Geography has Moved! Visit us in our new spaces and places!

Geography has a new space and place on campus! The Department of Geography has moved to our new home on the first floor of LA1 in the LA1-123A suite! Our faculty offices and graduate student spaces are located on the 1st floor and you will find our two brand new geospatial labs on the 3rd floor in LA1-301 and 303. We are grateful to the administration and facilities for the support through this years’ long process. Please come visit us!

Dr. Hytrek’s work creating a participatory budget process for youth featured in the LB Business Journal

Dr. Hytrek’s contributions to the participatory budget process featured in the Long Beach Business Journal

“…You don’t read a manual and learn how to ride a bicycle. You ride a bicycle by riding a bicycle,” Hytrek said. “People learn how to become citizens, residents of communities, by doing the work, but often … there aren’t those opportunities, and PB creates those opportunities…According to Hytrek, a participatory budget process is one of the most effective ways to deepen and broaden democracy within communities…“

Geography’s REU at River Ridge Ranch enters 2nd year!

CSULB’s Geography Department received a $344,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to run a three-year Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program in California’s scenic western Sierra Nevada foothills. The program is hosted by River Ridge Ranch and Institute in Springville, California, begain in May 2022 and runs through 2024. Eight undergraduate students from around the U.S. will be accepted into the eight-week program each year. According to award recipient and Principal Investigator Dr. Paul Laris, “this project brings together eight undergraduate students with faculty for an eight-week intensive research and learning experience to study the science and technology of environmental conservation.” Laris added “the objective of the program is to train the next generation of land managers and restoration scientists in conservation science and technology.” Information about the grant and application procedures can be found at https://cla.csulb.edu/departments/geogr aphy/nsf-reu/. For a local take on the program, please see the February 16, 2022 article that was posted in the Porterville Recorder.

Protecting Nature with Geographic Information Science

MSGISci Graduate Cris Sarabia Shares His Experiences in the Program and Mentors Students

MSGISci Grad Anshu Pallav Is Designing Solutions for Climate Change

When Climathon, a 24-hour global climate change challenge, came to Long Beach in October 2017, CSULB grad Anshu Pallav was more than ready to contribute. The annual event invites innovators in major cities worldwide to help humanity achieve zero fossil fuel emissions in the next 30 years. Having just earned his Master of Science in Geographic Information Science (MSGISci) degree, Pallav presented his idea for a local solution that stemmed directly from his experience in the program. For more information about Anshu’s contribution to this event, please see the CPIE News web site.

Interested in Majoring in Geography? Aziz Fellague Ariouat tells us why he became a Geography major in this featured video.

Geography at CSULB 01.1 from DS on Vimeo.

Geography Grad Lands Position at Bay Area Precision Ag Firm

CSULB Geography is proud to announce that another one of our graduates is putting their degree to work. Last week, news arrived that recent graduate Duncan MacIntosh accepted a position as GIS/Remote Sensing Analyst with Ceres Imaging in Oakland, California. MacIntosh, who recently relocated to the West Coast from his home state of Rhode Island, received his MA in Geography in July 2019 and promptly began his search for a career in the field of his specialty, that being Remote Sensing and Geospatial Techniques. In recent email correspondence, Duncan admitted that his decision to accept the position at Ceres came only after a good bit of consideration, but it is now evident that he is quite satisfied with his decision. “One of the things that the company liked about my resume was all the drone work” said MacIntosh, who further indicated that the firm is looking into using drone-mounted sensors to generate custom aerial imagery for precision agricultural applications. Once settled into his position, he expects that his day-to-day duties will include performing quality assessments and multispectral analysis using aerial imagery of agricultural land across the U.S. West Coast and Mid-West, as well as Australia. The results of these analyses will form the basis of recommendations that will be provided to growers to assess crop stress, pest activity, overall plant health, and irrigation application.

CSULB Geography’s River Ridge Ranch Project Featured in Drone Blog

Current research being conducted by CSULB’s Geography and Environmental Science and Policy departments took center stage in the current issue of Waypoint, a web log created and managed by leading fixed-wing drone manufacturer senseFly. In this issue, Waypoint interviewed our GIS Lab Manager and drone pilot Scott Winslow who provided an overview of how our students and faculty are leveraging low-altitude remote sensing to benefit ecological research at River Ridge Ranch in the western Sierra Nevada foothills. To learn more about how our department is taking to the sky to generate high-resolution imagery products for use in photogrammetry and automated feature extraction, take a look at senseFly’s blog post titled How Fixed-Wing UAVs Improved GIS Mapping at CSU.

Student Spotlight: Aziz Fellague Ariouat

This week, our student spotlight is cast on another Geography major, Aziz Fellague Ariouat. He was recently interviewed by Communications student Alexander Yem, and here is what Aziz had to say about his experiences as as a Geography major.

Alexander: What made you choose a Geography major?

Aziz: Initially, I was an International Studies it was interesting, but I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my degree. What I decided to do was take a look back and see what my passion and interests when I was younger. I was fascinated with geography and all the different kinds of fields like GIS (map making) 🌎, environmental applications 🏞, and urban geography 🏙 I’m so happy with my decision to go into geography!

Alexander: What are your plans after college?

Aziz: I’m applying to graduate school! I want to get my Master’s in Urban Regional Planning since I love cities. Also, I’d like to enter the transportation industry to install a better public transportation system 🚆

Alexander: Who’s one of your mentors?

Aziz: I’d say Dr. Christine Jocoy, a Geography professor at CSULB, the classes I took with her inspired me in the direction I’m trying to go. I’m grateful 🙏🏽 for the knowledge she’s taught me the past couple of years. Also, I’ve researched with her this previous summer regarding homelessness. She’s such a great professor I’ve taken her 4 times!

Alexander: What does a Liberal Arts degree?

Aziz: I think its a terrific degree since it’s interdisciplinary. It prepares you for the workforce where you are interacting with different people from different disciplines. Liberal arts allows me to see perspectives 👓 from an Economist, or a Psychologist, and more. These classes have shaped me to the person I am today.

Some more fun facts about Aziz:

“I can speak German🇩🇪! I actually lived in Germany for 7 years, which is funny because my family isn’t German at all 😂 My dad got a job in Germany so we left our California home when I was 9 years old and came back to the U.S. when I was 16 years old.“

#soCLA #StudentofCLA #StudentSpotlight #Geography #CSULB #liberalarts #urbanregionalplanning

Aziz was also featured on the College of Liberal Arts social media spotlight in April of this year:

Say hello to this week’s #StudentofCLA Aziz Fellague. Aziz is a junior majoring in Geography while also pursuing a double certificate in Urban Studies and Geographic Information Science

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“Geography means a lot to me because of its interdisciplinary aspect. Geography is the perfect balance of science and social science, I get to learn how to make maps with data that I obtain and I also get to learn how people utilize public space, I chose urban geography as my concentration because I’ve always been interested in cities and how they function, but I also chose to add a Geographic Information Science certificate because I also like making maps and visualizing data in appealing ways.Throughout my college career I’ve had plenty of amazing professors in the department, and I couldn’t pick one! Dr. Jocoy’s Sustainable Cities class and Dr. House Peters’ Environmental Sustainability & Social Justice class. Dr. Jocoy really is able to get the best out of her students and prepares us for the real world, and we’ve been on great field trips during her class including to a community garden and the LA River. Dr. House Peters’ class introduced me to the concept of environmental justice, which is a topic that I am very passionate about. A significant moment in my college career has been my internship at Long Beach Transit. I have been the Government Relations Intern there for nearly a year and working at such a supportive work environment has confirmed that I want to be involved in the transportation industry in some capacity in the future. I graduate in Spring 2020, so what I want to do is find a job in an urban planning-related field, work for a year, and then I would like to go back to school to pursue my Master’s in Urban & Regional Planning.” #StudentsofCLA #Geography #UrbanStudies #GIS #CSULB #CollegeofLiberalArts

Article and Photo Credit: CSULB College of Liberal Arts

Student Spotlight: Mariah Shope

Meet our first #studentofCLA of the semester, @mshopey1 ☺️
Mariah Shope is a Geography major and her career plans are to go into Urban Development and Planning ✍🏼

“What I find fascinating is how people interact with each other and their environment and why their behavior changes as their surroundings change.”

She was inspired by an awesome Geography professor in community college. 📚 With her Geography Major, Mariah wants “to build better communities and spaces that all people feel invited to participate in.” 👏🏼

In her free time, she loves running with her dog 🐶 every morning and working with youth students at her church. 🙌🏼

What does CLA mean to Mariah? It means, “A study that is very comprehensive and each major makes it their own.” 📖
#soCLA #gobeach #liberalarts #geography #geographymajor #csulb #lbsu #studentspotlight