• Six Geography Students and 22 others from Virginia Tech and the University of Montana travelled the south island of New Zealand studying Sustaining Human Societies and the Natural Environment with Bill Carstensen and Bob Morrill. Movie by Ryan and Jenna Sloane (Large file but worth the wait) The next trip iscoming up in December and January, again led by Bill and Bob. Contact Bill Carstensen if interested in the December trip.

• On Wednesday August 26, the AmericaView Board of Directors nominated Dr. James Campbell, long-time AV board member and VirginiaView PI, for a seat on the National Geospatial Advisory Committee. We are honored that Jimaccepted, and look forward to his representation on the committee.

• Kirsten deBeurs article, War, drought, and phenology: changes in the land surface phenology of Afghanistan since 1982 has recently appeared in the journal of Land Use Science.

• Korine Kolivras of the Lyme disease research team has received $20,000 to support preliminary analyses and data collection on the project from VT's Institute for Biomedical and Public Health Sciences.  The research team is Jim Campbell, Steve Sedlock (CGIT), Dana Hawley (Biology), Eric Smith and Pang Du (statistics), and David Gaines ( Virginia Dept of Health).

• Kirsten deBeurs article with G.M. Henebry, "Northern Annular Mode Effects on the Land Surface Phenologies of Northern Eurasia" has just appeared in the Journal of Climate and her paper "Estimating the effect of gypsy moth defoliation using MODIS" has appeared in Remote Sensing of Environment
  

• Students and teachers have a successful World Landscapes trip to the UK. This group shot was taken at the Blencathra Field Studies Centre, Cumbria, UK. (click image below for Jim Campbell's pics) click here for Grossman pics.

• Kirsten de Beurs has recently launched the mid-atlantic phenology network website.

• Larry Grossman gave an invited talk "Inequality, Environment, and Food on St. Vincent" at Washington and Lee University on April 22, 2008.

• Lynn Resler has recently been invited to be the Marsico Visiting Scholar at the University of Denver, based on a proposal written by a colleague (see attached). I will be visiting, interacting with students and colleagues, and giving lectures from May 10 - 14, 2008.

• Larry Grossman and Jim Campbell have received a $31,500 grant from the Virginia Geographic Alliance to support Virginia Teachers on their summer 2008 World Landscapes travel course to the United Kingdom.

• Kirsten de Beurs interviewed by Noah Adams on NPR's "All Things Considered" - Friday March 21, 2008. Kirsten discusses the early arrival of spring from the perspective of Phenology on National Public Radio.

• Kirsten de Beurs recently gave an invited talk in the session on: “Observing, Analyzing, and Modeling Phenologies at Multiple Scales“ at the American Geophysical Union fall meeting in San Francisco.  The title of her talk was: “Spatio-Temporal Statistical Methods for Monitoring of Land Surface Phenology”. To view the presentation, please click here.

• Kirsten de Beurs recently presented a very important workshop on Phenology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison . For more info click here.

Student Achievements:

The following Geography students were recognized for 2008-2009 scholarships and awards at the College of Natural Resources and Environment 44th Annual Honors Banquet, March 31, 2009

AWARDS:
- Sean Wohltman - Recent Alumnus Award - Undergraduate Division
- Melanie B. Stine, The A.B. Massey Honorarium for outstanding academic and professional leadership;
- Alyssa Durden, The Outstanding Achievement Award;
- Jeremy Kirkendall - David William Smith Award for Outstanding Service
- Daniel Lusher, Curriculum Club's Outstanding Member Award, Geography Society At Virginia Tech

UNDERGRADUATE SCHOLARSHIPS:
- Stewart Scales; CNR Ambassor Scholarship
- Gaku Fujiyama , Allison Sullivan; A.E. Evans Scholarship;
- Brice Ashby; Gray Lumber Co. Scholarship;
- Charlotte Hansen, Thomas H. Jones Scholarship
- Alyssa Durden; The Sidman P. Poole Scholarship
- Barry Ewell; The Sidman P. Poole Scholarship
- Andrew Martus; The Sidman P. Poole Scholarship
- Heidi Miller; The Sidman P. Poole Scholarship
- Kelly O'Reilly: The Sidman P. Poole Scholarship
- Jonathan Uzzle; The Sidman P. Poole Scholarship
- Josiah Donaldson; The William O. Ross Scholarship
- Justin Murphy; The Honorable & Mrs. Shelton Hardaway Short, Jr., Memorial Scholarship

GRADUATE SCHOLARSHIPS:
- Arvind Bhuta, Mindy Butterworth, Amos Desjardin, Alissyn Hudson-Dunn, Allison LeBlanc, Candice Luebbering, Kellyn Montgomery, Melanie Stein, Emily Smith; The Sidman P. Poole Scholarship

The following Geography students were recognized for 2007-2008 scholarships and awards at the College of Natural Resources and Environment 43rd Annual Honors Banquet, March 19, 2008

AWARDS:
- David E. Kramar, The A.B. Massey Honorarium for outstanding academic and professional leadership;
- Timothy H. Brown, The Alumni Award for Outstanding Scholarship;
- Arvind Bhuta, Curriculum Club's Outstanding Member Award, Geography Society At Virginia Tech

UNDERGRADUATE SCHOLARSHIPS:
- Brian Howell,Todd Morland, Allison Sullivan, A.E. Evans Scholarship;
- Lindsay Haller, Gray Lumber Co. Scholarship;
- Charlotte Hansen, Thomas H. Jones Scholarship
- Brian Wolford; The Sidman P. Poole Scholarship
- Edwin Upshaw; The William O. Ross Scholarship
- Justin Murphy; The Honorable & Mrs. Shelton Hardaway Short, Jr., Memorial Scholarship

GRADUATE SCHOLARSHIPS:
- Kelly Siman, Sherry Tejada, Nicholas White; The Sidman P. Poole Scholarship