Student News as of 10 May 2004

Nooz You Can Use

[ GSA Events ] [ Lab Hours ] [ Jobs ] [ Important Dates ] [ Finals ]

[ Advisors ] [ Scholarships ]

Things You Can Show the Relatives

[ Achievements ] [ Student Research ]

GSA Events

• The Geography Student Association was taken on a tour of Jet Propulsion Lab, hosted by Ms. Mary Beth Murrill of JPL. The tour was on Friday, 14 November. A great time was had by all, and Ms. Murrill commented that she hopes to see CSULB students returning one day "with JPL name badges"!

Lab Hours

The current schedule of instructional lab open hours is available by clicking here.

Important Dates

• Spring 2004
  • 9 February: Registration and Adjustment period ends
    • Deadline : withdraw or drop classes using or IVR
    • Deadline : withdraw or drop classes without a "W" grade
    • Deadline : refund for partial withdrawal
  • 16 February: deadlines
    • Deadline: add courses, file for CR/NC or Audit grade options
    • Deadline: file for credit by examination
    • campus closed (Presidents' Day) -- should make the 16 February deadlines logistically interesting
  • 23 February:
    • Final Deadline: add courses, file for CR/NC or Audit grade options with a $10 missed deadline fee
    • Census date
    • Last day to enroll in Open University
  • 1 March: Deadline to file Request to Graduate for Fall 2004 or Deadline : Winter 2004 graduation
  • 31 March: campus closed (César Chavez Day)
  • 1 April: Deadline for applying for Fall 2004 Residence Reclassification
  • 2 April: Deadline to drop or withdraw from all classes and receive a pro-rated refund
  • 5-9 April: campus closed (Spring Break)
  • 12 April: Fall 2004 registration begins
  • 23 April: Last day to withdraw from a class without having to get the dean's signature (which is hard to get and is given only for such serious and compelling reasons as an accident or serious illness)
  • 14 May: last day of classes and last possible day to drop a course with the dean's approval due to some serious and unforeseen disaster
  • 17-22 May: finals week (schedule is available here
  • 27 May, 1 p.m.: Geography commencement

Advisors for Fall 2003

• Undergraduate advising
  • Dr. Paul Laris. Dr. Laris can be reached at plaris@csulb.edu or at (562) 985-1862 or -8432. His office is in LA4-101E.

• Graduate advising
  • Dr. Christopher Lee. Dr Lee can be reached at clee@csulb.edu or at (562) 985-2358, and his office is in LA4-205.

Scholarships and Student Support

Departmental Scholarships

The Department offers scholarships from three different funds for the benefit of different groups of students. Recipients are announced at the Spring Awards Banquet (and on the Department news page.

• The Burton Anderson Scholarship (for continuing undergraduate students)
• The Eileen Johansen Memorial Scholarship (for continuing undergraduate students)
• The Rodney Steiner Award (a stipend for continuing undergraduate or graduate students, in exchange for 50 hours of work in the Department)

Great Things Students Are Doing

Doreen Jeffrey and Jeff Marotta Win LAGS Scholarships!

Ms. Doreen Jeffrey and Mr. Jeff Marotta have earned the Richard Logan Scholarship from the Los Angeles Geographical Society. The merit-based Logan Award confers at $500 scholarship. Congratulations!!!

Sigma Xi Inductees

Mesdames Leslie Edwards, Doreen Jeffrey, and Zoe Schumacher have been inducted into the Sigma Xi scientific honor society. Sigma Xi honors active scientists and students in the sciences. Students become eligible on the basis of their academic records and presentation of their research to a professional conference. Leslie and Doreen were nominated following their presentation of their work on the Oakland Firestorm of 1991 to the Southern California Conference on Undergraduate Education and Zoe upon presentation of her work on marine mammal strandings along the Southern California Bight to the California Geographical Society. Congratulations!

California Geographical Society Presentation and Award

Ms. Zoe Schumacher won a second-place Joe Beaton Award for outstanding Posters, which conferred a $75 prize. Felicitations!!!

CSULB Women and Philanthropy Scholarships

Zoe Schumacher and Doreen Jeffrey, two of our undergraduate students, were selected for a CSULB Women and Philanthropy scholarship in the amount of $1,000! They were fêted in a Women and Philanthropy meeting on the 12th of January. The awards were written up in a Long Beach Press Telegram story, too, which you can read here. Congratulations!!!

Mr. Dan Hofer

Mr. Hofer is a graduate student, who now works for the Orange County Fire Authority (OCFA). His thesis is on the application of GIS to the creation of the Silverado Fire Plan, and it entails the creation of beaucoup maps in an ESRI software environment. ESRI, meanwhile, was interested in applying for a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Homeland Security Grant. It sought a partner among local planning agencies to go in with it on this proposal, and Dan's thesis maps became the deciding point leading to ESRI's choice to go with OCFA! And the grant proposal was successful, to the tune of $21 million!!! As Battalion Chief Mike Rohde described it, "ESRI could have pick a different agency but OCFA has the best contemporary looking Fire plan out there ... Aka Dan's maps." Whew!

Ms. Julienne Gard

Ms. Gard, graduate student, is serving as Vice-President of the Los Angeles Geographical Society, a public outreach organization that has been promoting geography to the interested lay public for over five decades. The LAGS offers scholarships to geography students in the Southland.

Graduate Students in GDEP

Mr. Brian Sims and Mr. Aziz Bakkoury served as Graduate Assistants in the Geoscience Diversity Enhancement Project this summer. They worked with Drs. Chris Lee and Chrys Rodrigue and also with Dr. Teresa Ramírez of Geological Sciences and her graduate assistant, Mr. Matt Secor. They taught GDEP student and faculty teams from local community colleges and high schools how to georectify remotely sensed imagery, showed them how to use GPS for data collection and field mapping, and organized field work in Charmlee Park and the Topanga Creek Watershed.

Graduate Student at Caltech

Mr. Shaun Healy, formerly of the NASA RESAC in our department, began working at Caltech in spring 2003. He is now staff in the Department of Geophysics and Planetary Science, where he draws on his skills in GIS and remote sensing. In July 2003, he gave a presentation on remote sensing to the GDEP summer research team. This presentation included internship possibilities at Caltech, which Ms. Zoe Schumacher and Mr. Jinho Kang followed up on.

Graduate Student in Disaster Preparedness Position

Ms. Jan O. Olsen is Mitigation Lead, Disaster Emergency Services for the Orange County Red Cross. She is now listed as a member of the Orange County Red Cross Disaster Preparedness Academy.

Graduate Students and the Science Olympiad

Two graduate students have captained events in the Statewide Science Olympiad trials held at CSULB over the last three years:

Aziz Bakkoury
Shaun Healy

Our Own Steve Newberg Wins the CSULB "Battle of the Minds"

The Department is proud to announce that Mr. Steven Newberg, graduate student, won the CSULB "Battle of the Minds" chess championship on in November 2002! There were 25-30 competitors battling for some pretty significant prizes. Steve won a computer multimedia system (and he's already a web terror without this!), a dinner for two at Marrakesh in Newport Beach, and a car wash gift certificate. There is a quid pro quo, however: He has to represent CSULB in the upcoming intercollegiate chess championships (January 2002). Our students are doing all sorts of surprising stuff around campus! Congratulations! And good luck, too!

Jorge Quintero

Geography grad student, Jorge Quintero, stopped by for graduate advising and happened to mention that, after the HTML boot camp of Geography 600 a couple of years ago, he wound up the webmaster for the Long Beach Group of the Angeles Chapter of the Sierra Club! Check out his elegant artistry at: http://angeles.sierraclub.org/longbch/! Way to GO, Monsieur Quintero!!!

CSULB Geography Students Win ESRI Mapping Honors!!!

Graduate students, Mike Jenkins and Shaun Healy, and recent graduate, Caroline Kolb, were fêted at the ESRI International User Conference 2001 by earning second prize in the Map Gallery Best Cartographic Publication entry was the City Street Map they had done for the City of Lakewood. Thanks to Dr. Frank Gossette for this news item, who remarked, "Map On!!!" We are way proud of your achievement, folks! For more details, check out http://www.esri.com/events/uc/results/map_gallery_results.html.

Steve Newberg

The Department learned that one of our graduate students, Mr. Steve Newberg, has been working as a GIS technician for the Port of Long Beach. He says that it's a lot of fun applying GIS and the working environment is very nice and stimulating. Way to go, mountain lion webmeister! <G>

Christiane Candelaria

Earth Science Associates, a small petroleum research/software development firm in Long Beach sought a part-time undergraduate or graduate student in geography or geology for administrative and research work. ESA specializes in quantitative analysis in oil and gas exploration and development, GIS, and creation of spatial analysis tools. Projects range from model development through building add-on tools for spatial analysis to empirical, site-specific projects for clients. ESA's clients are mainly major oil and gas companies, but they also include other consulting firms and government agencies.

The Department is delighted to learn that our own Ms. Christiane Candelaria was the student chosen for this challenging position! Congratulations!

Student Research Activities

California Geographical Society Presentation and Award

Ms. Zoe Schumacher presented her research on "Using Remote Sensing and GIS to Monitor the Marine Mammal Strandings along the Southern California Bight." This poster resulted in a Joe Beaton student poster award.

This paper was re-presented by invitation at the Los Angeles Geographical Society on 7 May 2004.

Association of American Geographers

Ms. Julienne Gard presented "Dengue Fever Among Australia's Aboriginals: Traditional versus Western Prevention and Response Methods."

This paper was re-presented by invitation at the Los Angeles Geographical Society on 7 May 2004.

Ms. Leslie Edwards, Ms. Doreen Jeffrey, Mr. Andrew Huston, and Ms. Leeta Latham presented a paper at the Southern California Conference on Undergraduate Research in Irvine in November 2003:

"Oakland Berkeley Firestorm of 1991."

This paper was re-presented by invitation at the Los Angeles Geographical Society on 7 May 2004.

Mr. Brian Sims, graduate student and research associate in the Southern California Wildfire Hazard Center, made a presentation to the 22nd Annual ESRI International User's Conference in San Diego in July 2002:

"Centralizing Corporate Assets with GPS Technology at Southern California Edison."

Mr. Brian Sims, graduate student and research associate in the Southern California Wildfire Hazard Center, made a presentation to the Association of American Geographers in New Orleans in March 2003:

"Assessment of Interpolation Methods and Spatial Resolutions on Urban Digital Surface Models Derived from LiDAR."

Mr. Brian Sims, graduate student and research associate in the Southern California Wildfire Hazard Center, and Mr. David McCune, undergraduate student and intern in the SCWHR, made a presentation to the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers in San Bernardino in October 2002:

"Diurnal live fuel moisture change in Adenostoma fasciculatum (Chamise) in the Santa Monica Mountains of Southern California."

Messrs. Brian Sims and Aziz Bakkoury, graduate students and research associates in the Southern California Wildfire Hazard Center were co-authors on a Geosciences Diversity Enhancement Project team, whose research was presented by Dr. Suzanne Wechsler at the Association of American Geographers in New Orleans in March 2003:

"Centroid Hunting: The Truth Is out There -- or Is It?."

Mr. Michael McDaniels, graduate student, and Ms. Micaela Lukasser, University of Salzburg exchange student, presented a paper at the Association of American Geographers in New Orleans in March 2003:

"International Cooperation with GIS."

Ms. Valerie Müller, recent graduate alumna, presented a paper at the Association of American Geographers in New Orleans in March 2003:

"Satellites, Census, and the Quality of Life." She was invited to re-present this paper at the Los Angeles Geographical Society's year-end showcase of Southern California student research that had earlier been presented at scientific conferences, and she accepted (May 2003).

Ms. Valerie Müller also presented a paper at the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers in San Bernardino in October 2003:

"Gateway Cities 2000: Visualizing Land Uses in 27 Cities in Los Angeles County."

Ms. Romey Hagen and Mr. Aziz Bakkoury, graduate students and research associates in the Southern California Wildfire Hazard Center, and Dr. Christopher Lee, made a presentation to the Association of American Geographers in Los Angeles this March:

"Southern California Wildfire Hazards Center: A Regional Earth Science Applications Center."

Mr. Shaun Healy, graduate student and research associate in the Southern California Wildfire Hazard Center, also presented at the AAG:

"Cultural geography: An experiment in hypermedia."

Ms. Valerie Müller went to the Urban Regional Information Systems Association (URISA), Montego Bay, Jamaica in September of 2001 to present:

"Using GIS in Urban Planning -- Updating 27 General Plan Maps in Southern California."

Mr. Thomas Ellrott, a geography graduate student, traveled to the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers in Santa Barbara in September 2001, in order to present:

"Southern California Surf Culture Through the Construction and Deconstruction of Surf-Place Images in Huntington Beach, California."

Ms. Erin Stockenberg, gave a talk with Dr. Suzanne Wechsler to the GIS Expo at Cal Poly in Pomona, May 2001:

"Environmental and Natural Resource Applications of GIS: Course Development."

Mr. Ed Huefe, a graduate student, went to the AAG meeting in New York in March 2001, where he made the following presentation:

"Across the Borderline: U.S.-Mexico Borderlands as Locus of Transformation in North American Popular Music."

A large contingent of graduate students made their way to Portland in early February 2001 for the 5th Annual Western Geography Student Conference. This group, in fact, won the prize for the most highly represented department at the meeting (and thanks to Dr. Chris Lee for supporting the students' travel to this meeting). On top of the general great attendance, students presented two papers, entitled:

"In the Line of Fire: An Investigation into the Relationship between Aspect and Fire History in the Santa Monica Mountains, 1925-1997" by Lewis Francis, Romey Hagen, Shaun Healy, and Steve Newberg.

and

"Using GIS to Update 27 General Plan Maps" by Valerie Müller

Nice job!! The Department is really proud of you! For photographs of the delegation, check out the Portland Files.

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