Summer 2022 Edition
A message from the Department Head, Dr. Hilda Kurtz -
Greetings from UGA Geography!
As showcased below, UGA Geographers continue to do, and to be recognized for, exciting, timely and important work. Beyond these headlines, the entire faculty invested steady and productive effort into research, teaching and supporting students, and students continue to amaze us with their talent, imagination, and perseverance. Talented new staff members Kajal Patel and Sarah Baker (and briefly, Amelia Brown) are helping to build the resilience and agility needed for the Geography department to thrive in the current era. In short, UGA Geography is thriving.
The Geography Department’s Atmospheric Sciences program deserves a special shout out. John Knox and Marshall Shepherd successfully raised funds for a commercial-grade graphic program for the department’s weather broadcasting studio (source of AthensGaWeather and North Georgia Weather Authority broadcasts) and also negotiated an arrangement with Georgia Tech for joint ownership of a WR-2100 radar system. These two upgrades will significantly deepen students’ educational opportunities and position the program even more competitively among like programs nationally.
Furthermore, we will be welcoming Dr. Gengchen Mai to the faculty as part of the Presidential Cluster Hire in Environmental Artificial Intelligence. Dr. Mai’s work in Geospatial AI will help build the department’s strengths in this emerging field.
Thirty undergraduates and eight graduate students graduated this spring or will graduate this summer, and are moving on to professional positions, graduate education, travel and more. We wish them the very best and invite all alumni to stay in touch as part of the growing UGA Geography community. Please follow the link below for ways to share your updates and stay in touch with the broader UGA Geography Community. We excitedly await to share more alumni news in this winter’s newsletter.
In the meantime, have a good summer, and of course, keep in touch!
