Department of Geography and Geology Faculty Research

Dr. KATIE ALGEO  is a cultural geographer who joined the faculty of Western Kentucky University in the fall of 2001 to teach a variety of human geography and GIS classes. Her research interests include tourism, rural development, agricultural geography (particularly recent change in the Burley Tobacco Belt), interfaces between folk and popular culture, the role that media places in the representation and formation of cultural identities, and Appalachian development. Her current project explores the historical geography of tourism to Mammoth Cave and looks both at economic development accompanying tourism and ways in which Mammoth Cave was "symbolically constructed" to appeal to tourists. She received her Ph.D. in 1998 from Louisiana State University, where her dissertation focused on the historical development and political economy of tobacco farming in western North Carolina. She is treasurer of the Southeastern Division of the Association of American Geographers (SEDAAG), and her work has appeared in Journal of Geography, Southern Cultures, Southeastern Geographer, and Names. Before coming to WKU, Dr. Algeo taught at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, where she enjoyed leading field trips to explore aspects of Wisconsin culture such as vernacular shrines and grottos, polka masses, concrete art, dairy barns, and ginseng farms. For more information about her teaching and research interests, contact Dr. Algeo via email at katie.algeo@wku.edu.

Dr. JOHN ALL  has a Ph.D. in Geography and Global Environmental Change, a J.D. in International Environmental Law, and a Master's Certification in Environmental Ethics. His research evaluates climatic and other anthropogenic environmental perturbations and the resulting ecosystem responses using geoinformatics technologies and calculates which policies and laws create outcomes that minimize societal vulnerabilities. He has a diverse background in environmental law, watershed management, applied anthropology, resource management, and global change science that allows him to develop cognizant response scenarios to environmental changes. His work uses remote sensing change detection techniques combined with local stakeholder interviews and mixed methods data generation and analysis to determine exactly who the winners and losers are in areas undergoing environmental change. His research is both regional and international in scope and focuses on climate variability and its land cover/land use impacts on endangered species habitat and vegetation in protected areas of Kentucky, the Colorado River Delta of Mexico, in the Central Valley and Andes of Chile, the Okavango Delta of Botswana, and in East Himalayan countries of Nepal and Bhutan. The human dimensions of climate change policy are critical as societies decide how to allocate the burdens of adaptation and mitigation and the big picture of much of Dr. All’s work is policy discussions about the differential vulnerabilities of various constituencies to climate variability and change. In his scarce free time, Dr. All is an alpinist who has climbed on five continents using technical rock, ice, and aid-climbing techniques. For further information about these and other environment-related projects, contact Dr. All via email or by telephone at (270) 745-5975.

KEVIN CARY is the GIS Director for the Department. He joined the WKU faculty in July 2002 from the Myrtle Beach area in Conway, South Carolina. His responsibilities as the GIS Specialist for the City of Conway included the development and management of the city's first GIS. Kevin received his Master of Science degree from WKU and served as an adjunct faculty member from 1999 to 2001. He has also served on the GIS staff at the Barren River Area Development District (BRADD). In March 2005, he earned his professional accreditation in GIS (GISP) through the GIS Certification Institute. Kevin's interests are in the development and application of GIS in the economy and environment. Currently, he is coordinating several digitizing projects for the WKU campus. The GIS facility contains a suite of ESRI products (ArcGIS (ArcInfo) desktop and extensions, ArcIMS, MapObjects and ArcPad) and Global Positioning Systems (GPS) technology (Trimble GPS Pro XRS and Pathfinder software). All undergraduates and graduates are encouraged to participate in these projects. For further information about GIS, the GIS minor, the 13-hour GISystems Certificate Program, the 12-hour Graduate GIScience Certificate program, or the GIS Lab, contact Kevin Cary via email, or by telephone at (270)745-2981.

Dr. AARON CELESTIAN  is a mineralogist interested in Earth materials, material synthesis, and the determination of atomic arrangements in condensed matter. A primary goal of his research efforts is to quantify the mobility and reaction mechanisms of molecular species in, on, and around natural and engineered materials in a wide variety of environmental, geological, and planetary applications. Molecular scale processes are the basis for macroscopic properties, and understanding the controls of those processes will lead to new discoveries of molecular interactions and the development of new materials.
In order to determine how materials behave under environmental conditions, Dr. Celestian and his group develop custom experimental cells that allow real-time studies to be performed in situ under extreme environmental conditions (pH, temperature, pressure, etc.). At WKU, the Crystal Kinetics Laboratory and the Materials Characterization Center provide undergraduate and graduate students with state-of-the-art analytical and computational facilities. Dr. Celestian and his group frequently travel to national and international laboratories to take advantage of unique experimental capabilities at the brightest neutron and X-ray sources in the world. For more information please visit Aaron Celestian, or contact Aaron via email or telephone at (270)745-5977.

SCOTT DOBLER  recently joined the faculty and is a synoptic climatologist. For the past decade, Scott has been employed in the private sector as a GIS specialist and education consultant, as well as serving in the Kentucky National Guard as an E-7. He has broad teaching and research interests in the fields of meteorology, climatology, human-environment interaction, demography, folklore, K-12 education, and economics. Scott is actively pursuing research topics that address various economic development problems in Kentucky. One factor has been the impact of legal and illegal migrants on Kentucky farming communities. For more information about his teaching and research interests contact Scott at scott.dobler@wku.edu. He would especially like to hear from Kentucky K-12 teachers interested in geoscience pedagogy development.

Dr. JOSH DURKEE joined the Department in Fall 2008 after completing his Ph.D. from the University of Georgia. His primary research interests include assessing the role of mesoscale convective complexes (MCCs) in precipitation variability in North and South America. He is particularly interested in using space-borne instruments, such as the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite, for estimating rainfall. He is also interested in understanding how changes in land cover may alter the physical and rainfall characteristics of MCCs. Josh has also published research pertaining to severe wind storms that are not associated with thunderstorms. He is particularly interested in developing dynamic models that help determine the various origins of these non-convective wind events (NCWEs), and coupling these models with remote sensing data in order to improve the forecast for these potentially dangerous wind storms. Josh has also conducted education-based research with the aim of improving teaching and learning of science and mathematics in introductory weather and climate laboratories and developing modern educational student assessment tools. For more information about these or other of his research projects, as well as opportunities for research collaboration, feel free to contact Dr. Durkee at joshua.durkee@wku.edu.

Dr. XINGANG FAN joined the Department in August 2009. He is an atmospheric scientist with interests in weather and climate modeling and prediction, as well as in multidisciplinary areas such as soil temperature and moisture, land use and vegetation, and geothermal heat flow. His long-term interests concern the impact of land surfaces on weather and climate, particularly soil temperature and moisture. His ongoing project funded by NASA is to downscale climate simulations and future projections to regional scales, and study their impacts on ecosystems through modeling. The downscaled regional climate model has many important potential applications in other fields. In the mesoscale modeling area, he has conducted research on satellite data assimilation in an attempt to improve cloud modeling, surface wind modeling, and ultimately to improve the accuracy of weather and climate prediction. Dr. Fan has broad interests in weather, climate, and environmental sciences. You can contact him via email at xingang.fan@wku.edu for more information about his research and projects, as well as for opportunities in collaborative research.

Dr. STUART FOSTER  is a geographer with technical interests in data visualization and analysis, including the development and application of varying-parameter models and other tools for exploratory spatial data analysis. His topical interests are centered on climatology. He received a Ph.D. in Geography from The Ohio State University. He serves as the State Climatologist for Kentucky and is Director of the Kentucky Climate Center. He is a member of the Kentucky Drought Mitigation and Response Team and serves as co-chair of the Climate and Water Resources Data Team. Dr. Foster is also Director of the Kentucky Mesonet, a research-grade network of automated weather and climate monitoring stations that serves the Commonwealth. For more information about his research interests, the Kentucky Climate Center, or the Kentucky Mesonet, contact Dr. Foster at stuart.foster@wku.edu.

Dr. GREG GOODRICH  joined the faculty in 2005 after completing his Ph.D. from Arizona State University. His research focuses on how multi-decadal climate teleconnections such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) influence precipitation patterns associated with interannual teleconnections such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). He is especially interested in the impact of drought and precipitation patterns on agriculture. Dr. Goodrich is also interested in climate regionalization and has developed seasonal drought models based on a number of climatic variables. Dr. Goodrich has published his research in a number of peer-reviewed Journals, including Climate Research, Bulletin of the American Meteorology Society, and Weather and Forecasting. For more information about his research topics and agenda, contact Dr. Goodrich at gregory.goodrich@wku.edu.

Dr. MARGARET "PEGGY" GRIPSHOVER  is a cultural geographer who joined the Department of Geography and Geology faculty in August 2009. Prior to joining the faculty at WKU, she taught at Marshall University and the University of Tennessee (UT). Her research is centered on the interplay between cultural, historical, and economic geography in the U.S. South, and the Midwest. She earned her Ph.D. in Geography from UT, where she wrote her dissertation on the development and diffusion of the Tennessee Walking Horse. She has continued her interests in equine geographies with research on mules and the historical geography of horse racing in Kentucky, especially the Kentucky Derby. Dr. Gripshover also has interests in sports geography, specifically baseball. She is writing a book on the life and times of Charles H. Weeghman--the man who built what we now know as Wrigley Field in Chicago. Dr. Gripshover’s book examines the roles that individual decision makers, like “Lucky” Charlie Weeghman, have had on shaping the cultural and economic landscape of Chicago. In addition to her Weeghman book project, her research on “Wrigleyville,” the neighborhood surrounding Wrigley Field appeared as a book chapter in Northsiders (McFarland, 2008). She has published journal articles on baseball players’ involvement in dog fighting during the early 1900s, and the role of weather in early 20th century spring training in the Baseball Research Journal. Dr. Gripshover has research interests in the historical geography of Bowling Green, Kentucky. She recently presented a paper on cultural connections between the area’s karst topography and the life of Henry C. Jamison, an African American “sink digger.” Mr. Jamison was a former slave who lived in Bowling Green’s Shake Rag neighborhood. Dr. Gripshover, along with husband (and geographer) Dr. Thomas L. Bell, have published research on the Great Chicago Fire and on the changing landscapes and technologies associated with onion farming in the U.S. Dr. Gripshover and Dr. Bell also serve as co-editors of the journal, FOCUS on Geography, published by the American Geographical Society. Dr. Gripshover’s current teaching responsibilities include World Regional Geography, Cultural Geography, Economic Geography, Urban Geography, and the Geography of Kentucky. For more information about Dr. Gripshover’s teaching and research interests, contact her via e-mail at margaret.gripshover@wku.edu.

Dr. CHRIS GROVES  is a WKU Distinguished Professor of Geography and director of the Hoffman Environmental Research Institute. He received a Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia in 1993. Since coming to WKU, Groves has received Ogden College Awards for Outstanding Teaching (1995), Research and Creative Activity (2000), and Public Service (2010). Over the years he has developed an active international research program specializing in karst hydrogeology, geochemistry, and water resources, with recent peer-reviewed papers appearing in the Journal of Environmental Quality, Journal of Hydrology, Journal of Contaminant Hydrogeology, and Environmental Geology. Over the past 15 years, much of this effort has been working with colleagues to understand and improve karst water resources in southwest China through the programs of the China Environmental Health Project. Currently, Groves serves as a co-leader of the UNESCO Scientific Program IGCP598 “Environmental Change and Sustainability in Karst Systems” and is on the Board of Governors of UNESCO’s International Research Center on Karst. Closer to home Groves serves on Kentucky’s Board of Trustees for The Nature Conservancy. In 2010 he was nominated by China’s Ministry of Land and Resources for the China Friendship Award, that nation’s highest award for “foreign experts who have made outstanding contributions to the country's economic and social progress.” For more information about research opportunities contact Dr Groves at chris.groves@wku.edu.

Dr. DAVID J. KEELING  Department Head, is a cultural geographer who addresses issues of transportation, sustainable development, globalization, urban growth, and regional change, with Latin America and Europe his primary areas of research. His recent research projects include an analysis of Lincolnshire's rail bypass freight line in England, a three-year long decadal assessment of research on transportation issues published in Progress in Human Geography, globalization's impact on Latin American societies (published in the Journal of Latin American Geography, transportation challenges for Latin America [recently published in the 2008 volume of Journal of Latin American Geography), landscape changes in World Cities, and the cultural geography of Rock and Roll music. Dr Keeling serves as the webmaster for the American Geographical Society and is also the Society's Assistant Treasurer. In his role as a Fellow and Councilor of the AGS, he contributes Op Ed pieces on issues of geopolitical or economic change (see recent commentaries), and lectures around the world on AGS-sponsored educational geography expeditions. Dr. Keeling also frequently leads departmental study abroad programs to various corners of the globe, with past programs visiting Chile, Australia, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Slovenia, Mexico, England, Belgium, Egypt, and France, with recent KIIS programs in Argentina (2010, 2011). Both undergraduates and graduates are encouraged to participate in research projects underway in the Department, including those available through the Hoffman Environmental Research Institute and through the Kentucky MesoNet initiative. Dr. Keeling recently directed a research project in Colombia with the support of the American Geographical Society's Bowman Expeditions. More detailed information about his research publications and course offerings can be found at his website. For more information about his research topics and agenda, contact Dr Keeling at david.keeling@wku.edu

DEBBIE KREITZER is a geographer with an emphasis on human-environment interaction. Debbie received her M.S. from Western Kentucky University in 1998 and has been a full-time faculty member since January 1999. She has done extensive research on the Mammoth Cave Area Biosphere Reserve, and is interested in extending that research to the Heritage Corridor Project. Debbie not only is interested in the effects of humans on the environment, but also in the effects of the environment on humans. She is currently working on research that investigates the recent geographical shift of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) in the U.S. and the possibility that environmental factors as well as socio-economic factors are partially responsible for this shift. For more information contact debbie.kreitzer@wku.edu.

Dr. REZAUL MAHMOOD specializes in hydroclimatology (soil moisture and precipitation) and agricultural climatology. Currently, he is working on the soil moisture climatology of the Northern Great Plains and its relationship with long-term climate conditions: impacts of land use on near-surface hydrologic cycle components, including soil moisture, evapotranspiration, and temperature; drought, surface solar radiation modeling and dew point temperature modeling. He also investigates scale issues in soil-moisture measurement and modeling. Over the past few years, Rezaul has conducted research on monsoonal precipitation and soil moisture availability, modeling their impacts on rainfed rice productivity. He also has examined climate change and temperature variability and modeled their impacts on crop productivity, irrigation water requirements, and cropping pattern. Rezaul has published his research in a number of peer-reviewed Journals, including Theoretical and Applied Climatology, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, Ecological Modeling, Physical Geography, and Progress in Physical Geography. For more information about his research topics and agenda, visit his Vita, or contact Dr. Mahmood at rezaul.mahmood@wku.edu.

Dr. MICHAEL MAY  is a sedimentary geologist with expertise in subsurface and outcrop mapping in carbonates and siliciclastics and in sedimentologic aspects of environmental geology. He received his Ph.D. in 1992 from Indiana University, where he worked on a tectonostratigraphic reconstruction of pre-Laramide basins and their associated Jurassic and Cretaceous fluvial sediments in Wyoming. Earlier graduate work at The University of Kansas afforded him research opportunities on western Pacific atoll islands investigating modern carbonate sedimentology and diagenesis. Dr. May also has experience from two major oil companies in both West Texas and the Gulf Coast and from two environmental consulting companies in the Midwest. He routinely incorporates his past employment experience into his undergraduate and graduate curriculum offerings as case studies or class projects. His wife, Beth, presently works as a geologist for an environmental consulting firm and she also provides information for his case studies, keeping him with a fresh supply of exercises! He has recently published papers dealing with the use of X-ray fluorescence technology at mining waste sites in Mississippi Valley Type ores and on hydrogeologic complexities in Ordovician rocks at a military installation in Kentucky. He also recently co-authored a paper on diagenetic mineralogy, geochemistry, and dynamics of Mesozoic arkoses in the Hartford Rift Basin in Connecticut. His current research effort includes undergraduate and graduate student-assisted outcrop and subsurface investigation of Mississippian and Pennsylvanian rocks in south central and western Kentucky associated with the Mississippian-Pennsylvanian Unconformity. The goal of the current research is to incorporate geophysical well log, petrography and outcrop data to map out the unconformity and ultimately define in detail the tectonostratigraphic framework for basal Pennsylvanian channel sequences. He recently was successful in getting an EPA environmental geophysics short course directed to WKU. Any professional or student is invited to attend this summer short course (usually run in late June). The course provides good hands-on experience in the use of electromagnetic, resistivity, ground penetrating radar, seismic, and magnetic methods to map subsurface geologic features. Dr. May is also involved with co-teaching science to pre-service teachers through a NASA-funded course (NOVA -NASA Opportunities for Visionary Academics) and co-teaching environmental regulations and technical issues as an adjunct faculty member for the University of North Carolina. Through his short-course and other nontraditional teaching opportunities and participation in seminars he has traveled to coastal Virginia, Florida and, China. For more information about his teaching and research interests contact Dr. May at michael.may@wku.edu.

Dr. LESLIE NORTH   recently earned her doctorate in Geography and Environmental Science and Policy from the University of South Florida in Tampa. Since she was first exposed to karst science as an undergraduate student, Leslie has focused her collegiate and research activities to understanding and protecting these fragile terrains. During her master’s thesis research, which focused on evaluating anthropogenic karst disturbances, Leslie reached the startling conclusion that both the general public and policymakers have a very limited understanding of karst terrains, resulting in widespread misuse of these landscapes. As a result, for her dissertation Dr North conducted the first holistic study of karst-related educational programs implemented in the United States and abroad, and the tools, techniques, and feasibility of educating the general public at karst attractions, particularly show-cave facilities. Through a large body of data collected from over 100 show caves worldwide, she was able to illustrate the existence of multiple missed opportunities and misconceptions about educational pursuits in informal learning environments that are ultimately hindering the pursuit of appropriate geologic education and encouraging erroneous measures of program success. For more information about his teaching and research interests contact Dr. North at leslie.north@wku.edu.

Dr. FRED SIEWERS  is a sedimentary geologist with expertise in carbonate sedimentology, stratigraphy and invertebrate paleontology. He received his Ph.D. in 1995 from the University of Illinois, where he worked on the origin and stratigraphic significance of discontinuity surfaces (hardgrounds and paleokarst surfaces) in Middle Ordovician limestones of Nevada. He has a wide range of interests in geoscience research, including instructional technology. In 1997 while teaching at Rock Valley College, Rockford, Illinois, he founded and co-administered the Rock Valley EdNet, an educational intranet and on-line learning community. Since joining the Department of Geography and Geology in 1998, Dr. Siewers has worked on the origin of "coal-ball" concretions in Pennsylvanian coal seams and the preservation of plant remains in those concretions. Dr. Siewers enjoys working with students and colleagues on research projects and is always looking for new students and colleagues with whom to collaborate. He has extensive experience in field geology as well as with a variety of laboratory techniques, including sedimentary petrography, cathodoluminscence microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and geochemical microanalysis. He is actively involved in geoscience education, both regionally and nationally, and enjoys maintaining a "web-log" of noteworthy happenings in geology. He is an associate of the WKU Center for Biodiversity Studies and is the secretary and treasurer of the WKU Chapter of Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society. Additionally, he is the secretary of the Geology Section of the Kentucky Academy of Science. Feel free to contact Dr. Siewers via e-mail or phone (270-745-5988).

Dr. ANDREW H. WULFF's recent research interests include the petrogenetic history of volcanic rocks in the Chilean Andes and Mojave Desert, the health effects of residential radon and airborne particulate quartz dust, and connections to anthropology/archeology such as the sourcing of chert artifacts using trace element signatures, and the modeling paleoenvironments associated with early hominid finds in Java. These research interests involve quantitative analysis of a wide variety of geological materials using XRF, XRD, ICP-MS, SEM and electron microprobe, and he is pleased to have both undergraduate and graduate students as colleagues in all aspects of these investigations. Dr. Wulff also has a strong interest in developing innovative teaching strategies for all levels and is active in contributing to the earth science curricula in the local school district. He is active in training and leading workshops for pre- and in-service earth science teachers. Dr. Wulff serves as advisor for undergraduate Honors students and for undergraduate research projects. Students are expected to become proficient in analytical techniques, write grants, abstracts, and papers - and present research results at professional meetings. Students on these projects have so far received 34 grants from different sources. Contact Dr. Wulff at 270-745-5976; or email at: andrew.wulff@wku.edu

Dr. JUN YANjoined the WKU faculty in 2004. He has a Ph.D. in GIScience from the State University of New York at Buffalo (UB), an M.S. in GIS and Remote Sensing from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and a B.S. in Urban & Regional Planning from Peking University, China. Dr. Yan's professional interests range from the theoretical development of GIScience to the applications of GIS technologies and spatial quantitative methods. One of his interests is the adoption of computational methods in a geographic domain. His current research activities mainly focus on spatio-temporal data mining in large geospatial databases. Dr. Yan conducts research on the applications of GIS and other information technologies in solving a variety of real-world geographic problems. Particularly, he works in the areas related to urban and regional analysis, transportation, public health, criminology, and environmental studies. He is looking forward to working with students who are interested in pursuing geography and GIS as a professional career! For more information, contact Dr. Yan at 270-745-8952 by phone or via email at jun.yan@wku.edu