Welcome back everyone and welcome to all our new students. This is a weekly tradition in the Geography Department: we send news and items of general interest to the department. We also are in the planning stages to distribute more widely to interested alumni. Please send items for inclusion.

Despite some medium cloud cover, many of us gathered on the Oval to witness the 2017 Solar Eclipse this past Monday. The extent of eclipse was over 80% here in Ohio. Particular kudos to Jim DeGrand for his very nice telescope set up and also to Gary Allison and Becky Mansfield for their family friendly set up. Jeff Rogers traveled to Nashville to observe totality. Stay tuned for the next event in 2024. Kudos to Jim for the coverage on TV and mentioning Geography!

The Lantern also did a nice story about the eclipse on the Oval featuring many students and Jim DeGrand with his vintage telescope. That is the kind of publicity that we like to see.

I am pleased to report that Jordan Pino passed his candidacy exam last Friday (the 18th). His dissertation is titled: "Modeling the Effects of Winter Storms on Power Infrastructure Systems in the Northern United States". The committee was: Steven Quiring (chair), Alvaro Montenegro, Bryan Mark, and Desheng Liu.

Note the coherent theme-based series of talks from our visiting speakers program this year, and spot the nice posters around campus. Thanks to the committee, chaired by Joel Wainwright, and Diane Carducci for great work here.

While we have mentioned this before, it may be worth repeating for new folks the recent PhD graduates from Summer 2017:

Dan D’Amico Advisor: Alvaro Montenegro

Committee: Ellen Mosley Thompson; Bryan Mark; Matthew Saltzman (Earth Sciences); Michael Melchin (St. Francis Xavier University)

Jake Carr Advisor: Morton O’Kelly

Committee: Ed Malecki; Ningchuan Xiao; Catherine Calder (Statistics)

Austin Kocher Advisor: Mat Coleman

Committee: Joel Wainwright; Mary Thomas (WGSS); Amna Akbar (Law)

Full details for these and other recent grads are now on our Graduate Alumni Page:

All of our room upgrades and furniture installs are now complete. Thanks to Caitlin Naber for seeing this set of projects through to completion. Enjoy the facilities!