The Department of Geography celebrated the class of 2022 during a hybrid event in Science Hall and online on Friday, May 13th. Students from all academic programs (Undergraduate, GIS Professional Programs, and Graduate) were represented at the celebration as awards were announced and graduates were called by name and recognized. Professor and Department Chair Jack Williams provided opening remarks, while Undergraduate Advisor Joel Gruley emceed the event and recognized Bachelor’s and GISPP award winners and graduates. Professor and Director of Graduate Studies Sarah Moore recognized Graduate award winners and degree recipients. The Department of Geography faculty and staff would like to offer our congratulations to all of the accomplished graduates and award winners!

Bachelor’s Degree Graduates

A total of 37 students makes up this academic year’s graduating class of undergraduates. Twenty-four of these students are double majors, two are triple majors, three are honor’s students, five were inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, the nation’s most prestigious liberal arts honor society, and nearly all of them earned at least one certificate. During their time on campus, this impressive group racked up numerous accomplishments, particularly in the areas of research, internships, and awards. And it’s important to bear in mind they accomplished many of these things during a challenging time of upheaval and uncertainty associated with the pandemic.

Several students, for instance, played essential roles in research labs maintained by Geography faculty and staff. This work ranged from investigating the ecological impacts of climate change in the Alaskan tundra to using drones to detect a “lost city” in the UW Arboretum. Students also published their research findings, including a first-authored piece in a major journal that focused on using computer learning and remote sensing for damage assessment following hazard events, as well as an open-source QGIS workbook tutorial on mapping principles.

In addition to getting involved in research, several students applied the knowledge and skills they acquired from classes and labs to internships in geography-related areas to help people, communities, and the environment. This included internships at the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, Madison Gas and Electric, and the State Cartographer’s Office that relied heavily on GIS work, as well as an internship with a farm in Vermont that grows organic produce for low-income patients at a hospital.

And not surprising, many students earned awards for their work. Our honor’s students were awarded prestigious Hilldale Fellowships to fund their respective research projects, for example, and one student won first place in the Student Guided Poster Competition for the Cartography Specialty Group at this year’s American Association of Geographer’s conference. We’re extremely proud of all our graduating seniors and wish them the best of luck as they embark on the next exciting chapters in their lives.

The following undergraduate student award winners were recognized during the celebration for their achievements:

• Ellie Crabb – Kohn Scholarship Award
• Christina Dennis -1st Place: Petchenik Memorial Undergraduate Award in Cartographic Design for Incorporating User-Centered Design into Mapping the Natural and Cultural Resources of the Lower Wisconsin State Riverway
• Celeste Gunderson – Olmstead Award for Excellence in the Dept. of Geography
• Lily Houtman – Olmstead Award for Excellence in the Dept. of Geography & Olmstead Award for Achievement in the Cart/GIS Major
• Maddy Kobs – Olmstead Award for Excellence in the Dept. of Geography
• Katherine Koehler – 2nd Place: Petchenik Memorial Undergraduate Award in Cartographic Design for Pippin and Pals
• Josh Riebe – Olmstead Award for Achievement in the Geography Major

Here are the 2022 graduating seniors:

• Chlo Baumbach – BS, Environmental Studies & Geography
• Jessica Bedtka – BA, Environmental Studies & Geography (Honor’s)
• Ben Behan – BA, Geography & History
• Olivia Burkholz – BS, Conservation Biology & Geography
• Michael Burns – BA, Geography & History
• Erin Cerveny – BS, Cartography/GIS
• Christina Dennis – BA, Cartography/GIS (Honor’s)
• Matthew Flynn – BA, Cartography/GIS & Geography
• Sammy Fogel – BA, Geography & Political Science
• Haley Gibbs – BA, Geography
• Aerin Glover – BA, Environmental Studies & Geography
• Celeste Gunderson – BA, Environmental Studies & Geography
• Ella Gustafson – BS, Environmental Studies & Geography
• Andrew Horvat – BA, Geography & History
• Lily Houtman – BS, Anthropology, Cartography/GIS (Honor’s) & Geography
• Ben Isaacs – BA, Cartography/GIS, Geography & Scandinavian Studies
• Owen Jolley – BS, Cartography/GIS & Geology
• Maddy Kobs – BS, Conservation Biology & Geography
• Matt Krempely – BS, Geography
• Megan Kriefall – BA, Anthropology & Geography
• Chang Li – BA, Cartography/GIS & Geography
• Nathan Lowrey – BA, Geography & Political Science
• Colin Mast – BS, Environmental Studies & Geography
• Calla Norris – BA, Environmental Studies & Geography
• Reagan Patrowicz – BS, Geography
• Joseph Peterson – BS, Geography
• Yuehan Qin – BS, Cartography/GIS & Computer Sciences
• Josh Riebe – BA, Cartography/GIS & Geography
• Ben Schafermeyer – BS, Cartography/GIS & Environmental Sciences
• Anika Scholz-Ruf – BA, Geography
• Ryan Sheen – BA, Cartography/GIS & Geography
• Brooke Siegel – BA, Geography
• Isabel Warner – BA, Geography & Psychology
• Greg Whalen – BA, Geography
• Jacob Yurek – BS, Cartography/GIS

GIS Professional Programs Graduates

The GIS Professional Programs are celebrating 47 graduates this academic year (Fall 20221, Spring 2022, and Summer 2022): 14 from the GIS Fundamentals Capstone Program, 3 from the Advanced GIS Capstone Program, 26 from the Cartography and GIS MS: Online GIS Development Option, and 4 from the Cartography and GIS MS: Accelerated/Non-thesis Option. Graduates from these programs have worked incredibly hard to advance their theoretical understanding and technical skills in GIS, Cartography, geovizualization, geospatial analysis, and web map programming in order to apply them to the workforce immediately.

Many of our MS students were able to complete their final projects in coordination with their current employer, which exemplifies the applicability of the skills they have acquired in their program to real world problem solving. Furthermore, many of our graduates plan to or have already leveraged the completion of their program towards their career advancement, either with their current employer or in new ventures. On behalf of the GISPP staff and faculty, we want to congratulate all of our GISPP graduates! Way to go!

2022 GISPP MS and Capstone graduates:

• David Babson, GIS Fundamentals Capstone
• Oriana Badajos, Cartography and GIS MS: GIS Development Option
• Julie Boyden, Cartography and GIS MS: GIS Development Option
• Kaitlyn Breaux, GIS Fundamentals Capstone
• Todd Burciaga, Cartography and GIS MS: GIS Development Option
• William Campbell, Cartography and GIS MS: GIS Development Option
• Claire Cary, GIS Fundamentals Capstone
• Calvin Crisler, GIS Fundamentals Capstone
• Kevin Donohue, Cartography and GIS MS: GIS Development Option
• Mark Friesen, Cartography and GIS MS: GIS Development Option
• Dylan Harwell, Cartography and GIS MS: GIS Development Option
• Ashley Kuehl, Cartography and GIS MS: Accelerated/ Nonthesis Option
• Jason Griffin, Cartography and GIS MS: Accelerated/ Nonthesis Option
• Martin Goettl, Cartography and GIS MS: GIS Development Option
• Garrett Grainger, Advanced GIS Capstone
• Greg Grube, Cartography and GIS MS: GIS Development Option
• Lauren Holmes, Advanced GIS Capstone
• Brian Hunt, GIS Fundamentals Capstone
• Emily Johansen, Cartography and GIS MS: GIS Development Option
• Brian Johnson, GIS Fundamentals Capstone
• Bryan Kaemingk, Advanced GIS Capstone
• Daniel Kao, GIS Fundamentals Capstone
• Samer Kharbush, GIS Fundamentals Capstone
• Ryan Laird, Cartography and GIS MS: GIS Development Option
• Timothy Lane, GIS Fundamentals Capstone
• Mark Lazarte, Cartography and GIS MS: GIS Development Option
• Erin Lefevre, Cartography and GIS MS: GIS Development Option
• Bryce Linden, Cartography and GIS MS: Accelerated/ Nonthesis Option
• Lauren Martucci, Cartography and GIS MS: Accelerated/ Nonthesis Option
• Daniel Mauer, GIS Fundamentals Capstone
• Molly McNicoll, GIS Fundamentals Capstone
• Joshua Misura, Cartography and GIS MS: GIS Development Option
• Kyle Neely, Cartography and GIS MS: GIS Development Option
• Connor Phillips, GIS Fundamentals Capstone
• Kristina Randrup, Cartography and GIS MS: GIS Development Option
• Daniel Rau, Cartography and GIS MS: GIS Development Option
• Natalie Renier, GIS Fundamentals Capstone
• Alejandra Rios, GIS Fundamentals Capstone
• Nicholas Roberge, Cartography and GIS MS: GIS Development Option
• Ross Ruehmann, Cartography and GIS MS: GIS Development Option
• Brian Strock, Cartography and GIS MS: GIS Development Option
• Sharita Underwood, Cartography and GIS MS: GIS Development Option
• Abraham Van Akkeren, GIS Fundamentals Capstone
• Cassandra Verras, Cartography and GIS MS: GIS Development Option
• Zhixing Xu, Cartography and GIS MS: GIS Development Option

As for awards, this year Luke Chamberlain, a current student in our Cartography and GIS MS: Accelerated/Non-thesis Option, won second place in the Petchenik map competition with his project titled “Poverty and the Opioid Epidemic”. Congratulations, Luke!

Master’s and Doctoral Degree Graduates

We were also excited to celebrate students who are graduating from our research-based Master’s programs in Geography and Cartography/GIS and our doctoral program in Geography. Five of our Master’s students successfully completed and defended their MS research projects this year, and five of our PhD students completed (or are this summer completing) their doctoral dissertations. As the titles of their publications indicate, the work of our graduates represents all sub-fields within the department (cartography/GIS, human geography, people-environment geography, and physical geography & earth system science) and spans the breadth of the discipline:

• Kela Caldwell: The Katrina Moment: Rethinking Disaster with Black Geographies (MS thesis)
• Lauren Gerlowski: Dance, Precarity & COVID-19 in Two Global Art Cities (MS thesis)
• Kyler Hudson: The Spatial Variation of Geographic Polarization in the United States (MS thesis)
• Anika Rice: Pandemic-Era Agroecology in Guatemala: Economic Solidarity and Smallholder Resilience to Economic Shock (MS thesis)
• Becky Rose: Role of Urban Plan Quality and Land Surface Characteristics in Urban Heat Island Outcomes (MS thesis)
• Danya Al-Saleh: Petro-education: Fossil Fuel Futures between Texas and Qatar (PhD dissertation)
• Yuying Chen: Geographic Feature Extraction from Scanned Historical Maps Using Deep Learning and Spatial Context (PhD dissertation)
• David Fastovich: Patterns, Mechanisms, and Legacies of Abrupt Climate Change: Examining the Younger Dryas in Eastern North America (PhD dissertation)
• Bo Peng: Machine Learning and Remote Sensing for Near Realtime Flood Mapping (PhD dissertation)
• Laura Szymanski: Spatial Distribution and Long-Term Persistence of Ancient Carbon in Buried Soils and its Vulnerability to Landscape Disturbance (PhD dissertation)

We are very happy to note that all of our Master’s graduates will continue to pursue doctoral degrees in the Geography and Political Science Departments at UW-Madison, while our doctoral graduates are heading out across the country to take positions as varied as the field is broad – from a tenure-track faculty position in the Jackson School of International Studies at University of Washington, to positions as senior research scientists and post-doctoral researchers at university-based and private research labs, to serving as the AAAS/AGI Congressional Science & Engineering Fellow in the Office of Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois. 

The following graduate student award winners were recognized during the celebration for their achievements:

• Erin Clancy – Clarence W. Olmstead Award for Outstanding Citizenship
• Shannon Dillard – Leopold Geomorphology Graduate Research Award
• Carly Griffith – Whitbeck Graduate Dissertator Fellowship
• Yuhao Kang – Whitbeck Graduate Dissertator Fellowship
• Becky Rose – Clarence W. Olmstead Award for Outstanding Teaching
• Jake Steinberg – 1st Place: Petchenik Memorial Graduate Award in Cartographic Design: Slivers of an Ancient Forest
• Clare Sullivan – Clarence W. Olmstead Award for Outstanding Teaching
• Allen Xiao – Clarence W. Olmstead Award for Outstanding Publication

Congratulations to all of our graduates – we are proud of your many accomplishments and look forward to hearing about what comes next!