Patrick Hesp was awarded a LSU Distinguished Faculty Award on April 26th 2011. He is one of five at LSU receiving the award which recognizes faculty members with sustained records of excellence in teaching, research and service.

 

Patrick Hesp has been awarded a visiting professorship to The National Research Group for Coastal Environment issues (GNRAC - Gruppo Nazionale per la Ricerca sull’Ambiente Costiero) in Italy in June-July, 2011. The GNRAC was founded in October 2005 by experts with longtime experience in Italian national research projects on coastal issues (funded by the University Ministry and the National Research Council). The major goal of the GNRAC is to promote and disseminate studies on the status, conservation and management of Italian coasts. Dr Hesp will give a short course on “Dynamics, Geomorphology and Management of Coastal Dunes”, and participate in several field trips to, and research on coastal dunes in Sardinia and various coastal sites in Italy.

LSU graduate students win best paper awards at 2011 AAG in Seattle.

Phillip Schmutz (l) with Robin Davidson-Arnott at the 2011 AAG

Geography graduate student Phillip Schmutz won AAG Coastal and Marine Speciality Group (COMA) Robin Davidson-Arnott Award for his paper entitled "Influence of capillary flow above an oscillating water table on surface moisture content."

Kate Renken

Geography graduate student Kate Renken also won for best paper on physical processes in the Coastal and Marine  Specialty Group at AAG. Her presentation was entitled: "White Sands National Monument: Evolution of a Transverse Dune Trailing Ridge."

Congratulations Phillip and Kate!

Dr Patrick Hesp, R.J. Russell Professor in Geography and Anthropology in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, has been awarded a prestigious Fulbright Fellowship for Fall, 2011. The award will provide funding for Dr Hesp to spend three months in southern Brazil conducting a detailed drilling and dating program on two coastal barriers, one at Pinheira (in Santa Catarina state), and the other at Paranagua (in Parana State). These barriers are characterized by alternating suites of foredune ridges and parabolic dunes, and provide evidence of alternating sediment supply and coastal storms, and climate histories over the past 7000 years. Dr Hesp is an expert in coastal beach and dune systems, dynamics and geomorphology, and has spent the past 10 years conducting research in southern Brazil, as well as in Canada, USA, Mexico and China.

Geography and Anthropology’s float and dorky dancing professors hit the Southdowns Mardi Gras parade once more! View them on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRiRdGjBApA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EIXxtGTbrY&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaSE_ZKaHds&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIwGpuqTGxk

LSU Receives $1.35 Million to Develop the Coastal Hazards Collaboratory in the Northern Gulf Coast. MORE

Geography PhD (Anthropology concentration) graduate student

Mark Robinson has been awarded a Sigma Xi grant in support of his research project “Wood Selection Strategies of the Ancient Maya, Paynes Creek National Park, Southern Belize.” The Sigma Si Grants-in-Aid of Research Program is highly competitive and only about 20% of applicants receive funding. Congratulations, Mark!

Dr. Michael Leitner, Associate Professor in Geography and Anthropology, is part of a research team, who was recently awarded a US$ 2.1 million (€ 1.6 million) grant from the Austrian Science Fund (similar to NSF) to establish a Doctoral College in Geographic Information (GI) Science at the University of Salzburg, Austria. The initial funding period of four years will primarily be used to provide full scholarships to a total of 22 students to undertake doctoral studies at the University of Salzburg. The research team consists of nine professors from geography, geology, economics, and computer science. The Doctoral College, which is similar to the NSF-funded IGERT Program, establishes three interconnected and interdisciplinary research clusters, including (1) Representation and Data Models, (2) Time and Process, and (3) Spatialization, Media, and Society. As part of the third cluster, Dr. Leitner’s research focus is in GIScience and spatial crime analysis. While the initial funding period is for four years, the possibility of receiving funding for a total of twelve years exists. The Doctoral College also provides full funding for a bilateral exchange between LSU and the University of Salzburg’s GIScience doctoral students for one semester.

Dr. Michael Leitner, Associate Professor in Geography and Anthropology and member of the US National Committee to the International Cartographic Association (USNC-ICA) received a NSF grant of $28,628. This grant will assist young scholars from the US to participate in the 25th International Cartographic Conference (ICC) in Paris, France from 3-8 July 2011. NSF funds will be used to provide 18 awards of $1,500 each to young scientists, i.e., students and those with PhDs earned within the previous 5 years.

Click HERE to view pictures from the 2010 G&A Christmas party.

Jessica Harrison, an anthropology Honors student advised by Dr Heather McKillop, was recently awarded a $500 scholarship from the Tiger Athletic Foundation to support her while she writes her honors thesis entitled “Evaluating sediment development and sea-level rise in a wetland landscape of the ancient Maya of southern Belize”. She also received an LA SeaGrant Undergraduate Research Opportunities Grant and an LSU Chapter Sigma Xi Grant-in-Aid for her research.

Lauren Pharr, Ph.D student in G&A was one of five recipients of the Forensic Sciences Foundation's Student Travel Awards. Congratulations to Lauren for receiving this fine award! MORE.

Geography and Anthropology students and faculty have huge presence at the 2010 AAA Conference in New Orleans. MORE.

G&A faculty and students attend rally for higher education. Click HERE to view photos. 2010

G&A's Lynne Carter Selected to International Climate Change Council MORE 2010

Jules Haigler, an Anthropology student in G&A just published a book called The Color of Red. Congratulations to Jules. See the book here: www.thecolorofred.com 2010

Student Disaster Science Association Combines Book Smarts, Real-World Training MORE 2010

Geography Awareness Week at LSU Kicks Off with Emmy-Award Winner Rich Remsberg on Nov. 15

LSU’s Department of Geography and Anthropology will launch Geography Awareness Week, Nov. 15-19, with a guest lecture by Emmy-Award-winning archival researcher Rich Remsberg. The lecture, “Thrills and Danger in the Archives: Shipwrecks, Moonshine, Biological Warfare and Other Experiences in Documentary Film Making,” will be held at 3 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 15, in room 152 of Coates Hall and is free and open to the public.

Remsberg, trained as a geographer, is the founder of Atlas Films, an image research company based in North Adams, Mass. He has earned national recognition pursuing both still and moving-picture images used in a variety of PBS documentaries, including “American Masters,” “American Experience” and “NOVA.” His other credits include the independent films “Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison,” “Secrecy” and “Killer Poet,” as well as the Grammy-nominated CD box set, “People Take Warning!” His own short films have been shown at Slamdance and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. He regularly contributes to NPR’s “The Picture Show.”

He has published two books with the University of Illinois Press. His most recent volume, “Hard Luck Blues,” was released this year and features images from the Farm Security Administration collection taken during the 1930s. It contains more than 200 photographs of the last generation of blues musicians who learned their craft before the mass media influences of radio and television. One reviewer observed, “Rich Remsberg’s brilliant selection of photographs broadens and deepens our understanding and appreciation of American music.”

His other book, “Riders for God: The Story of a Christian Motorcycle Gang,” featured his own photographs of a Christian motorcycle gang.  It is an intensive, ethnographic investigation of a group, which to outsiders seemed contradictory and incomprehensible.  Remsberg reveals a unity in the members’ beliefs and biker behavior.

His talk at LSU will explore his experiences working in archives to identify images and films used in the various documentary and book projects he has been involved. 2010

Dr. Rob Haswell, former professor in G&A at LSU and the man who started rugby at LSU in 1972 visited the Department in October. He was here for the 40th anniversary of the LSU Rugby club, and also gave a talk in the Department entitled “ Geographers and the New South Africa”. 2010

Patrick Hesp, the Chair of Geography and Anthropology, and a coastal geomorphologist, has been awarded a collaborative grant totaling $440,000 from the National Science Foundation for a new 3 year long research project, entitled "Blowout Dynamics at Cape Cod”. $321,346 of the grant will come to LSU.

A huge ten meter deep bowl blow out at Cape Cod.

Hesp is PI on the grant and is one of the world experts on coastal dune dynamics and geomorphology. His co-PI’s are Dr Ian Walker, in the Department of Geography at the University of Victoria in BC, Canada, and Dr Paul Gares in the Department of Geography at East Carolina University.

Blowouts are as the name implies – small to very large, saucer-, bowl- and trough-shaped landforms naturally eroded or ‘blown out’ by the wind, often because there is a local reduction in the vegetation cover. Human activity, especially overgrazing in desert and semiarid regions, and increasing tourism on coastal dunes, also commonly leads to blowout development. 

A small blow out at Cape Cod.

“Extremely little research has been carried out on blowouts anywhere in the world”, Hesp said, “yet they are present in all sandy landscapes, from deserts to coasts, and are the most common landform that develops when the climate gets drier, hotter and /or more windy. Since many climate change models predict that the climate will change towards more drier and windier conditions in some countries, the research will have important implications for how the landscape may change. It will also help us explain features on Mars and other planets and moons”.

Hesp and colleagues have a range of sophisticated anemometers and ground based lidar equipment to measure wind speeds and direction, sand transport and surface change in a suite of different size blowouts. They will also fund several graduate students in the project.9/2010

Dr. Heather McKillop, archaeologist in G&A, is PI on a new NSF funded collaborative grant totaling $250,041 for a project entitled  “Ancient Maya Wooden Architecture and the Salt Industry”. Her co-PI’s are Dr Karen McKee (USGS Wetlands Research Center), Dr Harry Roberts (Coastal Studies Institute, LSU) and former LSU student and alumni, Dr Terance Winemiller at Auburn University Montgomery. 

McKillop, a world expert on the ancient Maya, and her colleagues will be investigating a massive salt industry in Paynes Creek
National Park, Belize, including its submergence by sea-level rise and the wooden structures preserved in a peat bog below the seafloor.The scientists will be looking for evidence of how the ancient Maya at inland cities obtained a regular supply of salt: Was it by direct state administered trade or more indirectly through tribute, taxation or trading alliances with the coastal Maya?

McKillop will direct underwater excavations of the Paynes Creek salt works,
Roberts will lead a team in an automated vessel to record bathymetry and
search for buried remains, Winemiller will work with Roberts’ team to integrate the imagery into the project GIS, and McKee will direct a systematic program of sediment coring across the lagoon system. . Click HERE for more info and pictures. Click HERE to read the article in LSU online. 9/2010