especially, to highlight our student members.  We also seek an accessible, economical meeting.

To this end, we encourage your input. What would YOU like to see in a virtual SEDAAG meeting? We seek your general input, but also input on meeting timing, such as preferred dates and days of the week. We understand that the Fall 2020 semester will end at different times for different universities.  We would like to know about any special considerations you may have in light of adjusted university or professional schedules.  Please send your comments/suggestions to Bill Graves (bgraves@uncc.edu), SEDAAG Vice President.

Finally, we can preliminarily announce that our 2022 SEDAAG Meeting will be held in Atlanta, GA! We will provide more information on the 2020 meeting, and all future meetings as information becomes available.

Thanks to All,

Lynn Resler

President, SEDAAG

The results of the Southeastern Regional Councilor election have been finalized and Dr. Selima Sultana  has been elected to the position. Her term starts on July 1, 2020. Currently, she is a Professor in the Department of Geography, Environment, and Sustainability at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro (UNCG). Dr. Sultana is also serving the division as the co-editor of the Southeastern Geographer.

The Department of Geosciences at Mississippi State University invites applications for a tenure-track position at the rank of Assistant Professor in Human Geography, with a specialization in Black Geographies, with an anticipated start date of Fall 2020 or Spring 2021.

We seek scholars whose work focuses on Black Geographies in relation to one or more of the following areas: gender, sexuality and Black feminist thought; environmental racism, environmental justice and political ecology; political and economic geographies; health and well-being; agriculture and food systems; or Black placemaking and community-building. We are especially interested in scholars with expertise on the Black experience in the American South, or on the transnational connections between the Black diaspora in the US and other parts of the world.

Applicants must hold a PhD in geography (or a closely related field) by the time of appointment, and will demonstrate evidence of (or the potential for) excellence in research, teaching and student mentoring. Applicants will be expected to maintain an active research program with the potential for external funding, develop and teach undergraduate and graduate courses in their areas of expertise, as well as supervise both masters and doctoral students.

The Department of Geosciences currently has 19 tenured or tenure-track faculty, five clinical professors, and four full-time instructors and awards B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees. Within the department, there are four areas of disciplinary emphasis: Geology, Geography, Geospatial Science, and Meteorology. In addition, the department maintains close relationships with a variety of other research centers and interdisciplinary programs elsewhere on the Mississippi State campus. More information about the Department of Geosciences is available on our website: www.geosciences.msstate.edu.

Candidates may apply on-line by submitting a cover letter (including statements of research and teaching interests), a curriculum vitae, and a list of three references with contact information through the Mississippi State University HRM website: http://explore.msujobs.msstate.edu/cw/en-us/job/499785?lApplicationSubSourceID=. The position will remain open until filled; however, the review of applications will begin April 13, 2020.  For questions about the position or the application process, please contact search committee chair Shrinidhi Ambinakudige at shrinidhi@geosci.msstate.edu.

MSU is an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, ethnicity, sex, religion, national origin, disability, age, sexual orientation, genetic information, pregnancy, gender identity, status as a U.S. veteran, and/or any other status protected by applicable law. We always welcome nominations and applications from women, members of any minority group, and others who share our passion for building a diverse community that reflects the diversity in our student population.