Dear UT Geography community:

 

I wanted to briefly follow up on the announcement below about our special guest, Dr. Shaowen Wang. He will be in the Department Nov. 14 (Mon) and 15 (Tues) of next week.  Dr. Tran has graciously agreed to set up some meetings with faculty and students—please volunteer.  Specifically, I want to bring to your attention that Dr. Wang will be delivering a lecture on Nov. 15 at 3:40pm sharp in the EPS (Earth and Planetary Science) Building, room 302—NOT in Burchfiel.  Please see the attached flier (nicely designed by our own Paulo Raposo) for specifics about title, abstract, etc.  For those who don’t know, EPS is up on the Hill and it would be a good idea to head out of Burchfiel a little early to make the talk on time.  Again, as I said before, this is a great honor to have someone of Dr. Wang’s reputation visit us on Geography Awareness Week.

 

Also, don’t forget that on Nov. 17 (Thursday afternoon), we will hold our official Geography Awareness Week Lecture by Bill O’Brien in the Hodges Memorial Library Auditorium.  We are blessed to have two such talented geographers on campus who are analyzing the world from such different but important perspectives.  

 

Best wishes,

DA    

 

 

 

Dear UT Geography Community:

 

We have the somewhat unexpected but very special opportunity to host Dr. Shaowen Wang in the UT Department of Geography, allowing us to bring even greater attention to the already well planned program for Geography Awareness Week and GIS Day festivities. 

 

Dr. Wang is a highly accomplished Professor of GIS and Computer Science at the University of Illinois (https://www.geog.illinois.edu/people/shaowen), Founding Director of the CyberGIS Center for Advanced Digital and Spatial Studies, and Associate Director for the CyberGIS & Lead of Earth and Environment Theme of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). Obviously, Dr. Wang’s noted work connects very strongly with existing and emerging interests and expertise within the Department and ORNL.  Moreover, hosting Dr. Wang allows us to highlight even more the strength and centrality of our GIS program on campus.

 

Associate Head Ron Kalafsky and I are in the process of making final arrangements, but I need to ask all of you to save some important dates to your calendar.  I would ask both students, faculty, and relevant staff to participate in Dr. Wang’s visit.  He will arrive in Knoxville on November 14,  give a talk on Nov. 15, and depart Nov. 16.  During that entire time, he will meet with various folks in the Department, on campus, and possibly at Oak Ridge.  You will soon see additional details about location and specific time for a number of events.

 

Please also note that in addition to Dr. Wang’s visit, we will also have a Distinguished Geography Awareness Week Speaker (Dr. William O’Brien), who will talk about the role of segregation and white supremacy in the formation of the state parks in the American South.  That talk will be held on Nov. 17 (more to come on that as well). Dr. O’Brien’s talk is sponsored by us as well as the Critical Race Collective and the Southern Inequalities Working Group—both of which are multi-disciplinary initiatives on the UT campus.

 

It is an EXCITING time to be a GEOGRAPHER.

 

Thank you,

Derek  

 

 

Derek H. Alderman, PhD

Vice President, American Association of Geographers

Professor & Head, Department of Geography

Betty Lynn Hendrickson Professor of Social Science

University of Tennessee

304C Burchfiel Geography Building

Knoxville, TN 37996-0925

Voice: (865) 974-0406

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http://geography.utk.edu/about-us/faculty/dr-derek-alderman/

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