Awards and Recognition
Madhumita Dutta was awarded the 2020 Ashby Prize from Economy and Space. Chosen by the editors, this award is made annually in recognition of the most innovative articles published in the journal each year. Workplace, emotional bonds and agency: Everyday gendered experiences of work in an export processing zone in Tamil Nadu, India. The article advances labor geography’s understanding of how workers remake workplaces by centering lived experiences of women workers. Prioritizing the everyday practices and experiences of work and work life, the article shows how women form complex feelings towards their workplaces, including a sense of self-worth and feelings of belonging and mutual care.
Kendra McSweeney received the OSU Distinguished Scholar Award for her exceptional research contributions. Kendra McSweeney is an internationally renowned scholar in the field of environment-society relations. Her primary focus is on issues in cultural and political ecology, conservation and development, resilience, demography and land use/cover change. Her current research includes tracing the socioecological impacts of drug trafficking through Central America and studying the nature and implications of demographic change among Latin America's indigenous populations. Six Ohio State faculty members are named each year in recognition of their exceptional scholarly accomplishments and substantial body of research. Recipients are nominated by their departments and chosen by a committee of senior faculty, including past award recipients. Distinguished Scholars receive an honorarium and a research grant to be used over the next three years. The award is supported by the Office of Research. In addition, Kendra McSweeney received the Alexander and Ilse Melamid Medal for "outstanding work on the dynamic relationship between human culture and natural resources" from the American Geographical Society.
Elisabeth Root has received a 2021 Community Engaged Scholar Award for her work with state and local public health partners on initiatives ranging from infant mortality, to the opioid crisis, to COVID-19.
Zhengyu Liu, Max Thomas Professor of Climate Dynamics is among this year's American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Fellows. The AAAS elects Fellows as a special honor to recognize leading scientists and innovators.
Appointments
Harvey Miller was appointed to the Board on Earth Sciences and Resources (BESR) at the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. The BESR oversees a wide range of Earth science issues, including research, the environment, natural hazards, resources, geographic science and geospatial information, and data and education. It also provides guidance on U.S. participation in international Earth science programs. Harvey Miller has also been appointed to a second term as Chair of the Mapping Science Committee of the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. The Mapping Science Committee organizes and oversees National Research Council studies that provide independent advice to society and to government at all levels on geospatial science, technology, and policy. Harvey's term as Chair will run from 2021 through 2023.
Steven Quiring was named to the Leadership team for the Sustainability Institute at The Ohio State University. He will serve as the Research Lead, Smart and Resilient Communities arm, mentor junior faculty, and drive the continued research agenda of understanding Climate Change and how to make our communities better.
Grants and Research
Huyen Le is Principal Investigator on a new project, “Estimating exposure and health impacts of traffic-related air pollution during daily travel.” Funded through the Sustainability Institute.
Max Woodworth is co-PI on a project titled, “Ohio’s Coal Transition: Pathways for Community Resilience.”
Becky Mansfield is co-PI on a new National Science Foundation award to build an Undergraduate Network for Increasing Diversity of Ecologists (UNIDE). This project aims to build a sustainable and interdisciplinary network of ecologists, educators and social scientists to address how cultural and social barriers impact human diversity in ecology and environmental disciplines (EE). The Principal Investigator is Maria Miriti in the Department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology. Becky Mansfield is co-Principal Investigator on a new grant from the National Science Foundation: The Generic Herbicide Industry: A Global Production Network Analysis. Marion Warner (SUNY Buffalo) is the Principal Investigator.
Steven Quiring has a new project funded by the National Science Foundation (Physical and Dynamic Meteorology program): “Improving Process-Level Understanding of Surface-Atmosphere Interactions Leading to Convection Initiation in the Central United States.” This is a collaborative project with Trent Ford (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign). Steven Quiring received a new award from USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture titled, "FACT: Leveraging Machine Learning to Provide High Resolution Soil Moisture and Evapotranspiration Data to Support Farm-Scale Decision Making." He also contracted with Owens Corning in late December to do climate change risk modeling.
Publications
Two of Harvey Miller’s publications this past year are from interdisciplinary collaborations both on and off-campus. A paper in Nature Scientific Reports (2020, issue 10) on non-emergency “311” service requests as indicators of neighborhood distress and opioid use disorder was led by his PhD student Yuchen Li and involves researchers in the OSU College of Public Health, Wexner Medical Center, and practitioners in the Columbus opioid treatment and recovery community. Harvey was also lead author on a paper in Harvard Data Science Review (2021, issue 3.2) describing next-generation sustainable urban systems science via data observatories. This project involves researchers in geography, computer science, urban planning, transportation and sustainability science at OSU and Portland State University.
Over the past year, Max D. Woodworth published an article in GeoHumanities titled “Picturing Urban China in Ruin: ‘Ghost City’ Photography and Speculative Urbanization” that explores how photographers have sought to represent the phenomenon of empty new cities in China. In a separate project on China’s borderlands and resource frontiers, Max also published the introduction to a special issue in Eurasian Geography and Economics with Agnieszka Joniak-Lüthi titled “Exploring China’s Borderlands in an era of BRI-induced Change.”
Joel Wainwright has been writing a book on the history of Belize. A fragment of this research, concerning the struggle for indigenous lands in 1997-2004, was recently published in Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies[ link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17442222.2021.1935694 ]. On the side, he continues to examine the relationship between Geography and the US military. See, for instance, his commentary on the AAG Geography and Military Study Committee report, coauthored with philosopher Bryan Weaver [ link https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/24694452.2020.1804823 ].
In the article Deregulatory science: Chemical risk analysis in Trump’s EPA, Professor Becky Mansfield finds that while critics cast the Trump administration as anti-science, the Trump EPA instead developed “deregulatory science:” across a wide range of policies, EPA officials claimed that deregulatory approaches relied on better science. A key lesson is that contesting deregulation by declaring it anti-science reflects an impasse, as proponents of deregulation then also seek to take the mantle of science. The alternative is to make explicit the values and interests shaping all forms of regulatory science.
The Glyphosate Assemblage: Herbicides, Uneven Development, and Chemical Geographies of Ubiquity, co-authored by Professor Becky Mansfield, documents the global geography of agrichemical production and use over the past 50 years, with a special focus on the controversial herbicide glyphosate, made famous under the brand name Roundup and increasingly sold as a generic. While the idea that glyphosate is safe and effective—a benign biocide—drove its exponential growth, its ubiquity today is undermining both its effectiveness, as weeds develop resistance, and safety, as evidence grows that the chemical is linked to cancer and non-cancer health effects. Understanding the changes that have underpinned skyrocketing demand for agrichemicals is crucial to forming an updated global environmental health research and policy agenda.
Departing Faculty
Yue Qin (formerly assistant professor) has accepted a position as Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, at Peking University. While at Ohio State, Dr. Qin helped develop curriculum in energy geographies that bridged environment & society, Geographic Information Science and atmospheric sciences. We are sorry to see her go, but glad for her to land this exciting new position at a top university and China. We hope she will look back fondly at her time at OSU.
Elisabeth Root (formerly professor) has accepted a position of Principal Investigator for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle. She will be leading up a research team focusing on global health issues, particularly related to infant mortality and women’s health issues. She had an outstanding year in 2020, winning both the OSU College of Arts and Sciences Midcareer Excellence Award, and OSU Community Engaged Scholar Award. Her departure is a big loss to campus and our department, but we wish her well in this next chapter of her career.
For both Professors Qin and Root, these moves mean returning to family, an issue that has been central for many of us during a pandemic. I am grateful for the community that we have built here in Columbus and maintained even at a distance.
Retiring Faculty
Jay Hobgood retired after 34 years of service in the Geography Department at Ohio State. Jay has long been a beloved instructor and mentor in the Atmospheric Sciences Program. He has served the department and the Atmospheric Sciences program, teaching hundreds of students in courses ranging from basic meteorology to advanced dynamic theory. His gift for making theory accessible helped his students to connect math and physics concepts to atmospheric phenomena. Since 2015, he has served as the Coordinator for the Committee on Academic Misconduct, selflessly serving the university and the students with dedication and kindness. Jay has been the advisor to the student organization, the Meteorology Club, since its inception in 1996, the same year he received a Distinguished Teaching Award. This dedicated group of students organizes and runs the well-attended Severe Weather Symposium every spring. Jay was also part of a team that developed a forecasting system for the Great Lakes. Most recently, Jay developed the Hurricane Wind Intensity Size Index (HWISI) to better capture the potential damage caused by tropical cyclones by incorporating both size and intensity (the widely used Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale only considers intensity). Since 2012, Jay has supported the annual Pelotonia ride with weather forecasts leading up to the ride and monitoring during the event. Jay’s outstanding performance in service to the university over the decades has always reflected well on this department and we appreciate him and his service. Although he can now be found more often on the local golf courses, Jay will continue to be involved in mentoring students and researching hurricanes in the years to come. We will miss his upbeat attitude, dedication, and constant professionalism. We are excited for him in this next stage of his life and look forward to his continued research and engagement with the department.
Morton O’Kelly retired after 39 years at Ohio State, including 11 as department chair and two years as Divisional Dean of Social and Behavioral Sciences (SBS) He was honored as a Joan Huber Faculty Fellow (SBS) in 2012. Morton is an intellectual leader in developing “hub and spoke” models to optimize spatial distribution systems. He leaves a legacy of strength in transportation geography and spatial analysis, including our largest undergraduate major in Air Transportation. His many written works include a book written with the eminent Ned Taaffe, Geography of Transportation, that remains seminal in the field. He was also the Director of the renowned Center for Urban and Regional Analysis between 2012 and 2015. His former students speak to his support in developing rigorous hypotheses to be tested with appropriate data and fostering curiosity to disentangle complex patterns of spatial interaction with the simplest possible explanations. He believes in clear, succinct and direct language to explain academic arguments. Morton was a featured colloquium speaker this past spring, presenting his research on the impacts of COVID-19 on air travel. Morton is also a serious musician, playing the penny whistle in a traditional Celtic band. A “field trip” of sorts among faculty back in 2007 to see him play at the Dublin (Ohio) Irish Festival, embarrassed him, but he played “Whiskey in the Jar” with aplomb. We wish him well in this transition, knowing that he will continue to follow his research pursuits, with hopefully quite a bit of travel and other enjoyment along the way.