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Rediscovering Geography: New Relevance for Science and Society (1997)

Chapter: Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 1997. Rediscovering Geography: New Relevance for Science and Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/4913.
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Appendix C—
Biographical Sketches of Committee Members

THOMAS J. WILBANKS (Chair) is a corporate research fellow at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where he leads the laboratory's energy, environmental, and science and technology programs in developing countries. A former president of the Association of American Geographers, his research interests are in processes and mechanisms for realizing sustainable development, energy and environmental policy, and institutional capacity building. He was awarded Honors by the Association of American Geographers in 1986, the Distinguished Geography Educator's Award of the National Geographic Society in 1993, and the Anderson Medal of Honor in Applied Geography in 1995, and he is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Syracuse University.

ROBERT McC. ADAMS, an anthropologist, was secretary of the Smithsonian Institution from 1984 until his retirement in 1994. Previously, he was a member of the University of Chicago faculty, serving at various times as director of its Oriental Institute, dean of social sciences, and provost. Currently, he is adjunct professor of anthropology at the University of California, San Diego. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Originally having specialized and conducted many years of fieldwork in the historical geography and archeology of the Near East, his more recent interests have focused on contexts of innovation and the history of technology. Paths of Fire: An Anthropologist's Inquiry into Western Technology was published

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 1997. Rediscovering Geography: New Relevance for Science and Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/4913.
×

in October 1996 by Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey. His earlier publications include Heartland of Cities: Surveys of Ancient Settlement and Land Use on the Central Floodplain of the Euphrates (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois, 1981) and The Evolution of Urban Society: Early Mesopotamia and Pre-hispanic Mexico (Aldine Publishing Company, Chicago, Illinois, 1966).

MARTHA E. CHURCH came to Hood College in 1975 as its first woman president. A graduate of Wellesley College, she earned her M.A. degree from the University of Pittsburgh and her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. She is also the recipient of nine honorary degrees. She retired as Hood's president on June 30, 1995, and assumed a part-time appointment as senior scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching on July 1, 1995.

In recognition of her career as a geographer and successful college administrator, she was elected in the spring of 1989 to the Board of Trustees of the National Geographic Society and also to the Board of Trustees of the society's Education Foundation. She chairs the society's Audit Review Committee and serves on its Executive, Compensation, and Nominating committees.

WILLIAM A.V. CLARK is professor of geography and chair of the Department of Geography at the University of California, Los Angeles. He received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of New Zealand and his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana. He also has a D.Sc. degree from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and the Doctorem Honoris Causa from the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands. His research interests include analyses of migration and residential mobility and the nature of demographic change in large cities. He is a member of the Association of American Geographers, the Population Association of America, and the New Zealand Geographical Society.

ANTHONY R. DE SOUZA is currently professor of geography at Southwest Texas State University. Previously, he was executive director of the Geography Education Standards Project, secretary general of the 27th International Geographical Union Congress, editor of National Geographic Research & Exploration, and Editor of the Journal of Geography. He has also held positions as professor and visiting professor of geography at the George Washington University, the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, the University of Minnesota, the University of California-Berkeley, and the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. He obtained his B.A. and Ph.D. in geography from the University of Reading, England, and has received numerous honors and awards, including the Gilbert Grosvenor Honors for Geographic Education of the Association of American Geographers in 1996. His teaching and research interests include geography education and regional economic development.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 1997. Rediscovering Geography: New Relevance for Science and Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/4913.
×

PATRICIA P. GILMARTIN is professor of geography at the University of South Carolina. Previously, she was a member of the geography faculty at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. Dr. Gilmartin received her master's degree from Georgia State University and her Ph.D. from the University of Kansas. She is a member of the North American Cartographic Information Society, the Canadian Cartographic Association, the Society of Woman Geographers, and the Association of American Geographers, for whom she currently serves as a national councilor and chair of the Publications Committee. Her research interests include map design, cognitive and perceptual processes involved in map use and way finding, and women explorers and travelers.

WILLIAM L. GRAF is regents' professor of geography at Arizona State University. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, with a major in physical geography and a minor in water resources management. His specialties include fluvial geomorphology and policy for public land and water. The focus of much of his geomorphologic research and teaching has been on river channel change, human impacts on river processes and morphology, and contaminant transport and storage in river sediments, especially in dryland rivers. In the area of public policy he has emphasized the interaction of science and decision making and resolution of conflicts between economic development and environmental preservation. His work has been funded by federal, state, and local agencies, ranging from the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to cities, tribes, and private companies. He has published more than 100 papers, articles, book chapters, and reports; his books include Geomorphic Systems of North America (Geological Society of America, Boulder, Colorado, 1987), The Colorado River: Instability and Basin Management (Association of American Geographers, Washington, D.C., 1985), Fluvial Processes in Dryland Rivers (Springer-Verlag, Berlin, New York, 1988), Wilderness Preservation and the Sagebrush Rebellions (Rowman & Littlefield, Savage, Maryland, 1990), and Plutonium and the Rio Grande: Environmental Change and Contamination in the Nuclear Age (Oxford University Press, New York, 1994). His work has produced awards from the Association of American Geographers and the Geological Society of America, as well as a Guggenheim Fellowship. He has served the National Research Council in numerous capacities, including as a member of its Water and Science Technology Board and the Committee on Glen Canyon Environmental Studies and as chair of the Workshop to Advise the President's Council on Sustainable Development and the Committee on Innovative Watershed Management.

JAMES W. HARRINGTON directs the Geography and Regional Science Program of the National Science Foundation's Division of Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research. He is also an associate professor of public policy and

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 1997. Rediscovering Geography: New Relevance for Science and Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/4913.
×

geography at George Mason University. His research area is economic development of subnational regions (e.g., metropolitan areas), specifically the roles of service-sector activity and of international trade. His book Industrial Location: Theory and Practice (with Barney Warf) was published by Routledge in 1995. He serves as secretary and councilor of the Association of American Geographers and as executive director of the North American Regional Science Council. He also has served on civic and church boards in Buffalo, New York, and Reston, Virginia. Raised in South Carolina, he holds an A.B. degree from Harvard University and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Washington.

SALLY P. HORN is an associate professor of geography at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Her research areas are biogeography and paleoecology, especially in the Latin American tropics. She received her B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. (geography) degrees from the University of California, Berkeley. She is a member of the Association of American Geographers, the Ecological Society of America, the Association for Tropical Biology, and the American Quaternary Association.

ROBERT W. KATES is an independent scholar in Trenton, Maine, and university professor (emeritus) at Brown University. He is an executive editor of Environment magazine, distinguished scientist at the George Perkins Marsh Institute at Clark University, faculty associate of the College of the Atlantic, and senior fellow at the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment. Between 1986-1992 he directed the Alan Shawn Feinstein World Hunger Program at Brown University. Before 1986 he held various teaching and research posts at Clark University and the University of Dar es Salaam. He has received a National Medal of Science (1991), a MacArthur Prize fellowship (1981-1985), an honors award from the Association of American Geographers, and an honorary degree from Clark University (1993). He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a foreign member of the Academia Europaea, and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1993-1994, he was the president of the Association of American Geographers. He holds a Ph.D. degree in geography from the University of Chicago.

ALAN MacEACHREN is professor of geography at Penn State University. He received his B.A. in geography from Ohio University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in geography from the University of Kansas. Currently, he chairs the U.S. National Committee for the International Cartographic Association (ICA) and the ICA Commission on Visualization and is codirector of the Geographic Information Analysis Core of the Population Research Institute at Penn State. His research interests include the integration of cognitive and semiotic approaches to georeferenced (particularly cartographic) representation, methods for georeferenced visualization and data mining, environmental cognition and the potential interaction

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 1997. Rediscovering Geography: New Relevance for Science and Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/4913.
×

between geoinformation technology and cognition of space (in contexts such as way finding and geographic education), and social consequences of ''mapping" (both past and present). He is a member of the Association of American Geographers, the Cartography and Geographic Information Society, the Canadian Cartographic Association, the British Cartographic Society, the Society of Cartographers, the North American Cartographic Information Society, and the National Council on Geographic Education.

ALEXANDER B. MURPHY is professor of geography and head of the Department of Geography at the University of Oregon. He specializes in political, cultural, and ethnic geography, with a regional emphasis on Europe. In 1991 he received a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award. He is a councilor of the American Geographical Society and North American editor of Progress in Human Geography. He has headed a National Science Foundation study exploring ways that geographers can contribute to a proposed initiative on democratization. He also chairs a task force overseeing the development of an advanced placement course and examination in geography. He holds a bachelor's degree in archeology from Yale University, a law degree from Columbia University School of Law, and a Ph.D. in geography from the University of Chicago.

GERARD RUSHTON is professor of geography at the University of Iowa. He received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Wales and his Ph.D. in geography from the University of Iowa. He served as a member of the National Research Council's Mapping Science Committee (1990/1993) and was a member of the Board of Directors, National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (1989/1992). His research areas include spatial analysis of disease, spatial decision support systems, and methods of optimal location of facilities. His recent writings have appeared in Environment and Planning A, B, & C, Statistics in Medicine, Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, and Papers, Regional Science Association.

ERIC S. SHEPPARD is professor of geography at the University of Minnesota. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Toronto and his B.Sc. (Hons.) from Bristol University and has been a visiting scholar at the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (Austria) and at the Universities of London, Vienna, Melbourne, and Indonesia. His research interests include the political and economic dynamics of urban and regional systems, spatial strategies of multiplant firms, spatialization of economic and social theory, and interrelationships between philosophical traditions of geographic thought and the methodologies of geographic analysis. He is a member of the Association of American Geographers, the Canadian Association of Geographers, and the Regional Science Association International.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 1997. Rediscovering Geography: New Relevance for Science and Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/4913.
×

BILLIE LEE TURNER II is the Higgins Chair of Environment and Society, Graduate School of Geography, and director, George Perkins Marsh Institute, Clark University. His research interests are human-environment relationships and range from ancient agriculture and environment in Mexico and Central America to contemporary agricultural change in the tropics and global land-use change. He received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Texas and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

CORT J. WILLMOTT received his Ph.D. from UCLA in 1977. He is currently a professor of geography and marine studies at the University of Delaware, where he also serves as chair of the Department of Geography, director of the University's Center for Climatic Research, director of the Environmental Science Program of the College of Arts and Science, and associate director of Delaware's space grant program. His research interests include large-scale climate variability and change, land surface processes and their influences on climate, spatial interpolation over extensive geographic domains, and statistical evaluation of model performance. Grants primarily from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation have supported Professor Willmott's research since 1980. He is a member of the Association of American Geographers, the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, and Sigma Xi.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 1997. Rediscovering Geography: New Relevance for Science and Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/4913.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 1997. Rediscovering Geography: New Relevance for Science and Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/4913.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 1997. Rediscovering Geography: New Relevance for Science and Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/4913.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 1997. Rediscovering Geography: New Relevance for Science and Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/4913.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 1997. Rediscovering Geography: New Relevance for Science and Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/4913.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 1997. Rediscovering Geography: New Relevance for Science and Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/4913.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 1997. Rediscovering Geography: New Relevance for Science and Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/4913.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 1997. Rediscovering Geography: New Relevance for Science and Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/4913.
×
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As political, economic, and environmental issues increasingly spread across the globe, the science of geography is being rediscovered by scientists, policymakers, and educators alike. Geography has been made a core subject in U.S. schools, and scientists from a variety of disciplines are using analytical tools originally developed by geographers.

Rediscovering Geography presents a broad overview of geography's renewed importance in a changing world. Through discussions and highlighted case studies, this book illustrates geography's impact on international trade, environmental change, population growth, information infrastructure, the condition of cities, the spread of AIDS, and much more.

The committee examines some of the more significant tools for data collection, storage, analysis, and display, with examples of major contributions made by geographers.

Rediscovering Geography provides a blueprint for the future of the discipline, recommending how to strengthen its intellectual and institutional foundation and meet the demand for geographic expertise among professionals and the public.

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