|
|
Faculty Member News
2012
Professor Kevin Hall - Elected as Fellow of the Society of South African Geographers The
Geography Program sends warm congratulations to our own Dr. Kevin Hall
who, in June 2012, will be made a Fellow of the Society of South African
Geographers (SSAG). Since 1970 there have been but 24 Fellows,
and this award will be only the second to a non South African.
In the written notification, Cecil Seethal, the SSAG President, wrote that
the award was for "inter alia, the indelible mark you have made on
Geography in South Africa through globally respected research and a
legacy of students who are now leaders in the discipline in the
country....and for your prolific and sustained publication record."
Dr. Catherine Nolin was invited to present three talks in March at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver and Simon Fraser University (SFU) in Burnaby on
Violent Development and Canadian Mining in Guatemala. The Department of Geography at UBC hosted one talk, SFU's First Nations Studies hosted another, and the 3rd talk was part of the "Canadian Mining and the Universities" series hosted by UBC Geograhy, SFU Geography, and SFU's Institute for the Humanities.
New
Adjunct Faculty Member José Pablo Baraybar
José
Pablo is the Executive Director of the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team / el Equipo Peruano de Antropología Forense (EPAF) which is a non-profit
organization that promotes the right to truth, justice, and guarantees of
non-repetition in cases of forced disappearance and extrajudicial execution. In
mid-Februry 2012, José Pablo sends this photo from Bungoma, Kenya where the
EPAF is starting a new project in the area and in partnership with Western
Kenya Human Rights Watch to assist in recording gross Human Rights violations
in the area of Mount Elgon.
2011
UNBC at the Union of BC Municipalities: Dr. Greg Halseth along with forest
industry leader Ike Barber, a long-time supporter of UNBC & UNBC
Chancellor John MacDonald will present information and data they have
collected related to the
evolving forest economy in British Columbia. See: UNBC News Release, 26 September 2011
Congratulations to Dr. Ellen Petticrew who received $27,933 from the Fraser Salmon & Watershed Program for her project "Marine-derived nutrient sampling using a continuous flow centrifuge."
Congratulations to Dr. Neil Hanlon and his co-investigators who were awarded $672,000 over four years (2011-2015) by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) for their research project: "Partnering for Change: Understanding the
Contribution of Social Entrepreneurship to Primary Health Care
Transformation."
Dr. Greg Halseth Named Top-Level Canada Research Chair:The Geography Program sends warm congratulations to Greg Halseth who has been named a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair (CRC). Dr. Halseth is a renowned expert in the field of rural and
small town studies & is UNBC’s first Tier 1 appointment. See: UNBC News Release, 11 October 2011
Dr. Roger Wheate attended the 25th International Cartographic Congress in Paris, 3 - 8 July 2011 as one of Canada’s two official delegates. He
also presented on the Cartographic representation of glacier retreat in
western Canada.
Dr. Catherine Nolin, along with several UNBC colleagues, participated in a UNBC-EPAF delegation in Peru in June 2011. The Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF)
invited Dr. Nolin and the others to formalize a new partnership and
start collaborative research on Peru's internal armed conflict and the
search for Peru's disappeared.
Dr. Catherine Nolin was invited two
present two talks in April at Northwestern University in Chicago, IL on
Violent Development and Forced Migration in Guatemala. The Journal
of International Human Rights at the NU Law School & the Buffett Center on International and Comparative Studies hosted the talks which were co-sponsored by the Center for Forced Migration Studies.
2010
Dr. Brian Menounos traveled to Ottawa (November 23-25) to participate in meetings with several MPs. These meetings are part of the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences' (CFCAS) 'Scientists on the Hill' campaign. The objective of this campaign is to
encourage the Government, and members of the opposition parties to
support science on climate change, extreme weather, and air pollution.
Dr. Zoë Meletis attended
the workshop "Fostering Sustainable Behaviour (with Dr. McKenzie-Mohr)
on November 22 & 23 in Prince George as part of UNBC’s ‘Green Team’
that includes faculty members, staff, undergraduate and graduate
students.
Dr. Brian Menounos traveled to Ottawa (23-25 November) to participate in meetings with several MPs. These meetings are part of the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences (CFCAS) "Scientists on the Hill' campaign. The objective of this campaign is to encourage the Government, and members of the opposition parties to support science on climate change, extreme weather, and air pollution.
Congratulations to Drs. Brian Menounos,
Garry Clarke (UBC), and Dan Moore (UBC) who received a $100,000 grant
from the Canadian Foundation from Climate and Atmospheric Sciences for
their proposal, "Western Canadian Cryospheric Net-work: Modelling
hydrological impacts of deglaciation" in Fall 2010.
Drs. Phil Owens and Ellen Petticrew will be attending the International Symposium on Sediment Dynamics for a Changing Future, Warsaw, Poland, June 14 - 18.
Dr. Ellen Petticrew and graduate student Sam Albers, MSc (Biology) attended the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography Annual Meeting in Santa Fe, NM June 6 - 11.
Several of our folk presented at the Prairie Summit joint meeting of Canadian geographers, cartographers, re-mote sensors and geomorphologists at the University of Regina, 1-5 June. These included Dr. Sarah de Leeuw (Northern Medical Program) and NRES graduate students/researchers Jennifer Herkes, Alex Martin, Laura Ryser and Chelan Zirul. Dr. Catherine Nolin delivered the Suzanne Mackenzie Memorial Lecture, entitled: “Geography That Breaks Your Heart: Feminist Geography from/to the Peripheries”. Drs. Neil Hanlon and Roger Wheate were part of a panel of editors discussing publishing issues for young faculty.
Dr. Phil Owens is attending the European Geosciences Union annual conference in Vienna, May 3 - 7, which is attended by about 10,000 scientists. He organizing and chaired two sessions and presented two posters.
Dr. Brian Menounos gave a talk about geoscience education at UNBC at the Minerals North conference in Prince George, BC in late April.
AAG Conference, Washington, DC - April 2010
Sarah de Leeuw (Assist. Prof, NMP, with Jessica
Place), Waiting for a Saint: Understanding the Annual Rose Prince Pilgrimage as a Geography of Response.
Sarah also served as a panelist on "A Deeper Sense of Place: New
Geographies of Indigenous-Academic Collaboration" panel
Kate Hrinkevich (PhD NRES), Historical mountain pine beetle outbreak dynamics in north-central BC
Alex Martin (PhD NRES), Confronting a Changing
Economic Landscape: The Challenge Facing Forest-Dependent Communities in British
Columbia's Northern Interior
Zoe Meletis (Assist. Prof, GEOG) Dealing with post-dissertation gender guilt: An exploration exercise in searching for gender inteh data
Catherine Nolin (Assoc Prof, GEOG), Anisa
Zehtab-Martin, and Greg Halseth, Hidden Avenue(s) of (Im)migration: Transnational Experiences of Mail-Order Brides in Northern BC
Congratulations to John Pomeroy (U. of Saskatchewan), Brian Menounos, Ron Stewart (U.of Manitoba), and E. Johnson (U. of Calgary) received an $80,000 grant from the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences (CFCAS) for their proposal entitled, “Western Water Security: Threats from Climate Change and Extreme Weather”.
Dr. Roger Wheate delivered the keynote
presentation at the University of Calgary Geography Department's Annual
Conference on March 12, 2010. Dr. Wheate's talk was entitled "The Power
of Geography, the Magic of the North."
We are excited to announce the faculty appointment of Dr. Zoe Meletis (above) as an Assistant Professor in the Geography Program. Dr. Meletis joined us in the Winter 2010 semester and is teaching GEOG303/ORTM433 Recreational Geography
(Tourism, Recreation, & Geography) and ENVS309 Women and Environmental Studies. Dr. Meletis's new office is located in the New Lab Building, Rm. 8-244.
2009
Our Health & Community Development Needs
Drs. Greg Halseth (left) & Neil Hanlon (right) are recognized for their research collaborations with the Northern Medical Program on critical health research. Click here.
On November 12, 2009 Lesbia Morales Sicán, a Member of the National Executive of the Campesino Committee of the Highlands (CCDA) in Guatemala traveled to UNBC to give a Global Thursday presentation as part of a Western Canadian speaking tour. Lesbia's presentation was titled: A Cup of Social Justice: Fair Trade Coffee & Land Reform in Guatemala.
Professor of Geography Jamie Peck (SFU) and Canada Research Chair visited UNBC on October 30, 2009 to present his work as part of the Global Friday Colloquium Series. Dr. Peck's presentation was titled: Neoliberalism: Dead or Alive?
Dr. Roger Wheate attended the 1st
International Conference on 3D maps, in Dresden, Germany, August 24-28.
His talk on the 3D representation of Canadian alpine glaciers included
discussion of the UNBC High Performance Computing Centre "Geowall‟.
Congratulations to Dr. Ellen Petticrew on her promotion to Full Professor starting July 1, 2009! Ellen is pictured to the left with Dr. Phil Owens.
On May 30, 2009, Adjunct Professor Kent Sedgwick, author of "Giscome Chronicle," along with other local PG writers, were on hand at Prince George's Books & Co. to celebrate the publication of their books. Congratulations!
On March 30th, Professor Kevin Hall
leaves for his 14th Antarctic expedition, leaving by sea from Cape Town
for a 5-7 day voyage through the Roaring Forties and the Filthy Fifties. Dr. Hall is leading a team of geologists on
behalf of the South African Antarctic Program.
During the expedition, Dr. Hall will be reconsidering the glacial sedimentology of an area he first investigated 35 years ago — when there was still an ice cap on the island. With the loss of most of the ice cap so there is access to areas previously unavailable. He will also be studying the weathering of the oceanic basalts and, on behalf of Dr. Lito Arocena, collecting rock samples with lichens in a vertical transect from the newly exposed areas down to the coast — where one of the largest penguin colonies in the world is found.
Photo source: Kevin Hall
Catherine Nolin and Research Associate Anisa Zehtab-Martin traveled to Calgary, AB for the 11th National Metropolis Conference, 19-22 March, to facilitate a panel discussion titled: “Foreign Brides and Family Integration from Fort St. John to Halifax” and present their work (co-authored with Greg Halseth & Neil Hanlon) on “ Frontiers and foreign brides: Experiences of marriage and migration in northern BC.” This work is part of a collaboration with the CDI on the “Warmth of the Welcome” research project which is working to highlight the barriers to, and needs for, the strengthened participation of new immigrants in northern community life as well as to develop recommendations and concrete initiatives which foster more inclusive and welcoming communities for new immigrants in northern BC.
 The Geography Program is pleased to announce that Mr. Fredy
Peccerelli, Executive Director & Founding Member of the Guatemalan
Forensic Anthropology Foundation (FAFG), has been appointed as an Adjunct
Professor in our program. The FAFG is an autonomous, non-profit technical and
scientific non-governmental organization. The FAFG's mandate is to strengthen
the administration of justice and respect for human rights through the use of
forensic anthropology techniques to investigate, document, and raise awareness
about past and present human rights violations particularly from the 36-year
armed conflict that began in 1960. At the 2004 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
(AAAS), Mr. Peccerelli and his colleagues at the FAFG were honoured for their commitment
to using science to promote human rights.
Mr.
Peccerelli's most recent accomplishment is the construction of one of the first
functioning DNA Labs in Guatemala that focuses on genocide
cases. Mr. Peccerelli is also the recipient of the New York Academy of Sciences
2008 Heinz R. Pagels Human Rights
Award.
Congratulations to Dr. Catherine Nolin who received the J. Alistair McVey Award for Teaching Excellence from the Western Division of the Canadian Association of Geographers (WDCAG) at the March 2009 meeting hosted by Vancouver Island University in Nanaimo, BC.
Affiliated Geographer Dr. Sarah de Leeuw (UNBC
Northern Medical Program) was awarded 1st prize in the national CBC Literary
Awards in the 'creative non-fiction' category for her story about the fire at
Prince George's Columbus Hotel. The winners were announced at 10:30am Thursday
(Feb 26th) on CBC
Radio One's show Q. Congratulations, Sarah! Click here for Prince George Citizen coverage.
Economic development is the goal of a National Network for Urban Aboriginal Economic Development recently
established by the UNBC and the
Prince George Aboriginal Business Development Centre. The network, coordinated by UNBC Geography professor Greg Halseth and
Ray Gerow from the Prince George Aboriginal Business Development
Centre, involves twelve academic institutions, 31 separate community
and policy groups across the country, and interest is growing.
Fall 2008
Salmon Nutrients
Streams often more than 1000km inland are nourished
by nutrients delivered by spawning salmon. This is the subject of new
research by UNBC prof Ellen Petticrew and PhD student John Rex (both in photo at left) and published in December 2008 issue of Nature Geoscience, one of the world's most prestigious environmental journals.
Community Toolkit Approved
The Board of the Omineca Beetle Action Coalition endorsed moving ahead with the “Community Transition Toolkit”, led by Geography Prof. Greg Halseth. This toolkit will help community leaders and senior staff prepare for
community transition in response to changes in local resource
industries and local economies. The toolkit was developed in
partnership with the Community Development Institute at UNBC and the BC Ministry of Community Development.
New Faces: In September 2008, geographer Dr. Sarah de Leeuw
returned to UNBC, where Sarah earned her MA in Interdisciplinary
Studies in 2002 (English/Geography), as Assistant Professor in the
Northern Medical Program. Sarah is offering the Aboriginal Geography
course (GEOG 403) in the fall 2008 semester.
Dr. Clyde Snow and Fredy Peccerelli (Executive Director, Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation) traveled to UNBC in November 2008 and offered two presentations on the issues of forensic anthropology, human rights, and the search for the disappeared in countries including Guatemala, Bosnia, Argentina and Turkey. The visits were organized by graduate student Cristian Silva and sponsored by many programs across campus.
(L) Fredy Peccerelli, Cristian Silva, Dr. Richard Lazenby, Dr. Catherine Nolin & Dr. Clyde Snow
(R) Cristian Silva, Dr. Richard Lazenby, Dr. Clyde Snow, Dr. Catherine Nolin & Fredy Peccerelli
Dr. Catherine Nolin and 9 UNBC participants who traveled to Guatemala in May 2008 presented an evening of images, reflections, and dialogue on October 8, 2008. The presentation: Violent Development: Canada's Connection to Mining, Human Rights &
Social Justice in Guatemala was attended by close to 200 people.
Dr. Brian
Menounos attended a climate change seminar hosted by the Canadian
Columbia River Forum 27-28 October. The seminar was in Cranbrook, BC, and Brian
presented about the current state and future fate of glaciers in the Columbia
Basin. Brian also hosted a Fall 2008 Workshop for the Western Canadian Cryospheric Network October 2-4th. 40-50 members of the research team that Dr. Menounos leads met at UNBC where various research findings were presented. Click here for the agenda.
Our Receding Glaciers
Drs. Brian Menounos & Roger Wheate along with doctoral student Matt Beedle (among others) are conducting a study of the effect of global warming on glaciers in BC and Alberta. Click HERE for full details and incredible photos.
In early September, Dr. Neil Hanlon
traveled to Durham, England as an invited participant in the "Care of
the Body" Workshop hosted by the Department of Geography at Durham
University. The title of Neil's presentation was "Regionalization and
the re-territorialization of health care in northern BC."
July & August 2008
 The Geography Program sends warm congratulations to Dr. Gail Fondahl,
Professor of Geography, on her recent appointment as UNBC's new
Vice-President, Research. Gail begins her new position on September 1.
For more the university's official announcement, click HERE.
A big thank you to Gail Fondahl who recently completed her 5-year term as Chair of the Geography & Outdoor Recreation & Tourism Management (ORTM) Programs. We welcome Neil Hanlon in his new role as Chair of these programs for the next 5 years.
Brian Menounos and John Pomeroy (USask) received a $295,000 grant from the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences (CFCAS). The grant will be used as supplemental funds for two CFCAS-funded research networks, the Western Canadian Cryospheric Network (WC2N) and Improved Processes and Parameterization for Prediction in Cold Regions (IP3). Congratulations, Brian!
Gail Fondahl attended the International Congress of
Arctic Social Scientists from 21-26 August, in Nuuk,
Greenland.
She presented her work on the development of social indicators for
human development in the
Arctic, a project
under the aegis of the Sustainable Development Working Group of the Arctic
Council. Gail’s participation in the project is funded by the Department of
Indian Affairs and Northern Development (DIAND).
Professor Tim Stott & 4 faculty and students from John
Moore’s University (JMU) in Liverpool,
UK are visiting
BC during July to undertake research at Castle Creek glacier near McBride as
part of a collaborative project between JMU and UNBC with Drs. Phil Owens,
Stephan Déry, Brian Menounos & Ellen Petticrew. They are in the field
monitoring water flow and sediment fluxes in the proglacial river. They will
also visit the QRRC at the end of July to undertake laboratory analysis of sediment
samples. Drs. Owens & Menounos will continue to work in August with a UNBC
undergraduate student.
The Northern BC Immigration Project, coordinated by Catherine Nolin & Greg
Halseth, is in full swing for the second summer of field work (SSHRC,
UNBC Office of Research & CDI-funded). RAs Anisa
Zehtab-Martin and Laurel Van De Keere traveled to Smithers,
Terrace, Kitimat, Fort St. John &
Dawson Creek in
June to meet with immigration service providers & immigrant women. The
ethnographic field work this summer is focused on marriage & migration with
emphasis on the experiences of foreign brides (‘correspondence brides’ who meet
their Canadian husbands via the Internet) and their particular service needs.
Our new website is available at: http://www.unbc.ca/immigration/
May & June 2008
Dr. Ellen Petticrew and John Rex (PhD NRES candidate)
attended the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography Meeting in St. John’s, Newfoundland
in June. Ellen presented an invited talk in a special session on particulate
organic matter in aquatic systems. It was an excellent venue for John to present
the results of his PhD research and he received a near-perfect score for his
student talk. 
Geography professor Brian Menounos
(right) was awarded the prestigious J. Ross Mackay Award this spring in Banff.
The award honours significant contribution to geomorphology by a young
Canadian geomorphologist. Congratulations, Brian!
Dr. Kevin Hall spent the month of May as a guest of the
University of Santiago de Compostela (Galicia, Spain) working on the Quaternary
glacial/periglacial history of the Ancares Mountains, and advising on field
approaches to monitor the linear elastic fracture mechanics of granite breakdown
and the application of thermal imaging for the study of (Celtic) pictogram
weathering.
Geography Field School to Guatemala, May 2008
Dr. Catherine
Nolin (6th from left) with 3 Geography undergraduates & 6 UNBC
graduate students with our driver Martin in Antigua, Guatemala
Dr. Catherine Nolin and eight UNBC students traveled to Guatemala for three weeks in May for the 3rd Geography Field School to Guatemala. Organized in collaboration with Grahame Russell of Rights Action, this university delegation focused on issues of human rights, social (in)justice and development, and met with human rights and grassroots development organizations within the capital of Guatemala City and throughout the rural countryside. Vancouver-based mining company -- Goldcorp -- provided amazing access to their gold mining operations and the people who work within the sites. Click here to access a field school photo essay developed by participant Claudette Bois (PhD NRES student).
Congratulations to Jim Windsor for receiving one of the UNBC Excellence in Teaching Award at the May 2008 Convocation.
March & April 2008
Ellen Petticrew and Phil Owens attended the European Geosciences Union annual meeting in Vienna, Austria, April 2008. They gave two invited oral papers and four poster papers(*) and organized an oral and poster session on Science for improved sediment and habitat management in aquatic ecosystems. Click HERE for a listing of faculty, graduate students and postdoc presentations (p. 2).
Faculty members from GEOG and ORTM took a group of about 30 graduate and undergraduate students to participate in the 50th Annual Meeting of the Western Division of Canadian Association of Geographers in Bellingham, WA (March 6-8, 2008). UNBC took home two of three student presentation awards. Click HERE for full details of presentations on pg. 3
January & February 2008
Dr. Gail Fondahl attended an Arctic Social Indicators
(ASI) development workshop in Copenhagen from Feb 27 - March 1, 2008. The ASI
project is an IPY (International Polar Year) project under the aegis of the
Arctic Council's Sustainable Development Working Group.
Dr. Gail Fondahl and POLS graduate student Kurt Boyer traveled to Edmonton to attend the Royal Society of Canada’s “Truth from the North: Law, Politics and Society” seminar on 17 - 18 January.
Drs. Phil Owens and Ellen Petticrew attended and gave several presentations at the 11th IASWS International Symposium on the Interactions between Sediments and Water in Esperance, Australia, between February 17-22, 2008. As Past President of IASWS, Ellen gave the opening keynote presentation. The next symposium will be in Totnes, England, in June 2011.
Dr. Roger Wheate travelled to Zurich for a “GlobGlacier” workshop meeting, February 4-5, as the representative for the Western Canadian Cryospheric Network. GlobGlacier is funded by the European Space Agency to promote worldwide glacier inventories and methods.
September 2007
Dr. Gail
Fondahl served as co-organizer, along with Natalia Novikova of the
Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology (Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow)
for the 5th International Summer School in Legal Anthropology, on
Self-Government and Co-management: Prospects for the Indigenous Peoples of
Russia’s North. The summer school was held in the western Siberian city (and oil
centre) of Khanty-Mansiysk, from August 6 -11. Rick Krehbiel (ENPL Adjunct), Pam Tobin (MA NRES Geography, now working with Dr.
Laurie Chan), Richard Binder from the Inuvialuit Joint Secretariat and Gail
presented talks on co-management, impact benefit agreements and resource revenue
sharing, and cultural dimensions of EIAs. The summer school involved 30 students
(comprised of undergradute and graduate students and indigenous activists), and
8 lecturers (lawyers, anthropologists, geographers from Russia and
Canada).
Participants of the 5th
International Summer School in western Siberia, 6-11 August 2007
This August, Dr. Brian Menounos and colleague Dr. Paul Sanborn (ESM) traveled to Cairns, Australia to attend the INQUA
Congress which is a gathering every four years of the International Union
for Quaternary Research. This is the largest gathering of its kind of Quaternary researchers. Session
themes are broad, and such diverse topics are covered such as palaeoclimate,
archaeology, glaciology, the carbon cycle and environmental reconstruction.
Brian presented one paper, co-authored another two and was a co-convener of a
session entitled 'Global Glacier Fluctuations.'
May 2007
We are most pleased to welcome Dr.
Philip
Owens, who joins us from the U.K. Phil has physical geography
degrees from UBC (MSc), and Exeter University, UK (PhD) and was working at the
National Soil Resources Institute at Cranfield University, UK, before taking
this position at UNBC. He is currently in the Environmental Science
Program. He has worked on sediment
tracing techniques, large scale sediment fluxes, and sediment-associated
nutrient transfers in catchments. While
in the
UK
he was working extensively within the European Union on the process of
developing guidance for an EU sediment management policy.
We are also delighted to welcome back Dr.
Ellen Petticrew from a two-year leave that she spent
in the School of Geography at the University of Plymouth (U.K.). Drs. Petticrew
and Owens began positions as Joint Chairs of Landscape Ecology at UNBC in
January 2007. Their research looks at the linkage between terrestrial and
aquatic systems with sediment transfers, and their implications, studied at
both the catchment and plot scales. Future (and some current) work will have an
emphasis on sediment impacts from disturbance regimes such as fire, forest
harvesting, pine beetles and agriculture. The majority of their future work will take place in the Quesnel River
Watershed (~11,500 km 2) based out of UNBC's Quesnel River Research
Centre in Likely, BC ( www.unbc.ca/qrrc).
Dr. Neil Williams has also joined UNBC recently as a
post-doctoral fellow working with Drs. Ellen Petticrew & Phil
Owens. He is involved in terrestrial and aquatic research at the
Quesnel River Research Centre. He is located in Rm 8-361 and can be
contacted at 960-6739.
Drs. Ellen Petticrew and Phil Owens attended the European
Geosciences Union annual meeting in Vienna, Austria in April 15 - 20, 2007. Ellen
convened an oral session and Phil gave one talk. Together they presented a total
of 5 posters. See the NRESi newsletter for more details.
|
|
