TEACHING AND RESEARCH STATEMENT
My teaching goal in the Department of Geography and
Planning is to communicate a geographical appreciation of the natural
environment and the place of humanity within it. My classroom learning
environment focuses on the geography of human-environmental interactions from
two perspectives: 1) nature as the resource that sustains humanity, and 2)
nature as a hazard where catastrophic events such as severe storms, floods,
drought, fires, disease outbreaks, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions injure
humanity. For the Social Science
Program, my goal is give students an appreciation of geography and history in the
k-12 education curriculum.
My academic research focuses on the earth's
surface landscapes which have been shaped by internal tectonic, solar-driven
climatic, biological, and human processes. The topics of my published research
include temperature extremes in California and the United States, overland
emigrant interaction with desert environments, origin of vernal pool basins in
the Sacramento Valley, the paleolake history of Butte
Valley in northeastern California, prehistoric channel changes of the Walker
River in Nevada, and the paleolake history of the
Carson Desert in Nevada.
Professor of Geography , Department of Geography and Planning, California State
University-Chico, 2001 to Present.
Department Chairperson, Department of Geography and Planning, California State
University-Chico, 1998 to 2001.
Associate/Assistant
Professor of Geography, Department of
Geography and Planning, California State University-Chico, 1988 to 1997.
Assistant Professor of Geography, Department of Geography, University of New Mexico,
Albuquerque, 1985 to 1988.
Imagery Analyst,
Cartographer/Photogrammetrist,
Defense Mapping Agency, St. Louis, 1983.
Instructor, Truckee Meadows Community College, Reno, Fall-1982.
Ph.D. in Geography, 1982, University of Utah, Salt Lake City.
M.S. in Geography, 1978, University of Utah, Salt Lake City.
B.S. in Geography, 1976, Mackay School of Mines, University of
Nevada, Reno.
Temperature
Extremes in California, California Geographer 60, 2010.
The Hottest and Coldest Places
in the Conterminous United States, Association of Pacific Coast Geographers
Yearbook 69: 101-114, 2007.
Crossing the
Forty Mile Desert. Overland
Journal 21: 122-137, 2004.
The Forty Mile Desert Emigrant
Trail: Its Natural and Human History.
Geomorphology of a
Late Quaternary Paleolakes of Butte Valley, Siskiyou County, California. The
Late Quaternary History of
the Lower Walker River and its implications for the Lahontan Paleolake System.
Physical Geography 14: 81-93, 1993.
Geomorphology of Piedmont Vernal
Pool Basins, California. The
Geography and
Morphological Regions of the
Great Basin. Forum for the
Association of Arid Lands Studies 2: 65-72, 1986.
Geography 101 Physical
Geography
Geography 106 The American West
Geography 313 Introductory Cartography
Geography 319 Introductory Geographic Information Systems
Geography 352 The United States
Geography 342 Geomorphology
Geography 343 Climatology
Geography 413 Advanced Cartography
Geography 314 Aerial Photo Interpretation
Geography 417 Field Techniques in Geography
Geography 418 Remote Sensing
Geography 435 Historical Geography of
North America
Geography 600 Introduction to Graduate Research
Geography 601 Research Methods in Geography Seminar
Geography 602 Physical Geography Seminar
Geography 605 Applied Geography Seminar
Geography 606 Special Topics Seminar
Social
Science 301 Spatial Concepts
Social
Science 302 Temporal Concepts