The annual Geography Graduate Awards were announced in Buchanan Hall on May 22, and a reception in the Ellison Hall first floor conference room was held afterwards for the recipients of The Jack and Laura Dangermond Graduate Fellowship Award, The Jack & Laura Dangermond Undergraduate Scholarship, The David S. Simonett Memorial Award, The Leal Ann Kerry Mertes Scholarship Awards, The Geography Excellence in Teaching Award, and The Geography Excellence in Research Award. Our Chair, Professor Oliver Chadwick, presented the awards, and cake, cookies, and coffee were served afterwards, thanks to the efforts of staffers Karen Barteld and Bernadette Weinberg.
Jack and Laura Dangermond are the co-founders and President and Executive Vice President respectively of ESRI (Environmental Systems Research Institute), a major industrial supplier of software in the field of GIS. The Jack and Laura Dangermond Graduate Fellowship was won by Josh Bader. This Fellowship is awarded to a promising graduate geography student in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in the department of Geography. The recipient will hold the title “The Jack and Laura Dangermond Fellow” in residence and receives a stipend, allowing its holder to devote more time to imaginative and creative research. Monica Altmaier won The Jack & Laura Dangermond Undergraduate Scholarship.
The David S. Simonett Memorial Award was won by Philipp Schneider. The award is in honor of our first Chair. To quote from Susan Baumgart’s “Department History,” on our web site, “Simonett had the vision, firepower, persistence, and generosity of spirit to alchemize talented individuals into one of the most prestigious Geography departments of the United States.”
The Leal Anne Kerry Mertes Scholarship is awarded to talented and deserving UCSB students enrolled in any UCSB department where fieldwork in natural science is conducted. For the purposes of this scholarship, “field work” is defined as any off-campus activity devoted to studying, observing, sampling, investigating or measuring natural or human phenomena. The fund supports both the scholarships and the expenses associated with the awarding of these scholarships. Geography graduate student Brett Hartman won a scholarship for his research proposal, “A community development approach to ecological restoration in developing nations: Case study analyses from the highlands of Peru and Bolivia.” Graduate EEMB student Seeta Sistla also won a scholarship for her research proposal, “How does arctic shrub expansion influence soil nutrient cycling through changes in the rhizosphere?”
Suzanne Foss received the annual Department of Geography Excellence in Teaching Award. This award is presented to Geography graduate students who have outstanding course evaluations as TAs and/or instructors, outstanding written comments from students, outstanding evaluations of TA work by the course instructor, and outstanding design of course or lab syllabi or outstanding design of lab or section activities. The Geography Excellence in Research Award was won by Julie Dillemuth for her outstanding research track record.
