UCSB Geography Logo

 

 

Another Feather in Kate’s Cap


Geography graduate student Kate Deutsch has added the President’s Dissertation Year Fellowship to her impressive list of recent awards and accolades. According to the UCSB Graduate Division description, “The President’s Dissertation Year Fellowship provides financial resources to devote full attention to completing the dissertation in a twelve-month period. The award requires a clearly defined, vital mentor relationship between the student and his/her dissertation advisor that will encourage completion of the doctoral degree during the tenure of this fellowship. Ultimately, this program aims to improve the rate at which award recipients complete their degrees and to improve the quality of their research training and scholarly output.”

Kate’s dissertation committee includes Kostas Goulias (Chair), Stuart Sweeney, and Martin Raubal, and her research examines the two-way relationship between time use and destination choice while including an in-depth exploration of the influence of sense of place and social networks in these choices. This will involve conducting a survey in Santa Barbara County, including a household questionnaire, satellite survey questions for groups of respondents, and a GPS aided week-long, in-depth activity diary, plus a five week passive data collection. Analysis will be conducted using this data and will be combined with various additional data sources. A suite of models will be developed and employed to research the structure, development, and composition of social networks and sense of place, as well as the influence of these on time use and destination choice.

Previous feathers in Kate’s cap include a UC Transportation Center dissertation grant in Spring 2011, National Highway Administration Eisenhower Fellowships in 2009/10 and 2010/11, the Brython Davis Fellowship from the UCSB Graduate Division in 2009, the AAG Transportation Geography Specialty Group’s “2009 Master’s Thesis Award,” and UCTC Fellowships in 2006/07, 2007/08, and 2008/09. To cap that off, Kate has authored several publications and has been a Community Mentor to junior high and high school students for the past 5 years. Wow! Hats off to Kate!

Image 1 for article titled "Another Feather in Kate’s Cap"
“I was born and raised in San Diego, California, which is where all of my immediate family still lives. I’m a big fan of the outside (i.e., the beautiful world outside of my office walls), my friends, all things creative, and hanging out with kids. One of the biggest impacts in my life was a select few adults who invested in me when I was growing up, so, when I’m not sleeping or doing all things academic, you will probably find me partaking in one of the things mentioned above.”

Image 2 for article titled "Another Feather in Kate’s Cap"
Kate (far right) and fellow grads organized the 2008 UC Transportation Center student research conference. According to Kostas Goulias, “As time progressed, Kate’s always rigorous approach to things and her ability to inspire others gave us the best conference ever in the 14 years of UCTC student conferences. Kate and her colleagues succeeded, where many other conferences failed, to combine substance with networking and quality with fun. These events require persons that have a vision of excellence with the ability to manage and implement well-executed plans. This combination of vision and management skills is extremely rare, and Kate is a person that combines them in a creative and inspiring way.”

Please follow and like us:
error
fb-share-icon
Tweet
fb-share-icon