A collective noun is one that is singular in form but refers to a group of people or things, e.g., “a faculty of academics,” and I’m sure that our Geography grads can empathize with such collective nouns as “a fortitude of graduate students,” “a doggedness of doctoral candidates,” “a dilation of pupils,” and, particularly, “an angst of dissertations.” Please join me in congratulating the following “slate of candidates” for overcoming the angst and successfully (and collectively!) completing their PhDs in Geography in the past year:
Matthew Clark (Summer 2005; Dar Roberts, chair): “An Assessment of Hyperspectral and Lidar Remote Sensing for the Monitoring of Tropical Rain Forest Trees”
William Corrigan (Summer 2005; Rick Church, chair): “Travel Time Estimation for Emergency Medical Vehicles with Applications to Location Models”
Carlos de Souza Jr. (Summer 2005; Dar Roberts, chair): “Mapping and Spatiotemporal Characterization of Degraded Forests in the Brazilian Amazon Through Remote Sensing”
Ryan Engstrom (SDSU & UCSB; Summer 2005) “Effects of Spatial and Temporal Variability in Vegetation, Soil Moisture, and Depth of Thaw on Modeled Evapotranspiration Estimates in Arctic Coastal Plain Ecosystems”
Nicholas Nagle (Summer 2005; Stuart Sweeney, chair) “Continuous Field Statistical Methods for Spatial Analysis in the Social Sciences”
John Rogan (SDSU & UCSB; Summer 2005; Dr. Franklin, SDSU, chair): “Operational Monitoring of Land-Cover Change Using Multitemporal Remote Sensing Data”
Alexandra Syphard (SDSU & UCSB; Summer 2005) “Long-term Impacts of Frequent Fire and Urban Growth on Southern California Coastal Shrublands: An Integrated Simulation Modeling Strategy”
Noah Goldstein (Fall 2005; Keith Clarke, chair): “The Computational Testing of Urban Growth Modeling”
Matthew Rice (Fall 2005; Mike Goodchild, chair): “Intellectual Property Control for Maps and Geographic Data”
Jorge Sifuentes (Fall 2005; Mike Goodchild, chair): “Geographical Information Systems Data Implementation for Analyses of Settlement Patterns of an Early Agricultural Society”
Richard Middleton (Winter 2006; Rick Church, chair): “Geographical Distillation: Application of the p-Median, Traveling Salesman, and Regionalization Problems”
Rebecca Powell (Winter 2006; Dar Roberts, chair): “Long-Term Monitoring of Urbanization in the Brazilian Amazon Using Remote Sensing”
