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Sharad Chari Publishes New Book, Apartheid Remains

February 5, 2024

Apartheid Remains book cover

In Apartheid Remains, Professor Sharad Chari explores how people handle the remains of segregation and apartheid in South Africa as witnessed through portals in an industrial-residential landscape in the Indian Ocean city of Durban....

Gillian Hart Publishes Paper on Antipode Online

January 31, 2024

Professor Gillian Hart

Gillian Hart's latest paper, Progeny of Empire: Defining Moments of Nation Formation in South Africa and Palestine/Israel, aims to confront and counter the equation of antisemitism and anti-Zionism by recognizing the value of—but also reaching beyond—the apartheid analogy by...

Why Land and Ecology Matter for Global Psychedelics by Diana Negrín

January 25, 2024

Workshop on mesquite derivatives in Wirikuta, San Luis Potosí

"As the mainstreaming of sacred plants continues to evolve and diversify, it is critical to hold space and speak out with honesty about the underlying colonia relations that rural fall farmer and indigenous communities continue to navigate."

Professor Diana Negrín's new article, "Why Land and Ecology Matter for...

Geography Undergrad, Tatiana Butte, Awarded John Gardner Public Service Fellowship

January 23, 2024

Tatiana Butte

Geography undergrad and Public Policy minor, Tatiana Butte, has been chosen as a John Gardner Public Service Fellow, which provides meaningful postgraduate leadership opportunities and encourages UC Berkeley’s best students to pursue a career in public service. The program honors John Gardner's...

Clancy Wilmott Presents at TedxBerkeley

January 19, 2024

Professor Clancy Wilmott

The annual TEDxBerkeley event is happening tomorrow and our very own Professor Clancy Wilmott will be presenting! Clancy's talk will discuss her Indigenous re-mapping project with the Sogorea Te Land Trust called “Before You Are Here.” Learn more here!

"More than just dying" - Tianna Bruno's Newest Article Published in Society and Space

December 28, 2023

Professor Tianna Bruno

"There is an abundance of actions for Black life, relationships, and care beyond spectacular activism and dying that takes place in environmental justice spaces. There is Black life even in close proximity to death. We must attune our analytics to begin to behold these within environmental justice literature."

Professor...

Dr. Stephanie Pau Joins UC Berkeley Geography Faculty

December 20, 2023

We are excited to share the wonderful news that Dr. Stephanie Pau will officially join UC Berkeley as a jointly appointed Associate Professor in Geography and ESPM starting January 1, 2024! Join us in welcoming Stephanie to McCone Hall and we look forward to celebrating her arrival in the Spring semester.

Michael Watts Awarded Ester Boserup Prize

December 20, 2023

Michael Watts

Congratulations to Professor Emeritus Michael Watts, who received the Ester Boserup Prize for outstanding development research! The prize is awarded by the Copenhagen Centre for Development Research, a virtual centre connecting researchers from different disciplines,...

Professor Brandi Summers Named Interim Director of ISSI

December 15, 2023

Professor Brandi Summers

ISSI Director Stephen Small will be on sabbatical during spring semester, researching his new book on Black Liverpool. Brandi T. Summers, Associate Professor of Geography, has agreed to serve as Interim Director until Professor Small’s return on July 1, 2024. Professor Summers is currently a member of the ISSI Advisory Committee and has been deeply involved with ISSI for a few years,...

Professor Nathan Sayre Publishes "Corn and the range: rethinking ranching, agriculture and the feedlot"

December 11, 2023

Professor Nathan Sayre

Professor Nathan Sayre has published a new paper in the Journal of Peasant Studies on the history and political ecology of the feedlot in US livestock production. The key takeaway is that for over a century, corn-fed beef was sustained without chemical fertilizers, relying on a...

Jovan Scott Lewis Promoted to Full Professor

December 1, 2023

Jovan Scott Lewis

We are excited to share the wonderful news that Jovan Scott Lewis has been promoted to full Professor. Congratulations for the much deserved recognition of your extraordinary scholarly achievements and service, Jovan!

Tianna Bruno Shares Her Expertise on Climate and Environmental Justice for the Fifth National Climate Assessment

November 16, 2023

Professor Tianna Bruno

The Fifth National Climate Assessment has just been released! This report is the US Government’s preeminent report on climate change impacts, risks, and responses. It is a congressionally mandated interagency effort that provides the scientific foundation to support informed decision-making across the United States. As an author for the...

Tohar Zamir, Geography Undergraduate, to Present at UC GIS Week Conference

November 13, 2023

Tohar Zamir, current Geography student, will present tomorrow, November 14, at 11:05am PST during the UC GIS Week Conference. Zamir's presentation, Hidden Wells: Resource Extraction and Minority Communities in Los Angeles, will include a variety of archival maps alongside datasets he compiled using GIS software to demonstrate the disparate experiences of oil drilling on LA's landscape, mediated by racialized identities. Watch Tohar's presenation here and learn more about the conference...

Jillian Crandall, Geography PhD Student, Publishes Article in Big Data & Society

November 13, 2023

Jillian Crandall

"How equitable is tokenized equity – does it prioritize the right to the city for all or to all but a very few?"

Jillian Crandall, PhD student, has published a new article in Big Data & Society called,...

Graduate Foundations in Black Geographies, Virtual Discussions

November 6, 2023

Graduate Foundations in Black Geographies is hosted by the Caribbean Studies Reading Group (Stanford University) with support from the Department of African & African American Studies, the Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages, and the Black Studies Collective, in collaboration with the UCSC Black Geographies Lab and Berkeley Black Geographies.

For the second half of the Graduate Foundations in Black Geographies virtual discussions for the fall quarter, CSRG is thrilled to welcome guest scholars from UC Berkeley (Dr. Jovan Scott Lewis) and UC Santa Cruz (Dr. Camilla...

Keith Brower Brown, PhD 2023, published in Environmental Politics, hired at Labor Notes

October 31, 2023

Keith Brower Brown

Big congratulations are in order for Geography PhD alum, Keith Brower Brown!

This month, the journal Environmental Politics published "Working sunset to sunrise: union strategies in three California climate transitions" by Dr. Keith Brower Brown (PhD, Berkeley Geography, 2023) with geographer Dr. Sara Holiday Nelson (University of British Columbia Centre for Climate Justice). The article, which draws on Keith...

Sherine Ebadi, PhD candidate, discusses war, diaspora, bureaucracy on the Social Science Matrix podcast

October 16, 2023

Sherine Ebadi

PhD Candidate in Geography Sherine Ebadi is featured on the Social Science Matrix podcast and discusses her research on Special Immigrant Visas and the Afghan diaspora. Ebadi's work explores immigration bureaucracy in times of conflict and humanitarian crises, and engages with the role of labor in precipitating refugee...

Deadline Extended for Assistant Professor–Indigenous/Latinx Geospatial Analysis, Representation, GIS

October 11, 2023

The Department of Geography invites applications for a full-time, tenure-track faculty member in critical geospatial practice and analysis at the rank of Assistant Professor beginning Fall semester 2024. We seek a scholar with a commitment to and in the Americas with attention to Indigenous and/or Latinx politics, contexts, and issues, who has an analytically rich and critically engaged geospatial practice including critical data studies, geocomputation, remote sensing, or GIS. Thematic areas of interest could include (...

Professor Dave Wahl re-writes the history of humans in the western hemisphere in his new article published in Science

October 5, 2023

Professor Dave Wahl and Marie Champagne are co-authors in a new paper published by Science that re-writes the history of humans in the western hemisphere. The standard story of the peopling of the Americas has Asians migrating across a land bridge into Alaska some 14,000 years ago, after Ice Age glaciers melted back, and gradually spreading southward across a land never before occupied by humankind. But human footprints discovered in mud in what is now New Mexico were between 23,000...

Professor Fields Published in Annals of the American Association of Geographers

September 27, 2023

Congratulations to Professor Desiree Fields on her new paper, co-authored with two students in the Department of City and Regional Planning, titled "Platform Firms, Commercial Real Estate Cycles and San Francisco’s Growth as a Tech Cluster, 2008–2020". This article uses the lens of the commercial real estate market to examine the urbanization of digital technology companies in San Francisco in the years between the Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic. During this period, the rise of digital platforms and...

New Book: The Black Geographic

September 19, 2023

The Black Geographic

Congratulations to Camilla Hawthorne (PhD alum) and Professor Jovan Scott Lewis, who served as the editors for the new book, The Black Geographic, as well as Professor Diana Negrín, who contributed to the publication.

The contributors to The Black Geographic explore the theoretical innovations of Black Geographies scholarship and how it approaches Blackness as historically and spatially...

Sharad Chari Named Co-Director of the Program in Critical Theory

September 6, 2023

Professor Sharad Chari

Congratulations to Professor Sharad Chari on his new appointment as the co-director of the Program in Critical Theory! This program enables graduate students already enrolled in UC Berkeley Ph.D. programs from across the social sciences, arts and humanities to obtain certification of a Designated-Emphasis specialization in Critical Theory.

A History of North American Rangelands by Nathan Sayre

September 5, 2023

"The invitation to write it forced me into new areas--namely, the pre-Civil War period and east of the Missouri River. This was written before my sabbatical, but it raised a topic that became a major focus while I was on leave: the origins of the Corn Belt and the feedlot. That work resulted in a more critical political-economic piece that is in final review at Journal of Peasant Studies."

Professor Nathan Sayre has contributed to the open access book, Rangeland Wildlife Ecology and Conservation...

Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin is Now Available as an Audiobook

August 28, 2023

Maynard Dixon, "San Francisco-Mistress, Still, of the Pacific." San Francisco Chronicle, May 27, 1906

Gray Brechin's provocative and best-selling book, Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin, is now available as an audiobook! First published by the University of California Press in 1999, Imperial San Francisco is now more relevant than ever as...

Professor Sharad Chari Publishes New Book: Gramsci at Sea

August 28, 2023

Cover of the book Gramsci at Sea by Professor Sharad Chari

How might an oceanic Gramsci speak to Black aquafuturism and other forms of oceanic critique? Professor Sharad Chari's new book, Gramsci at Sea, reads Antonio Gramsci’s writings on the sea, focused in his prison...

“Black chicagoland is…” installation co-created by april l. graham-jackson (PhD Candidate)

August 15, 2023

group of 16 people; some sit on steps in front of building while others walk by

“The biggest secret in Chicago is that Chicago was founded by a Black man.” –Lerone Bennett Jr.

Inspired by Black life across Chicagoland, “Black chicagoland is…” emerges as a multi-...

In Memory: Late Professor Emeritus of Geography, Orman Granger

August 14, 2023

Orman Granger

Professor Emeritus Orman Granger recently passed away at his home in Berkeley, CA at the age of 88. He's survived by his wife, Donna Granger, and children, David Granger and Logan Granger.

Professor Granger joined UC Berkeley faculty in 1974 and retired from the Geography department in 2004. Born in Trinidad & Tobago, he was one of the first tenured black faculty members in the department. Professor...

Alexander Brown, Geography undergraduate, selected for Millennium Fellowship

August 11, 2023

Alexander Brown

This spring, the United Nations Academic Impact and MCN launched the Millennium Fellowship. This program convenes, challenges, and celebrates bold student leadership advancing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on campus and in communities. 44,000+...

Geography Department Begins Search for Assistant Professor–Indigenous/Latinx Geospatial Analysis, Representation, GIS

August 8, 2023

Join our team! The Department of Geography invites applications for a full-time, tenure-track faculty member in critical geospatial practice and analysis at the rank of Assistant Professor beginning Fall semester 2024. We seek a scholar with a commitment to and in the Americas with attention to Indigenous and/or Latinx politics, contexts, and issues, who has an analytically rich and critically engaged geospatial practice including critical data studies, geocomputation, remote sensing, or GIS. Thematic areas of interest...

The Binational Politics of Return Migrant Activism: Interview with Caroline Tracey (PhD 2022) on Matrix Podcast

July 27, 2023

Portrait of Caroline Tracey against a concrete wall

"Qualitatively, what I found on the ground was that women — and also queer and trans deportees and return migrants who may or may not identify as women — are undertaking fundamental community-building and political activism that affects the entire deportation and return migration community."

...

Dr. Kurt Cuffey Interviewed in UC News Article on Queer Climate Scientists

June 12, 2023

Kurt Cuffey

"Growing up gay at a time when it was broadly condemned helped form me as an independent thinker. Strong scientists are independent thinkers."

Dr. Kurt Cuffey was interviewed for UCOP's Pride month article, "UC’s queer climate scientists on making science as diverse as the natural world." In this article, Dr. Cuffey shares what it is...

Jesse Rodenbiker, Geography PhD Alum, Publishes New Book, Ecological States

May 24, 2023

Jesse Rodenbiker

Congratulations to Geography PhD Alum, Jesse Rodenbiker, on the publication of his new book Ecological States: Politics of Science and Nature in Urbanizing China (2023, Cornell University Press), available as a free open access e-book and as a paperback. The...

Jovan Scott Lewis interviewed on Piers Morgan Uncensored

May 12, 2023

Jovan Scott Lewis interviewed on Piers Morgan Uncensored

Yesterday afternoon, Jovan Scott Lewis was interviewed live on Piers Morgan Uncensored. The segment, which you can watch here, puts Jovan in conversation with host Piers Morgan and Leo Terrell, Civil Rights Lawyer, on the topic of reparations for Black...

Britt H. Young interviewed for Berkeley Voices podcast

May 10, 2023

Britt H. Young

"It has been really interesting now going without a prosthesis and experiencing the world in a totally different way and seeing the sort of things that are frustrating designs. But not just frustrating designs and inaccessible designs and hostile designs in the world just for disabled people or just for people with my body geometry, but for anybody."

Britt H. Young, Geography PhD candidate, has...

Rosie Alexandra Ward is named University Medalist Finalist

May 9, 2023

Rosie Ward

“During the pandemic, I felt a sense of uselessness, feeling there was little I could do while isolating to help my friends and others struggling in the community. I gained a sense of purpose by becoming involved in campus research surrounding the gender equity ramifications of stay-at-home orders and by tailoring the California Legal Studies Journal to COVID-related submissions. I also learned that simply...

California Reparations Task Force Shares Recommendations

May 6, 2023

California Reparations Task Force

California's Reparations Task Force, which Professor Jovan Scott Lewis (pictured center on stage) is a member, has approved recommendations that could mean hundreds of billions of dollars in payments to Black residents to address past injustices. The task force spent more than a year conducting research and holding listening sessions in order to produce a detailed plan for...

Alexander Brown Hired as Project Coordinator/Web Designer for Dr. Laurel Larsen

May 5, 2023
Alexander Brown

Alexander Brown has been chosen to work with Laurel Larsen for the summer as a Project Coordinator/Web Designer position. Alex will be helping plan a team workshop and field trip, develop a project website, and produce outreach materials dealing with the challenge of salinity management in the Delta.

From Alex: "This is quite literally a dream come true for me as I am deeply passionate about the future of the bay delta...

Jovan Scott Lewis Receives the Gill Memorial Award

May 3, 2023

Jovan Scott Lewis

Congrats to Dr. Jovan Scott Lewis, who has been honored by the Royal Geographical Society with the Gill Memorial Award for exceptional early career research with a remarkable record of achievement. Jovan has established an international reputation as leading scholar in the study of cultural and economic...

Shreya Chaudhuri Chosen for Summer Internship with The Nature Conservancy

April 24, 2023
Shreya Chaudhuri

Congrats to Shreya, Geography undergraduate, who was chosen to be a summer intern with The Nature Conservancy. In this internship, Shreya will be working on meta data analysis on peatlands conservation through implementing nature-based climate solutions.

Special thanks to Morgan Vickers...

Jovan Scott Lewis Wins David Blackwell Award

April 21, 2023

Jovan Scott Lewis

The L&S Faculty Award recognizes and celebrates outstanding L&S faculty members for their exceptional scholarship, service to the College and community, and transformational teaching. These extraordinary...

Mia Albano, Geography Senior, Wins The Stronach Baccalaureate Prize

April 17, 2023

Mia Albano

Congrats to Mia Albano, Geography Senior, on being chosen for the Stronach Baccalaureate Prize! Mia's research project, "They Only Remember Us at the End of the Month:” Experiences of Former Overseas Filipino Workers on Scales ...

Josh Mandel, Geography Manager, Wins Distinguished Service Award for Social Sciences

April 14, 2023

Josh Mandel

Congrats to Josh Mandel, Geography Manager, who has won a Distinguished Service Award from the Office of the Dean! This comes as no surprise, as Josh consistently demonstrates his commitment to our department. From complicated logistical and financial situations over the years to operational duties that keep the department running, we are all grateful for his...

Clancy Wilmott Wins Faculty Mentor Award

April 12, 2023

Professor Clancy Wilmott

We are thrilled to announce that Clancy Wilmott has won the 2023 UC Berkeley Graduate Assembly Faculty Mentor Award! Every year, this award honors three Berkeley faculty or teaching staff who have shown outstanding commitment to mentoring, advising, and supporting...

Tohar Zamir, Geography Undergraduate, Selected as Haas Scholar

April 10, 2023

Tohar Zamir

Each year, twenty highly qualified, academically talented undergraduates are chosen for the Haas Scholars program. Participants receive close mentoring from members of the UC-Berkeley faculty, seminars and workshops to assist them in the research and writing process, the opportunity to present their work at a professional...

Geography Senior, Jack Moorehead, chosen for Cartography internship with Avalon Travel

April 6, 2023

Jack Moorehead

Congrats to Jack Moorehead on his upcoming Cartography internship with Avalon Travel! An imprint of Perseus Books and Hachette Book Group, they are publishers of independent travel guidebooks such as Rick Steves and Moon Travel. During his internship, Jack will be assisting the...

Joel Wanek's short film, Passing Through, makes its World Premiere at HotDocs International Film Festival in Toronto

April 3, 2023

 A travelogue by Joel Wanek" in the bottom right corner

Passing Through is a snapshot of a family's holiday gathering in Trinidad and Tobago that invites the viewer into warm celebration and the rituals of food, cards and music. An ephemeral travelogue of moments that records a journey home using...

Geography senior, Noelani Fixler, wins WTS International Molitoris Leadership Scholarship

April 3, 2023

Noelani Fixler

Geography senior, Noelani Fixler, has been awarded the WTS Molitoris Leadership Scholarship. The purpose of the scholarship is to motivate and reward women who demonstrate leadership in the transportation industry, ensuring that the essential...

Mary Jirmanus Saba, PhD Candidate, Published In Critical Times

March 30, 2023

Tear gas and smoke bombs in Beirut's southern suburbs when police were called in to disperse Saturday's protests

"To build a strike image archive from a position of solidarity is an ongoing aspiration but never a guarantee, like that of building a movement itself. But it is essential if our work with images is to do more than solidify the same ownership structures that made movements necessary and urgent in the first...

Juleon Robinson Wins Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award

March 29, 2023

Juleon Robinson

Congrats to Juleon Robinson on winning an Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award, which honors UC Berkeley GSIs each year for their outstanding work in the teaching of undergraduates.

Dr. Jovan Scott Lewis interviewed on his research and work on Reparations Task Force

March 1, 2023

Jovan Scott Lewis

"When we’re talking about reparations in California, we’re talking about reparations not for slavery itself, but for this system of governance around Black people, around African Americans, that slavery initiated. That slavery represents the kind of initial and formative philosophy, from Jim Crow straight through to mass incarceration and even gentrification today. This idea of being able to discriminate and dispossess...

Dr. Gillian Hart wins the AAG Presidential Achievement Award

February 22, 2023

Professor Gillian Hart

Dr. Gillian Hart, Geography Professor Emerita, has won the AAG Presidential Achievement Award, which recognizes individuals who have made long-standing and distinguished contributions to the discipline of geography.

From...

Desiree Fields Co-Authors Essay for the Law and Political Economy (LPE) Project

February 20, 2023

Desiree Fields

"The hour has come for the UC to listen to its students, and to use its massive capacity to invest and plan to help solve the housing crisis, rather than prolong it."

Desiree Fields, Geography Professor, has co-written an essay for the Law and Political Economy (LPE) Project...

Chris Lesser, Contributor to Categoría Cinco

February 9, 2023

 La cuestión racial en Puerto Rico

Chris Lesser, Geography PhD Alum (Summer, '22) and current ACLS Postdoctoral Scholar has contributed to Categoría Cinco for their new special issue, "La cuestión racial...

Christopher Lesser, PhD Alum and Current Visiting Scholar, Publishes Article for American Anthropologist

January 12, 2023

Christopher Lesser

"Located on a former plantation in the Paraíba Valley of Rio de Janeiro, a region central to state and market formation, and to Atlantic slavery in the nineteenth century, this “forest” contains ecological histories different from those encoded in environmental law. Rather than a legislative failure, this incongruence constitutes an important structural feature of the juridical authority that marginalizes...

Dr. Kurt Cuffey Publishes Article in Nature Revealing 11,000 Years of Temperature Changes from West Antarctic Ice Core

January 11, 2023

a chart showing the 50-yr δD averages for summer in red, mean in purple, and winter in blue

"Here, we analyse a continuous record of water-isotope ratios from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide ice core to reveal summer and winter temperature changes through the last 11,000 years."

After years of research, Professor Kurt Cuffey has...

Three Geography Undergraduate Students Accepted for GENIUS at Penn State

December 21, 2022

Mia Albano Jazmin Hernandez. Angela McMahon

I'm excited to announce that three of our Geography undergraduate students, Mia Albano, Jazmin Hernandez, and Angela...

Adam Hasan, Geography PhD student, Publishes Article on Lebanese Crypto Miners, Electricity, and the State

December 7, 2022

Adam Hasan

"Amid Lebanon’s crumbling infrastructure and socio-economic decay, a cottage industry of crypto miners has found razor-thin profits using hydroelectric power in the mountains. That puts them into direct competition with local residents over one of the country’s most prized resources: electricity."

Adam Hasan...

"Black Scale" by PhD Candidates april l. graham-jackson & Robert Moeller Published in The Professional Geographer

December 5, 2022

april l. graham-jackson. Robert Moeller

"By examining the relationality across music, sound, and Blackness, we (re)activate and engage scale as a racialized, evolving, intimately embodied, and subjective interpretation of the world as well as structural, objective descriptions...

Professor Jovan Scott Lewis featured in article for The New York Times

December 1, 2022

“We are looking at reparations on a scale that is the largest since Reconstruction.”

Professor Jovan Scott Lewis discusses his work with the CA Reparations Task Force with The New York Times in Kurtis Lee's article, "...

PhD Candidate, Morgan Vickers, Publishes First Journal Article in Annals of the American Association of Geographers

November 29, 2022

Morgan Vickers

"Swampification did not merely stagnate Black terraqueous landscapes but further perpetuated racial stereotypes of Blackness as out-of-place and pestilent, and situated the presence of non-White others as antithetical to U.S. progress."

Congrats to Morgan P. Vickers, Geography PhD candidate, on their first journal article, published in Annals...

We Stand in Solidarity with our Striking Academic Workers

November 28, 2022

Faculty of the Geography Department at Berkeley stand with Graduate Student Instructors who join 48,000 academic workers in a historic strike across the University of California, including Postdoctoral Scholars, Academic Researchers, Academic Student Employees and Student Researchers. We call on the University to negotiate in good faith for new contracts. We recognize the union’s call for 54k base pay and COLA as prerequisites for dignified life for academic workers in California. We recognize the vital role that graduate students play in teaching, research, and service. We recognize that...

Q&A with Mia Albano, Geography Undergraduate

November 15, 2022

Mia Albano

Mia Albano is an undergraduate in Geography conducting research on migrant workers and surrounding policy in the Pacific. She recounts the details of her research, what she finds special about Berkeley Geography, and her experience presenting at Renaissance Weekend.

Why Geography? What does this department do that’s different? What’s memorable?

Can I rant about how much I love the department?...

Q&A with Professor Dave Wahl

November 15, 2022

Dr. David Wahl is a leading academic in Geospatial Representation, and teaches Geography 180: Field Methods for Physical Geography. His research involves a blend of geographic...

Q&A with Professor Joel Wanek

November 15, 2022

Professor Joel Wanek

Professor Joel Wanek is a new addition to the Geography department. With a background in multimedia production and filmmaking, Professor Wanek has spearheaded an initiative to introduce new perspectives in Geography through field courses focused on audio-visual production.

What are you working on now that you want to feature?...

Q&A with Department Chair, Professor Jovan Scott Lewis

November 15, 2022

Jovan Scott Lewis

Dr. Jovan Scott Lewis is the Chair of the Geography Department. Following his appointment by Governor Newson, Dr. Lewis has concurrently served as a member of the ...

Q&A with Lance Owen, Geography Alumnus

November 15, 2022

lance owen

Lance Owen is a former graduate student from Berkeley Geography. He recounts his fond memories of the department, how it prepared him for his career at the CDC, and where his training is taking him next.

Tell me about what you do?

For the last 3 years, I have been working as a geography and geospatial analyst in public health. I got pulled into what was initially a post-doc at the CDC...

Gray Brechin and Richard Walker Featured on PBS Newshour

November 14, 2022

Gray Brechin Richard Walker

"Our job in The Living New Deal is to educate Americans what the New Deal did, not just as a historical nicety, but because it's relevant today." - Richard Walker

Emeritus Geography professor,...

Professor John Chiang Publishes Research in Nature on Orbit-Induced Changes in the Seasonality of the Pacific Cold-Tongue Region

November 9, 2022

Professor John Chiang

"We teach our students that the Earth’s axial tilt is responsible for the seasons. But for the eastern equatorial Pacific - which is best known as the hotspot for El Nino - it turns out that its seasonal cycle has a sizable contribution coming from the annual variation in earth-sun distance as well. Awkwardly, the latter is what we tell our students how not to think about the seasonal cycle." - Professor John...

Erin Beller, GEOG PhD Alum (Spring 2020), Featured on Google's Blog

November 1, 2022

Erin Beller

“Nature and people should be able to flourish together in the campuses and communities that Google calls home.”

Erin Beller, Geography alumni (PhD, Spring 2020) has been featured on a Google blog post about ecosystem restoration in Silicon Valley. The post highlights Beller's paper, "...

Jane Henderson, Geography alum (PhD, Summer 2022), Co-Authors Essay Published in Society and Space

October 31, 2022

Jane Henderson

"We call on geographers, planners, geo-spatial analysts, and all spatial thinkers to divest themselves from the creation of carceral space."

Congrats to Jane Henderson, Geography Alumni (PhD, Summer '22) and current Research Associate at Dartmouth, on her wonderful essay,...

Chris Lesser, Visiting Scholar and Geography Alum (PhD, Summer 2022), Published in American Anthropologist

October 24, 2022

Christopher Lesser

"Neither can history resolve the question of Santa Mônica’s past, nor law disentangle its possible futures. These properly political problems can only be resolved in the present."

Chris Lesser, current visiting scholar and Geography alumni (PhD, Summer 2022) has written a fantastic research article entitled, "Another "education by stone": An archaeological case study in Brazil's environmental law,"...

Gray Brechin Narrates New Film, American: An Odyssey to 1947

October 20, 2022

Gray Brechin will be a narrator in the new film, American: An Odyssey to 1947. The film, directed by Danny Wu, features a collection of stories leading to the year 1947, most notably exploring the life and politics of Orson Welles. The film uses rare archival footage and innovative 3D modeling to immerse the audience in the era. American: An Odyssey to 1947 debuts October 20 at the Newport Beach Film Festival. Check out the trailer here!

Professor Kurt Cuffey Publishes Findings About the Formation of Yosemite Valley

October 20, 2022

Yosemite Research 2010

“Yosemite Valley is one of the most famous topographic features on the planet. And of course, if you go to Yosemite Park and read the signage, they will give you numbers for when it became a deep canyon. But up until this project, every single claim about how old this valley is, when it formed a deep canyon, was just based on assumptions and speculation.” - Professor Kurt Cuffey

After...

New Book by Professor Jovan Scott Lewis - Violent Utopia: Dispossession and Black Restoration in Tulsa

October 18, 2022

Violent Utopia

In Violent Utopia, Jovan Scott Lewis retells the history and afterlife of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, from the post-Reconstruction migration of Black people to Oklahoma Indian Territory to contemporary efforts to rebuild Black prosperity. He focuses on how the massacre in Tulsa’s Greenwood neighborhood—colloquially known as Black Wall Street—curtailed the freedom built there. Rather than framing the massacre as...

Tatiana Butte, Geography Undergrad, Chosen to Attend COP 27 in Egypt

October 17, 2022
Tatiana Butte

We are excited to share that Tatiana Butte, Geography undergraduate and Public Policy minor, has been chosen to represent Cal as a student delegate at this year's COP 27 (UN’s international climate conference) in Egypt. This opportunity, provided by the Student Environmental Resource Center (SERC) at UC Berkeley, will...

Robert Symens-Bucher, Geography Undergrad, named Chancellor's Public Fellow

October 11, 2022

Robert Symens-Bucher

Robert Symens-Bucher, graduating senior in Geography, has been named the Chancellor's Public Fellow this semester. The fellowship recognizes his work in the American Cultures Engaged Scholarship (ACES) partnership with Canticle Farm for students in...

Professors Brandi Summers and Desiree Fields Publish Article in Antipode

October 2, 2022

Moms 4 Housing

"In a life beyond staying, ownership is organised not around property, but around the deep, complex bonds between people, place, and land that financialisation cannot account for."

In their article for Antipode, "Speculative Urban Worldmaking: Meeting Financial Violence with a Politics of Collective Care," Professors...

Tanya Matthan, Geography Postdoc, Discusses the Changing Landscape for Farmers in India

August 31, 2022

Tanya Matthan

"[Risk] permeates the economy, but also intimate relations within family. And so while I was interested in using risk as a sort of analytical lens into agrarian change, what I found was as with the use of the term “tension,” the term “risk” was used all the time in rural India. So everything was understood in terms of, what is the risk of this?"

...

Brittany Young, Geography PhD Candidate, Speaks with KQED Forum

August 30, 2022
Brittany Young

“We are caught in a bionic-hand arms race. It’s time to ask who prostheses are really for, and what we hope they will actually accomplish.”

KQED Forum invited Brittany Young, Geography PhD Candidate, to speak about how the prosthetics industry's focus on high-tech limbs impacts the disabled folks it’s meant to help....

Brittany Meché, Geography alum, discusses how climate change has become a security issue

August 30, 2022

Brittany Meché

Brittany Meché, recent Geography graduate (PhD, 2020) and current Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at Williams College, was interviewed by Social Science Matrix about her forthcoming piece for New Geographies. In the interview, Meché discusses how anticipated climate refugees...

Matthew Shutzer, Geography Postdoc, Wins 2022 Jack Goody Prize

August 25, 2022

Matthew Shutzer

We are pleased to share that Matthew Shutzer, Ciriacy-Wantrup Postdoctoral Scholar in Geography, has won the Jack Goody Prize, an in-house award at ...

Cristina Villalobos, GEOG Alumni Spring 2022, Heads to NASA

August 17, 2022

Cristina Villalobos, recent Geography B.A. graduate (Spring 2022), has been offered an in-person position in Alabama working with NASA's DEVELOP program. During the course of her 10 week internship, she will apply NASA earth observations to the project, named "Mesoamerica Ecological Forecasting: Assessing land cover change and habitat connectivity to inform management planning for the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor." The project is very heavily focused on spatial data. Please join me in congratulating Cristina!

Clancy Wilmott, Geography Assistant Professor, Speaks with Spotlight About Bias in GIS Navigation Tools

August 15, 2022

Professor Clancy Wilmott

"'Safe routes’ make a promise they can’t uphold.”

Clancy Wilmott speaks with Spotlight about how the coding of our cities is founded on prejudiced conceptions surrounding race, class...

Gabe Eckhouse, Geography Alumni, Interviewed by NPR's Marketplace about Fracking’s Short-Cycle Revolution

August 15, 2022

Gabe Eckhouse

“On the one hand, we are not doing anything close to what is required for net-zero transition in terms of clean energy. But at the same time, for the kind of aging oil and gas production, we’re investing as if a renewable energy transition was happening.”

Gabe Eckhouse (Geography PhD, Summer 2022), discusses the political economy of...

Book Release - Ethnographies of Power: Working Radical Concepts with Gillian Hart

August 2, 2022

Ethnographies of Power

We are excited to announce the release of Ethnographies of Power: Working Radical Concepts with Gillian Hart. This co-edited collection in honor of Geography Professor Gillian Hart will serve as a useful resource for thinking in a dynamic way about concepts and how to use them in the service of social change, in the tradition of...

Remembering Sarah White, UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow

July 29, 2022

It is with sadness that we write that Sarah White passed away last week from heart complications due to Covid. She is survived by her husband, Tristan, and her two young children, Helen and Martin.

Sarah was a UC President’s postdoctoral fellow in our department and had just completed her term this past June. She was a foremost scholar on the climate of the Pliocene, a dedicated educator, and a warm and generous colleague and friend to those that knew...

Frontiers Journal publishes paper by Geography B.A. alumni, Kathryn McNeal

July 6, 2022
Frontiers Journal's Sustainable Food Systems edition has published a paper co-written by Geography B.A. alumni and former Berkeley United Geographers (BUGs) President, Kathryn McNeal. The article, titled "...

Professor Desiree Fields's tenure promotion to Associate Professor

June 22, 2022

Desiree Fields

We are excited to share that Professor Desiree Fields has been promoted to Associate Professor, with tenure! Professor Fields and her scholarship mean so much to our department and our discipline, which the campus rightly recognized with this decision. Congratulations, Professor Fields!

Professor Jovan Scott Lewis Interviewed on NBC Bay Area News

June 1, 2022

A California task force on Wednesday released a landmark report detailing recommendations for possible reparations for African Americans. Raj Mathai speaks with Dr. Jovan Scott Lewis of UC Berkeley about it. Watch the video here.

Professor Brandi Summers Chosen for the 2022 American Cultures Excellence in Teaching Award

June 1, 2022

The ‘AC Teaching Award’ is intended to recognize individual faculty members’ exemplary teaching in the American Cultures curriculum. Instructors are recognized for their inspiring and sustained commitment to creating a learning space able to hold the multiple challenges and opportunities that teaching AC content requires. Great creativity, ingenuity, and courage are required to meet this rich environment, providing inspiration and guidance for colleagues across the campus.

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Professor Brandi Summers’ tenure promotion to Associate Professor

May 16, 2022

Brandi Thompson Summers

We are pleased to announce Professor Brandi Summers’ tenure promotion to Associate Professor! In her time with us, Professor Summers has helped change our department and discipline in remarkable ways. This is an important milestone for her and an historic moment for our department. Congratulations, Professor...

Ambrosia Shapiro, Geography UMA, selected for the RISE 2022 Award

May 13, 2022

The RISELeader Awards are about highlighting the exceptional endeavors and efforts of women* leaders as they continue to support and empower our community of Berkeley women through their participation and representation. Selected winners have demonstrated strong leadership, care and love for the community, as well as, inspired and empowered other women. Congratulations, Ambrosia!

Geography Professor Clancy Wilmott awarded Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Excellence Award

May 4, 2022

Hello Geography friends!

I am excited to share that Professor Clancy Wilmott has been awarded the Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Excellence Award! Phi Beta Kappa is the most prestigious honor society in the US. Check out this video, where Clancy shares what teaching excellence means to her.

Video by Professor Clancy Wilmott

Excerpts from Clancy's nomination letter:

I have had the opportunity to take three courses with...

[Event] [Apr 27] Digital Transformations in Global Land, Housing, and Property

April 20, 2022

Digital Transformations in Global Land, Housing, and Property

April 27th, 2022
12:00 PM to 1:30 PM PDT

Register for Zoom

More Info

Since the 17th-century...

Geography Professor Jovan Scott Lewis discusses Unpacking Reparations Eligibility in California with KQED

April 14, 2022

Geography Professor and Chair of Geography Jovan Scott Lewis discusses Unpacking Reparations Eligibility in California with KQED

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Jovan Scott Lewis, California Reparations Task Force member and chair of UC Berkeley’s geography department, introduced a motion on March 29 to define eligibility for reparations based on lineage. The task force approved the motion.

At a contentious meeting Tuesday, California’s Reparations Task Force decided who would qualify...

Geography alum Yi Jiao (PhD 2021) publishes Application of copper(II)-based chemicals induces CH3Br and CH3Cl emissions from soil and seawater

February 1, 2022

Geography alum Yi Jiao (PhD 2021) publishes Application of copper(II)-based chemicals induces CH3Br and CH3Cl emissions from soil and seawater in Nature Communications

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Application of copper(II)-based chemicals induces CH3Br and CH3Cl emissions from soil and seawater
Yi Jiao, Wanying Zhang, Jae Yun Robin Kim, Malte Julian Deventer, Julien Vollering & Robert C. Rhew
Open Access | Published: 10 January 2022

Methyl bromide (CH3Br) and methyl chloride (CH3Cl) are...

Geography alum Adam Romero (PhD 2015) publishes Economic Poisoning: Industrial Waste and the Chemicalization of American Agriculture

January 31, 2022

Geography Alum Adam Romero (PhD 2015) publishes Economic Poisoning: Industrial Waste and the Chemicalization of American Agriculture

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Economic Poisoning: Industrial Waste and the Chemicalization of American Agriculture
by Adam M. Romero (Author)
November 2021
First Edition

The toxicity of pesticides to the environment and humans is often framed as an unfortunate effect of their benefits to agricultural production. In Economic Poisoning, Adam M....

Graduate students April and Bobby publish Black Geographies Library Guide

January 14, 2022

Graduate students april l. graham-jackson and Robert Moeller publish Black Geographies Library Guide

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Dear Geography community,

April and I are excited to report that the Black Geographies library guide we composed last semester is finally published and live on the Berkeley Library website! Please use the link embedded above to review the guide.

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In Memory: Late Professor Emeritus of Geography, Paul Groth

January 11, 2022

Paul Groth

Paul Groth (1949-2022)

Dr. Paul Groth passed away at the age of 72 on January 16, 2022 in Berkeley, California. Paul was a beloved friend, son, brother, cousin, brother-in-law, and uncle.

Paul joined UC Berkeley faculty in 1983 and spent much of his career studying architecture that organized the lives of low-income and working class people. His overarching...

Geography Professor Gillian Hart speaks on Resurgent Nationalisms and the Challenges of the Current Conjuncture

January 7, 2022

Geography Professor Gillian Hart speaks about resurgent nationalisms and the challenges of the current conjecture, in the second episode of "Conjecture" feat. Jordan T. Camp.

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Conjuncture is a monthly web series and podcast curated and co-produced by Jordan T. Camp and Christina Heatherton for the Trinity Social Justice Initiative. It features interviews with activists, artists, scholars, and public intellectuals. Taking its title from Antonio Gramsci and Stuart Hall’s conceptualization, it...

Faculty member Desiree Fields publishes Tech and finance firms buying up homes doesn’t bode well for everyone else

January 4, 2022

Faculty member Desiree Fields publishes Tech and finance firms buying up homes doesn’t bode well for everyone else in The Washington Post

Desiree Fields writes on the proliferation of corporate real estate iBuying, or instant buying, and its impacts on renters, hopeful homeowners, and residential communities.

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Tech and finance firms buying up homes doesn’t bode well for everyone else
Zillow shut down its iBuying program, but other...

Geography Professor Jake Kosek discusses "Worldings: Regions, Peoples, and States" on Berkeley Pedagogy Podcast

December 1, 2021

Geography Professor Jake Kosek discusses Worldings: Regions, Peoples, and States on Berkeley Pedagogy Podcast

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Check out Jake’s interview and discussion on Worldings: Regions, Peoples, and States with the Berkeley Pedagogy Podcast, where he discusses Geography 10AC and the radical possibilities of teaching. This interview comes off the back of...

Geography Lecturer Diana Negrín da Silva publishes La miseria de los megaproyectos y las semillas de la esperanza

November 18, 2021

Geography Lecturer Diana Negrín da Silva publishes La miseria de los megaproyectos y las semillas de la esperanza in Nexos

"La miseria de los megaproyectos y las semillas de la esperanza" is a photo essay on the field work Diana Negrín da Silva has been doing this year in the Chihuahuan Desert and Wixarika territory more generally. The photographs by Joaquín Urrutia tell a story of the imposition of large scale (narco) development and the...

Professor Brandi Summers publishes "Untimely Futures" in Places Journal

November 10, 2021

Professor Brandi Summers publishes "Untimely Futures" in Places Journal

In the essay, Summers asks, “[H]ow might we consider the relationship between parking lots — as central, even redundant features of the built urban environment — and the politics of Black clearance and containment?” Moreover, she asks, “[W]hat does it mean for Black people, in Oakland and elsewhere, to continue to live the same experience again and again, decade after decade?” Summers also discusses images from the “...

Faculty member Desiree Fields testifies before the U.S. Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs

October 26, 2021

Faculty member Desiree Fields testified before the U.S. Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs committee this week.

Fields testified on the ways that private equity landlords are impacting the U.S. housing market.

For more, including a transcript of the testimony, see here.

https://www.banking.senate.gov/...

Professor Jovan Scott Lewis Talks To BR About Historic Tulsa & Reparations

October 5, 2021

Professor Jovan Scott Lewis Talks To BR About Historic Tulsa & Reparations

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Dr. Jovan Scott Lewis, Chair and Associate Prof. of Geography at UC Berkeley, is a member of Gov. Newsom's Task Force on Reparations. Since 2014, Dr. Lewis has been researching Tulsa, Oklahoma and the history of Greenwood. In Part One of his interview with BR's Jan Mabry, he connects his research on historic Tulsa to current events. In Part Two, he makes the case for reparations and talks about the challenges would blacks face in a post-reparation society.

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Geography Professor Laurel Larsen explains how Data Science can help California's Drought in Q&A

July 29, 2021

Geography Professor Laurel Larsen explains how Data Science can help California's Drought in Q&A

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California’s Drought is Getting Worse. In a Q&A, Laurel Larsen Explains How Data Science Can Help.

Rachel Leven

California is amidst a period of intensifying drought. As of July 8, Governor Gavin Newsrom (D-Calif.) had issued drought emergency declarations for 50...

Geography Professor Jake Kosek awarded 2021 AC Excellence in Teaching Award

July 15, 2021

Professor Jake Kosek was selected as one of 2021's American Cultures Excellence in Teaching Award recipients, and is now featured on the AC Center website.

The American Cultures Center will also recognize Professor Kosek as a recipient of the 2021 AC Excellence in Teaching Award during the AC 30th Anniversary celebration on November 16, 4-6 pm at Doe Library in the Morrison Reading Room.

2021 AC Excellence in Teaching Award

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Congratulations to our 2021 graduates!

June 10, 2021

Congratulations to the Berkeley Geography undergraduate class of 2021 and our newly minted PhDs. This year’s virtual commencement ceremony and our message to graduates can be found here: Berkeley Geography Commencement 2021

Please note that closed captions are available for the entirety of the video and can be viewed by clicking on the "CC" logo in the bottom right corner. Many thanks to Dr. Wilmott for bringing this virtual ceremony to life!

From the Geography Department faculty...

Extraordinary Teaching Awards for Desiree Fields, Diana Negrín and Emily Weiss

April 22, 2021

Three Geography Department instructors -- Dr. Diana Negrín, Emily Weiss, and Prof. Desiree Fields – were honored with this year’s Extraordinary Teaching in Extraordinary Times award. The award recognizes UC Berkeley faculty, staff, and student instructors who embraced the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and engaged in or supported excellent teaching in 2020. These instructors and staff used innovative methods and worked beyond their traditional roles to ensure that students...

Former undergrad Mai Nguyen publishes What 'Minari' is doing for Asian American farmers like me

April 20, 2021

Former undergrad Mai Nguyen publishes What 'Minari' is doing for Asian American farmers like me

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What 'Minari' is doing for Asian American farmers like me

(CNN) Early in the film "Minari," Korean American farmer Jacob Yi digs his bare hands into the Arkansas dirt. The first time I saw this, as he revealed the soil's dark, loamy tilth, I swooned: not only to see this rich earth, but also to see hands...

Graduate Student Erin Torkelson receives Best Dissertation award from AAG Economic Geography Specialty Group

April 10, 2021
Erin Torkelson has received the Best Dissertation award from the Economic Geography Specialty Group of the American Association of Geographers for her dissertation “Taken for Granted: Geographies of Social Welfare in South Africa.”

Geography Department Statement on Anti-Asian Violence and Racism

March 25, 2021

March 22, 2021

We are appalled by the spread of anti-Asian violence and racism this past year. This week saw the killing of 6 Asian women in the Atlanta area, as part of a murderous rampage that claimed 8 lives. Since the pandemic started, Asian Americans have increasingly been attacked and harassed with racial slurs, getting coughed and spat upon, and subjected to physical and deadly violence. From March 2020 to February 2021, nearly 3800 incidents of racism and hate against Asian Americans have been logged, and over 700 anti-Asian hate incidents in...

Two Berkeley Geography community members named to AAG Black Geographies Specialty Group Executive Team

February 9, 2021

Two Berkeley Geography community members named to the AAG Black Geographies Specialty Group executive team.

Dr. Camilla Hawthorne, Assistant Professor at UC Santa Cruz and a Berkeley Geography PhD, was appointed as Chair April L. Graham-Jackson, current PhD candidate in Berkeley Geography, was appointed as Graduate Student Representative

The BLACK GEOGRAPHIES SPECIALTY GROUP strives to create a global platform for: (a) promoting study of the social, political, cultural, economic,...

Italian newspaper ranks sociology professor and Geography alum Camilla Hawthorne (PhD 2018) among top women of the year

January 22, 2021

Italian newspaper ranks sociology professor and Geography alum Camilla Hawthorne (PhD 2018) among top women of the year

Italy’s most widely read newspaper, Corriere della Sera, released its year-end list of the world’s top women of 2020, and UC Santa Cruz assistant professor of sociology Camilla Hawthorne made the list at number 20 for her highly influential research into the Black diaspora across Italy and the Mediterranean.

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2021 AAG Diversity & Inclusion Award awarded to Professor Jovan Lewis

December 17, 2020

Jovan Lewis, assistant professor of Geography and co-lead of the Economic Disparities research cluster in the Othering and Belonging Institute, is awarded the 2021 Diversity and Inclusion Award, from the American Association of Geographers (AAG).

Per the press release: "Within the AAG, Lewis is a key leader leveraging and amplifying Black Geographies, helping to lead the Black Geographies Specialty Group and successfully advocating for the inclusion of Black Geographies as a theme of the 2018 AAG Annual Meeting. Notably, Dr. Lewis is still only in the first decade of his career as a...

Graduate student Brittany Young publishes Incubated Futures: What is a resilient chicken?

November 12, 2020

Graduate student Brittany Young publishes Incubated Futures: What is a resilient chicken? in n+1 magazine.

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Incubated Futures: What is a resilient chicken?

KENTUCKY FRIED CHICKEN wants to move into Addis Ababa. Among the last of African countries to be colonized by fast food, Ethiopia just received their first multinational fast food chain in 2018, when two Pizza Huts opened in Addis. More international chains want to open in the capital, though their...

Graduate student Adam Jadhav publishes Was it rural populism? Returning to the country, “catching up,” and trying to understand the trump vote

October 29, 2020

Graduate student Adam Jadhav publishes Was it rural populism? Returning to the country, “catching up,” and trying to understand the trump vote in Elsevier

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Was it rural populism? Returning to the country, “catching up,” and trying to understand the trump vote

In May 1982, news broke that heavy equipment manufacturer Caterpillar would lay off another 8000 workers, mostly in Illinois (UPI, 1982). The company blamed a global recession and high...

Graduate student Xiaowei Wang publishes new book Blockchain Chicken Farm, And Other Stories of Tech in China's Countryside

October 28, 2020

Graduate student Xiaowei Wang publishes new book Blockchain Chicken Farm, And Other Stories of Tech in China's Countryside

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In Blockchain Chicken Farm, the technologist and writer Xiaowei Wang explores the political and social entanglements of technology in rural China. Their discoveries force them to challenge the standard idea that rural culture and people are backward, conservative, and intolerant. Instead, they find that rural China has not only adapted to rapid globalization but has...

Graduate student Caroline Tracey publishes How to Deport a Virus

August 2, 2020

Graduate student Caroline Tracey publishes How to Deport a Virus in n+1 magazine.

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How to Deport a Virus

A nationalist strategy cannot be a public health strategy

https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/how-to-deport-a-virus/

Geography Lecturer Seth Lunine awarded 2020 AC Excellence in Teaching Award

July 17, 2020

Geography Lecturer Seth Lunine (and Geography alum, PhD 2013) is one of this year's recipients of the 2020 American Cultures Excellence in Teaching Award.

2020 AC Prizes Virtual Ceremony

2020 AC Excellence in Teaching Award

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Lecturer Peter Ekman publishes “Radburn Rackets”: Robert D. Kohn and Marjorie Sewell Cautley’s Sketches Against the Speculative Suburb

July 8, 2020

Lecturer Peter Ekman publishes “Radburn Rackets”: Robert D. Kohn and Marjorie Sewell Cautley’s Sketches Against the Speculative Suburb in the journal PLATFORM

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The Regional Planning Association of America (RPAA) came together in 1923 when a heterodox group of New York–based architects, planners, economists, and other reformers, galled by the footloose patterns of speculative development they saw...

Lecturer Peter Ekman publishes From prophecy to projection: the New York Metropolitan Region Study and the rescaling of the urban future, 1956–1968

June 24, 2020

Geography alum Peter Ekman (PhD 2016) publishes "From prophecy to projection: the New York Metropolitan Region Study and the rescaling of the urban future, 1956–1968" in the journal Planning Perspectives.

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Between 1956 and 1959, amid far-flung residential and industrial suburbanization and with the joint backing of the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Twentieth Century Fund, an interdisciplinary coterie of scholars from Harvard partnered with New...

Professor Brandi Summers publishes "We need action to accompany art" in the Boston Globe

June 16, 2020

Professor Brandi Summers publishes "We need action to accompany art" in the Boston Globe

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We need action to accompany art

The 35-foot tall letters were formed in stark marigold paint against the dark gray speckled pavement. Though bold in color, the action itself is not bold.

By Brandi Summers

Updated June 11, 2020, 3:08 a.m.

Geography Department Open Letter

June 8, 2020

June 6, 2020

Dear Geography community,

We write to you with feelings of incredible outrage and sadness in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis. His violent killing by “law enforcement” officers, along with the killings of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, KY, Tony McDade in Tallahassee, FL and Ahmaud Arbery by white civilians in Brunswick, GA, reflect only the most recent and visible examples of anti-Black violence endemic to this country, and to many of the nation’s institutions.

We also condemn the violence of the repressive state apparatus firing...

UC Berkeley transfer student Alexis Zaragoza nominated as 2021-22 UC student regent

June 6, 2020

UC Berkeley transfer student Alexis Zaragoza nominated as 2021-22 UC student regent

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UC Office of the President
Friday, June 5, 2020

A University of California Board of Regents special committee has nominated Alexis Atsilvsgi Zaragoza, a UC Berkeley undergraduate student, to be the 2021-22 student regent, UC announced today (June 5).

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Geography alum Julie Guthman (PhD 2000) awarded 2020 Meridian Award at American Association of Geographers

June 3, 2020

Geography alum Julie Guthman (PhD 2000) awarded 2020 AAG Meridian Book Award for Outstanding Scholarly Work in Geography at American Association of Geographers (AAG)

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Wilted: Pathogens, Chemicals, and the Fragile Future of the Strawberry Industry

Strawberries are big business in California. They are the sixth-highest-grossing crop in the state, which produces 88 percent of the nation’s favorite berry. Yet the industry is often criticized for its backbreaking labor conditions...

Graduate student Meredith Palmer publishes new article in Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, entitled "Rendering settler sovereign landscapes: Race and property in the Empire State"

May 18, 2020

Graduate student Meredith Palmer's article, Rendering Settler Sovereign Landscapes: Race and Property in the Empire State, is now published online in the journal Environment and Planning D: Society and Space.

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Rendering settler sovereign landscapes: Race and property in the Empire State

This article examines the politics of race, indigeneity, and landscape in US American enactments of property. Its substance is the homelands of the Haudenosaunee, now...

Professor Brandi Summers publishes "What Black America Knows About Quarantine" in New York Times

May 15, 2020

Professor Brandi Summers publishes "What Black America Knows About Quarantine" in New York Times

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What Black America Knows About Quarantine
White people are protesting against being trapped at home. Black people know what it feels like to really be trapped.

By Brandi T. Summers

Dr. Summers is an assistant professor of geography and global metropolitan studies at the University of...

Geography alum Jason Strange (PhD 2013) publishes new book Shelter from the Machine

April 12, 2020

Geography alum Jason Strange (PhD 2013) publishes new book Shelter from the Machine

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Shelter from the Machine
Homesteaders in the Age of Capitalism
Hard work and hard truths inside the back-to-the-land movement

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"You’re either buried with your crystals or your shotgun." That laconic comment captures the hippies-versus-hicks conflict that divides, and in some ways defines, modern-day homesteaders. It also reveals that back-...

Geography alum Mark Hunter (PhD 2005) publishes new book Race for Education: Gender, White Tone and Schooling in South Africa

April 10, 2020

Geography alum Mark Hunter (PhD 2005) publishes new book Race for Education: Gender, White Tone and Schooling in South Africa

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Following the end of apartheid in 1994, the ANC government placed education at the centre of its plans to build a nonracial and more equitable society. Yet, by the 2010s a wave of student protests voiced demands for decolonised and affordable...

Graduate student Caroline Tracey publishes Gentrification and Denver's Hispanic Past

April 2, 2020

Graduate student Caroline Tracey publishes Gentrification and Denver's Hispanic Past in special publication Denver and the Rocky Mountain West, an e-book prepared for AAG (American Association of Geographers) 2020 Denver.

Graduate Student Meredith Alberta Palmer awarded postdocs at UCLA and Cornell University

February 28, 2020

Graduate Student Meredith Alberta Palmer has been awarded a UC Presidential Postdoc to work with Dr. Mishuana Goeman in the Gender Studies Department and American Indian Studies program at UCLA. Following this, she will begin a Cornell Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship, working with Dr. Suman Seth in the Science and Technology Studies Department and Dr. Jolene Rickard in American Studies and the American Indian and Indigenous Studies program. Her postdoctoral research will examine the historic material conditions through which genomic biomedicine engages with Native American tribes and...

The Frontier Effect: State Formation and Violence in Colombia by Teo Ballvé

February 26, 2020

In The Frontier Effect, Teo Ballvé challenges the notion that in Urabá, Colombia, the cause of the region's violent history and unruly contemporary condition is the absence of the state. Although he takes this locally oft-repeated claim seriously, he demonstrates that Urabá is more than a case of Hobbesian political disorder.

Through his insightful exploration of war, paramilitary organizations, grassroots support and resistance, and drug-related violence, Ballvé argues that Urabá, rather than existing in statelessness, has actually been an intense and persistent site of state...

Graduate student Jeff Vance Martin publishes Revisiting and revitalizing political ecology in the American West

November 27, 2019

Graduate student Jeff Vance Martin publishes Revisiting and revitalizing political ecology in the American West

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Political ecology, initially conceived to better understand the power relations implicit in management and distribution of natural resources in the developing world, came “home” to the American West in the 1990s and 2000s. This groundswell of research did much to problematize socio-environmental conflicts in the...

Graduate student Sol Kim publishes How to Start Adapting to California’s “Precipitation Whiplash”

November 12, 2019

Graduate student Sol Kim publishes How to Start Adapting to California’s “Precipitation Whiplash”

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Much of California enjoys a mild Mediterranean climate where the weather typically swings like a pendulum from warm, dry summers to cool, wet winters. Year-to-year, this pendulum can swing with great variation. If it doesn’t swing toward rain and snow between October and March, it leads to drought; if it does, we might see record-breaking...

Graduate student Erin Torkelson publishes Collateral damages: Cash transfer and debt transfer in South Africa

November 10, 2019

Graduate student Erin Torkelson publishes Collateral damages: Cash transfer and debt transfer in South Africa

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Over the past decade, two development programs–cash transfer and financial inclusion–were bundled in global development discourse. Despite differences in their purported objectives, cash transfers are increasingly delivered via financial inclusion infrastructures and technologies...

Join us for Department of Geography's 23rd Carl O. Sauer Memorial Lecture featuring author Judith Carney - Oct 23, 4pm at Chevron Auditorium

October 2, 2019

The Department of Geography presents: The 23rd Carl O. Sauer Memorial Lecture

IN THE SHADOW OF SLAVERY: Africa's Food Legacy in the Atlantic World

with award-winning author Judith Carney

Wednesday, October 23, 2019 4:00 p.m Lecture and reception

Chevron Auditorium, International House

University of California, Berkeley

The popular image of Africa today is of a hungry continent, chronically unable to feed itself. But it was not always so. A striking feature of the...

Graduate student Brittany Meché awarded fellowships at Williams College and Harvard University

March 25, 2019

Brittany Meché has been awarded the 2019-2021 Gaius Bolin Fellowship in Environmental Studies at Williams College. Beginning Fall 2019, she will be in residence at Williams completing her dissertation Securing the Sahel: Nature, Catastrophe, and the Empire of Expertise. During the 2019-2020 academic year, Brittany will also...

Alumna Youjeong Oh publishes Pop City: Korean Popular Culture and the Selling of Place

December 10, 2018

Youjeong Oh publishes Pop City: Korean Popular Culture and the Selling of Place

Pop City examines the use of Korean television dramas and K-pop music to promote urban and rural places in South Korea. Building on the phenomenon of Korean pop culture, Youjeong Oh argues that pop culture-featured place selling mediates two separate domains: political...

Professor Jeff Chambers and his lab produce new satellite images of Camp Fire as it burned through Paradise

November 15, 2018

With tools developed by his UC Berkeley lab in Geography using the Google's Earth Engine platform, Professor Jeff Chambers developed a set of initial images that illustrate the staggering losses to the city of Paradise and the impact of the Camp Fire on the surrounding environment. His lab will be further developing this work, and providing additional tools and analysis to the community in the coming weeks. More information in the link below.

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Alumnus Trevor Paglen has mid-career survey exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum

August 17, 2018

"Trevor Paglen blurs the lines between art, science, and investigative journalism to construct unfamiliar and at times unsettling ways to see and interpret the world around us. Inspired by the landscape tradition, he captures the same horizon seen by American photographers Timothy O’Sullivan in the nineteenth century and Ansel Adams in the twentieth. Only in Paglen’s photographs is the infrastructure of surveillance also apparent—a classified military installation, a spy satellite, a tapped communications...

Former Ciriacy-Wantrup Fellow in Geography Penelope Anthias publishes new book on indigenous territorial claims and the limits to decolonization in Bolivia

May 11, 2018
Penelope Anthias's new book Limits to Decolonization: Indigeneity, Territory, and Hydrocarbon Politics in the Bolivian Chaco has been published by Cornell University Press as the flagship volume in the new Cornell Land Series: New Perspectives on Territory, Development, and Environment edited by Wendy Wolford, Nancy Peluso, and Michael Goldman. Penelope completed the manuscript during a Ciriacy-Wantrup Fellowship in Berkeley Geography in 2014-2016, under the supervision of Michael Watts. Based on the experience of thirty-six Guaraní communities in the Bolivian Chaco, Limits to Decolonization...

Professor Emerita Gillian Hart awarded 2018 Vega Medal from the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography

April 24, 2018

Professor Emerita Gillian Hart was awarded the 2018 Vega Medal from the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography for her contributions to Human Geography. The award is made in Human Geography every three years. Previous recipients include Carl Sauer and Allan Pred.

Professor Hart delivered a keynote address, led a symposium, and received the medal from the Crown Princess of Sweden on April 24, 2018. Click ...

Geography alum Julie Klinger wins AAG Meridian Book Award for Outstanding Scholarly Work in Geography

April 10, 2018

Julie Klinger’s Rare Earth Frontiers: From Terrestrial Subsoils to Lunar Landscapes (Cornell University Press, 2017) wins AAG Meridian Book Award for Outstanding Scholarly Work in Geography.

Read more: http://news.aag.org/2018/03/2018-aag-book-awards-announced/

Graduate student Erin Torkelson's research featured in documentary "Social Grants and The Green Card" about dispossession in post-apartheid South Africa

April 4, 2018

“Social Grants and the Green Card” is a short film about how a preeminent, state-sponsored cash transfer program has become a means of dispossession in post-apartheid South Africa. The film was produced by the Black Sash, a Cape Town based NGO, for Cutting Edge, a weekly investigative journalism program on the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC1). It aired on Tuesday, 27 March at 9:30.

Erin Torkelson was the researcher and a consulting script writer and worked with a documentary crew that included Esley Philander, Johan Abrahams, Clinton Daniels and Erna...

Emeritus Professor Roger Byrne has passed away. His passion for research and dedication to his students will be greatly missed.

March 15, 2018

Roger Byrne (1940-2018)

Roger Byrne passed away peacefully, surrounded by family, at his home in Berkeley on March 11, 2018. Roger is survived by his children, Todd Byrne, Brendan Byrne, Kevin Byrne, and Angela Sotelo.

Roger began his career as professor in the Geography Department at U.C. Berkeley in 1973 after finishing his Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin. He established the Quaternary Paleoecology...

Paper by Professor John Chiang and Graduate student Wenwen Kong featured in EOS as a Research Spotlight

October 17, 2017

A paper published in Geophysical Research Letters published by Professor John Chiang and graduate student Wenwen Kong was featured in Earth and Space Science News. Read the full story here or the original GRL paper

Graduate Student Camilla Hawthorne Published Article in Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

August 2, 2017

Annalisa Frisina and Camilla Hawthorne, “Italians with veils and Afros: gender, beauty, and the everyday anti-racism of the daughters of immigrants in Italy.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (2017). http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369183X.2017.1359510

Graduate student Gustavo Oliveira published on biofuels in Energy Policy

March 24, 2017

Oliveira, Gustavo de L. T., McKay, Ben, and Plank, Christina. “How Biofuel Policies Backfire: Misguided Goals, Inefficient Mechanisms, and Political-Ecological Blind Spots.” Energy Policy, 2017, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2017.03.036