3 Letter from the Department Head Dear Friends of Geography, We are excited to present to you another edition of the annual departmental newsletter, highlighting the activities, achievements, adventures, and awards of our department. While we continue to feel echoes of the pandemic while pursuing our academic endeavors, geographers are back out there in the field conducting research, leading field trips, teaching our diverse slate of classes, and preparing our students for their lives in an ever more connected world. Evidence of this is everywhere in this newsletter! If you missed last year’s Zenith, you might be surprised by the change in leadership evident from this welcome note. After five and a half years, Dr. Alyson Greiner stepped down as Department Head in June 2023 and I was appointed Interim Head for 2023-24. At the time of last year’s newsletter, my status beyond 2024 was uncertain, but I have accepted an appointment as full-time head for a three-year term, through June 2027, and look forward to guiding this department that I have been a member of since 1994. I would like to highlight some significant activities from this past year, but please be sure to dig into more of our accomplishments and accolades as you read through this newsletter. In personnel matters, we welcomed several new colleagues to the department during the past year. Ana Segoviano joined the department as the Administrative Support Assistant in July 2023, welcoming visitors to the main office, and in August 2023 we welcomed two new faculty members, Dr. Rory Hill (Assistant Professor) and Dr. Dani Dempsey (Teaching Assistant Professor). Dr. Dempsey has a joint appointment with the Religious Studies and Gender and Women’s Studies multidisciplinary programs on campus as well as being academically and physically housed in Geography. In August 2024 we will welcome Dr. Brittany Lauren Wheeler to the department as a Visiting Assistant Professor. Dr. Wheeler, whose research is centered on political, environmental, and socio-economic practices of responsibility and repair, will teach our field methods courses as well as cultural geography and other offerings. Additionally, Dr. Hamed Gholizadeh was successfully promoted to Associate Professor with tenure, Dr. Tao Hu was reappointed as Assistant Professor, and office manager Barbara Goodnight was promoted to Administrative Associate. We anticipate 1-2 tenure-track searches in the coming year to fill recent vacancies. We had a busy graduation season again this year, with a large contingent of students receiving their bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees. Please see page 5 for a listing of our newest alumni. With OSU revamping its general education program, Geography successfully collaborated with History to propose (and have accepted) a general education “Trail” focused on migration, which will allow undergraduate students to concentrate their general education path with a set of linked, themed courses relating to human and animal migration. We have also partnered with the College of Veterinary Medicine to collaborate in creating an online graduate certificate and MS program in OneHealth, which is a collaborative, multisectoral, and transdisciplinary approach with the goal of achieving optimal health outcomes recognizing the interconnection between people, animals, plants, and their shared environment. Several GEOG courses are embedded in these new programs. Geography faculty continued to be successful in obtaining grants across the spectrum of funding agencies, including the NSF, USDA, AmericaView, and many more. These projects allow the faculty to engage in high-level, sustained research in their focus areas, address pressing societal and environmental issues, and fund Graduate Research Associates (GRAs) to propel their own research and progress towards their degrees. In conclusion, you will find within these pages evidence of the myriad ways the Department of Geography fulfills its mission in teaching, research, and service; engages with the community; prepares the next generation of geographic scholars; and explores our world for both work and pleasure. Enjoy, keep in touch, and please send in your news for us to share with our network of Friends of Geography, Jon Comer
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