Geography Newsletter - Spring 2026
Chair Update
This semester we held our second annual CU ֲý Mapathon by opening this competition up to Geography Departments in Colorado as a co-sponsored event with the Colorado Geographic Alliance (COGA). Cartographies of Hope was the theme for this year’s Mapathon. Winners, included in this issue, included the Best Overall Map, The People’s Choice Award, and best maps in the following categories: Life Affirming Geographies, Geographies of Resistance and Repairs, Geographies of Care, and Geographies of Sustainability and Environmental Justice.
In coordination with the Mapathon we celebrated the Grand Opening, of Dr. Isaac Rivera’s new lab, The Rita Martinez Spatial Justice Lab for Life Affirming Geographies.
CU ֲý faculty and graduate students on behalf of The Colorado Geography Alliance are hosting a Geography Designathon with 9th grade Students in Mr. Stephen Paulson’s Advanced Placement (AP) Human Geography course. Students from this class will join us on CU ֲý’s campus on May 8, 2026, for a Geography Designathon to apply the Geographic skills they learned in Mr. Paulson’s class to real world problems for individual in Colorado and around the world. We will feature the projects for this class on the COGA website and the fall newsletter.
As you will see in this semester’s newsletter, several Geography faculty, graduate and undergraduate students received major awards and recognition, illustrating our department’s strength and our commitment to excellence, which we continually strive to achieve both individually and as a department.
Faculty News and Updates
Two Geography professors were selected for the ֲý’s Sustainability Research Initiative Fellowship
Katherine Siegel, and Keith Musselman along with 18 other researchers will participate in a year-long incubator designed to bring CU ֲý researchers together to collaborate and conduct research that addresses complex, multidimensional, boundary-spanning sustainability issues. The SRI Research F...
Waleed Abdalati: CIRES Director Shares Impact NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Grant Funding Pause
Waleed Abdalati, director of the Cooperative Institute for Research In Environmental Sciences (CIRES), told The Hill that about 30 days before the institute was slated to run out of funds to pay the scientists in question, “we were informed that NOAA has put a pause on all grant actions.”
Waleed Abdalati Selected as Sesquicentennial Faculty Scholar
In celebration of CU ֲý’s 150th anniversary, the Sesquicentennial Faculty Scholars recognition program spotlights some of the university’s most inspiring voices—faculty members whose research and creative work transform lives and serve the public good. This prestigious program elevates faculty whose scholarship benefits communities, informs policy, advances innovation, and addresses society’s most pressing challenges.
Federico Andrade Rivas: Do you live in a playable neighbourhood? A new national level metric aims to answer this question
Beyond the established benefits of physical activity on human health, there is increasing evidence showing the importance of outdoor free play for young children’s current and long-term physical, cognitive, and social-emotional development. Geography Assistant Professor Federico Andrade Rivas joined...
Holly Barnard: Receives the 2026 Hydrology Days Award
Professor Holly Barnard, co-chair of the Hydrologic Sciences Graduate Program and former Arts and Sciences Associate Dean of Research, has received the Colorado State University 2026 Hydrology Days award.
Ellen Considine selected as a 2026 GeoCAFE Scholar
Over the next year, Assistant Professor of Geography and CIRES Fellow Ellen Considine will join a national cohort of scholars working to bridge the gap between the geosciences and health sciences. The GeoCAFE Scholars program aligns closely with Considine’s role at CIRES, where she serves as a long-...
Jessica Finlay: GOALie Geographer
Assistant Professor Jessica Finlay co-founded GOAL (Geographies of Aging and the Life Course), an interdisciplinary working group that has grown to include more than 150 researchers worldwide. GOAL brings together scholars engaged in spatial and place-based studies of aging and the life course acros...
Jennifer Fluri: Winner of the 2026 ֲý Faculty Assembly (BFA) Award for Excellence in Leadership and Service
Jennifer Fluri, Chair of the Geography Department, has won the 2026 ֲý Faculty Assembly (BFA) Award for Excellence in Leadership and Service.
Geography Professor Isaac Rivera Launches The Rita Martinez Spatial Justice Lab
Dr. Isaac Rivera launched the Rita Martinez Spatial Justice Lab on April 10, 2026. The lab aspires to foreground creative and accountable digital geographies, such as cartography and geomedia to animate the everyday ways in which Colorado communities and beyond seek to affirm life in the broadest s...
Mark Serreze: Arctic Amplification and Changing Precipitation
Geography Distinguished Professor Mark Serreze and colleagues published a study in the journal “The Cryosphere” on Arctic Amplification (AA) - the much stronger observed warming of the Arctic compared to the globe as a whole. Serreze concludes that one of the most important processes driving Arctic...
Katherine Siegel Named in The Story Exchange's Saving Nature: 11 Women to Watch in Science
"These women are using their hard-earned knowledge to protect our planet already ravaged by brutal storms, epic floods and intense wildfires."
Professor Emily Yeh: SPIKE Center for Sustainability Education welcomes 13 faculty fellows
The SPIKE Center for Sustainability Education at CU ֲý has selected 13 faculty members as its inaugural SPIKE Faculty Fellows, launching a new initiative designed to strengthen and expand sustainability education across campus.
Student Updates
Four Geography Graduate Students are Awarded the GRFP, Setting Campus Record!
Four Geography graduate students were awarded the prestigious Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP)! The National Science Foundation’s GRFP is to help ensure the quality, vitality, and strength of the scientific and engineering workforce of the United States. Since 1952, the program recogniz...
Graduate Students from Water Seminar (Geography 5100) “The politics of water” present together at CU WASH Symposium 2026
In Professor Truelove’s Fall 2025 graduate water seminar, GEOG 5100: The Politics of Water, students (Em Wright, Laine Sullivan, Anshul Sharma, Marc Sailer, Zach Schaad), spanning social, physical, and engineering sciences engaged with hydrosocial approaches to understand some of the world’s most pr...
Millie Spencer and Emma Tyrrell: New York Times Article "How Do You Measure Snow From Space? First, Climb a Mountain."
A new satellite could transform how water is studied worldwide. But to help unlock its capabilities, scientists first needed to take critical measurements on a mountaintop.
By Sachi Kitajima Mulkey
By Sachi Kitajima Mulkey
Do you ever join point data to census polygons or other spatial units containing contextual information? Alek Berg and colleagues have new insight.
Aleksander Berg is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Geography advised by Stefan Leyk. He has been a graduate research assistant since 2023 on a National Institute on Aging grant studying the midlife (aged 25-64) mortality crisis in the United States. A core question of this project is: does plac...
Hayes Hart-Thompson Awarded Student Employee of the Year
Hayes Hart-Thompson is a master’s student studying Geography. Dr. Jessica Finlay (Assistant Professor in Geography) nominated Hayes for their roles as a teaching and research assistant. Across both positions, Hayes consistently exceeds expectations, through exceptional initiative, intellectual leade...
Annika Hirmke Receives Wenner-Gren Fellowship for her Dissertation Research on Community Solar in Montana
Annika is a PhD candidate in the doctoral program of Geography at CU ֲý working with Prof. Jill Harrison and Prof. Joe Bryan. Her dissertation project titled “Solar Possibilities: Community Solar Against Monopoly Power” investigates the promises of community solar in Montana where the renewable...
Danyan Lang Receives the 2026 Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) Graduate Student Research Award
Congratulations our Geography Ph.D. Student, Danyan Leng for receiving the 2026 the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) Graduate Student Research Award! Her topic is Identifying the shared risks of wildfire and biodiversity loss in the wildland-urban interface of the western United States.
Ian Messa receives Theodore C. Myers Memorial Award for Best Honors Thesis in Geography
My name is Ian Messa. I'll be graduating from CU in less than a month with a BA in geography; a certificate in GIS; and minors in civil engineering, applied math, and pure math. I've been working at the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Geologic Hazards Science Center (GHSC) in Golden for the...
Abigail Verneuille Selected Outstanding Undergraduate of the College of Arts and Science
Abby Verneuille, an Anthropology Major and GIS Certificate student, completed an honors thesis with Sarah Schlosser, the Department’s GIS Certificate Coordinator, serving as the committee's outside reader. Her thesis shed new light on the Pre-Hispanic History of Northern New Mexico and on human ada...
Alumni Updates
Jessica DiCarlo (PhD Geography, 2021): Spirited Collaboration, Epistemic Generosity
The Geography Department at the ֲý cultivates an intellectual community that lasts well beyond graduation. For Jessica DiCarlo, now an assistant professor at the University of Utah, CU geography continues to shape her work through ongoing collaborations with alumni who sh...
Geography Alumna Abby Hickcox (PhD 2012): Winner of the 2026 ֲý Faculty Assembly (BFA) Award for Excellence in Teaching
Abby Hickcox (Geography PhD 2012 alumna), Associate Director of the Honors Program and Teaching Professor, has won the 2026 ֲý Faculty Assembly (BFA) Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Sophia Emmanouilides Linn (M.A. 1996): A Clear Path…Only in Retrospect
The career path was not necessarily well-lit when I graduated from the geography department at CU-ֲý in the mid-1990s. Yet in retrospect, it’s curious to notice that the journey seems remarkably coherent. As a geographer who maintained an interest in all the things, I leaned towards the sub-di...
Department Events
2026 Mapathon Success
Spring at CU-Geography means Mapathon Time! The CU-Geography Mapathon successfully launched its 2nd annual Mapathon campaign centered on cartographies of hope. For organizer Prof. Isaac Rivera, cartographies of hope are doorways for rehearsing a liberatory world in the here and now. Undergraduate an...
2026 Geography Spring Awards Lunch
On Friday, April 24th, the Geography Department celebrated the 2026 Spring Awards Lunch in the British and Irish Studies Room on the 5th Floor of the Norlin Library. This has been our 4th annual awards lunch. We celebrated the following awards: Gilbert F. White Doctoral Summer Writing AwardJohn Pitl...
Donor Support
Donor Support
Thank you! The Department of Geography is grateful to its alumni and friends for their financial support over the years. Our donors have had a big impact, making a difference not only to the Department as a whole, but to the lives of many individual students. There is always a real need for funds...