| Congratulations go out to Ludwig Chen, Youshuang Hu, and Ailing Jin who each received a 2026 AAG International Geographic Funds Award.
The IGIF funds are designed to support university student career development in the academic areas of applied spatial analysis or geographic information science or systems (SA/GISS).
Awardees will be celebrated during the upcoming AAG Annual Meeting in San Francisco as a part of the AAG Awards Ceremony, which they are encouraged to attend.
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Yoo Min Park is giving a presentation with Mei-Po Kwan in the UCGIS Webinar Series on Thursday 2/26. The title of their talk is: Rethinking Geographic Contexts and the Uncertain Geographic Context Problem in Environmental Health Research.
More info about attending the webinar can be found below.
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UCGIS Webinar:
Bringing the Indoors In – Rethinking Geographic Contexts and the Uncertain Geographic Context Problem in Environmental Health Research
Presenter: Yoo Min Park (University of Connecticut) and Mei-Po Kwan (Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Moderator: Wenwen Li (Arizona State University)
Time: February 26 (Thursday) 10:00am-11:00am Eastern time (7:00am-8:00am Pacific)
Abstract
Recent geospatial health research has leveraged human mobility data to advance our understanding of how geographic contexts shape health outcomes. However, most studies still overlook the impact of indoor spaces, failing to account for the complexities introduced by people traversing a variety of indoor and outdoor environments. In this talk, we will explain how uncertainties about whether a person is indoors vs. outdoors at a given geographic location (i.e., GPS coordinate), and which environmental factors (indoor vs. outdoor factors) they are exposed to, can lead to misleading conclusions. We will also discuss how integrating multiple technologies for positioning, indoor-outdoor classification, indoor localization, or context-specific environmental monitoring can help address this gap. By highlighting indoor spaces as essential geographic contexts that influence individuals’ exposure to environmental risk factors, this talk calls for expanding geography beyond outdoor environments to fully capture the spectrum of places and geographic contexts that shape human health.
A related paper (free download):
Park, Y. M., & Kwan, M. P. (2025). Revisiting the Uncertain Geographic Context Problem: Expanding Its Scope to Include Indoor Geographic Contexts and Dynamics in Environmental Health and Social Science Research. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 115(5), 1055–1070. https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2025.2472974
Register for this webinar:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_nQm9j8q0QZ6-dEqqbmBi5Q
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about how to join the event.
Congratulations to Julissa Rojas-Sandoval for being named a 2026 Ecological Society of America (ESA) Excellence in Ecology Scholar. This prestigious scholarship program celebrates and supports outstanding early- to mid-career Ph.D. ecologists from groups traditionally underrepresented in the scientific community.
More information can be found here: https://esa.org/blog/2026/01/21/ecological-society-of-america-selects-2026-eee-scholars
Professor Debs Ghosh is giving a colloquium to the Geosciences Department at Auburn University on Jan 15.
The title of her talk is “Making Structural Racism and Discrimination Measurable: A Community-Informed, Place-Based Index”.
Congratulations to Daniel Kraemer for successfully defending his dissertation, which is titled: Context is Everything: Advancing Earthquake Social Vulnerability Models Through Identifying Local and Hazard-Specific Drivers
Dr. Julissa Rojas-Sandoval’s current research about using AI to predict biological invasions is the focus of a post on the UConn Today site. Read the full story here: today.uconn.edu/2025/10/a-new-ai-based-method-to-help-prevent-biological-invasions
Congratulations to Sydney Clements for successfully defending her dissertation, which is titled: Distributing Equity: An Analysis of Existing Food Hub Distribution Models in Connecticut.
Assistant Professor-in-Residence Dan Wanyama and a group of his closest friends and colleagues have collaborated to share their expertise with sustainability and conservation scholars and specialists in Africa. They developed a free advanced Geographic Information System (GIS) training program that is attracting interest from around the globe.
The full story can be found here: today.uconn.edu/2025/09/snapshot-a-unique-collaboration-helps-boost-conservation-with-gis-training
Congratulations to Stacy Maddern for his project on building a community garden in the Newhallville neighborhood of New Haven. Below are links for news stories about the work Professor Maddern has been doing in New Haven:
https://www.newhavenindependent.org/article/newhallville_garden
https://www.newhavenarts.org/arts-paper/articles/a-dream-takes-root-on-shelton-avenue
Prof. Debs Ghosh is invited to give a colloquium talk at the Department of Earth, Geographic, and Climate Sciences, UMass Amherst, on Friday, Sept 19th.
The title of her talk is “Listening to Communities, Measuring Inequities: A New Index of Structural Racism and Discrimination”
