New Challenges and Opportunities
I happily write this column about new challenges and opportunities at Penn State Geography. As the following pages in our annual magazine demonstrate, we are navigating new directions that are made possible by your support and the impressive work of our faculty, students, and staff.
Our faculty are at a historic strength, with twenty-seven tenure-line faculty this academic year coupled with sixteen teaching and research faculty. This has meant some challenges, such as finding a new room for our faculty meetings! But this is also providing tremendous opportunities for our curriculum and research programs, while increasing our visibility across campus and beyond.
We recognize and celebrate the retirement of Alan Taylor as professor emeritus after a very successful career. As one of his advisees explained, “Alan made us feel he was on our side, wanted us to succeed, and would help us along the path to the best of his ability. He did it by example, appearing to genuinely enjoy teaching classes and to find physical geography a truly fascinating discipline, one he felt privileged to pursue.” In a fitting tribute to his many contributions, Alan received the James J. Parsons Distinguished Career Award from the American Association of Geographers.
This magazine highlights observations from our four first-year faculty: Zhenlong Li, Dani Aiello, Belén Noroña, and Victoria Nimmo. We welcome them into our community!
Other members of our department have received national and international recognition. Lily Houtman was a recipient of the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship to support their work on cartography with an emphasis on data journalism. Mahsa Bahrami was awarded a NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST) grant to fund her research on meltwater lakes at the surface of the Antarctic ice sheet. These are among the most prestigious early career awards available and we are excited to see how their research advances.
Another story in the magazine highlights Karl Zimmerer’s election into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS). Founded in 1780, the AAAS honors excellence and convenes leaders from every field of human endeavor to examine new ideas, address issues of importance to the nation and the world, and work together “to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.” The work of the academy has helped set the direction of research and analysis in science and technology policy, global security and international affairs, social policy, education, the humanities, and the arts.
In addition to faculty and graduate students, our undergraduate students are simply amazing and accomplishing great things. Whether working on the student farm or completing an internship in Washington D.C., our majors pursue diverse experiences. My thanks to an alumnus who requested that we use this magazine to better showcase the undergraduate achievements that are announced in our May Recognition Reception. Two pages of the magazine report these awards made possible by the generous contributions from so many of you. Thank you!
Finally, you will see that our renovation project is continuing and nearly complete. I am confident that the next time you visit us in Happy Valley you will be able to see the second and third floor maps, in addition to the wall panels conveying a diversity of social and natural features. This renovation is a daily reminder that while the department continues to navigate dynamic landscapes at the university, we are grounded and energized by the new challenges and opportunities we face as a community.
Sala Kahle (Stay well),
Brian H. King, Professor and Head, Department of Geography