Each Wednesday, Geography & GIS will distribute this newsletter to our faculty, students, postdocs/visiting scholars, and staff. Please send any news, announcements, and citations to geography@illinois.edu by noon on Monday for publication in the same week’s newsletter.

Wednesday, October 4th (Today!), 4:00-6:00 p.m.
ACES Library, Heritage Room - 1101 S. Goodwin, Urbana
Professional Science Master's (PSM) Summer Internship Poster Showcase
Our PSM in GIS Class of 2017, along with senior students from four other PSM disciplines, will share posters illustrating their Summer 2017 internship experiences. Please stop by to see how the PSM program is preparing our students for careers in GIS!

PSM in GIS - Summer 2017 Internships:
Wenhan Kong – John Deere, Illinois Research Park
Developed a web-based GIS imagery analysis portal based on Google Maps, for use through the Amazon Web Server

Edmond Lai – Champaign County Regional Planning Commission, Urbana
Used GIS to analyze neighborhood development factors, and helped create a sustainable neighborhood toolkit

Dale Lee – Dow AgroSciences, Illinois Research Park
Created a workflow for data cleaning, storage, analysis, and visualization, and used Tableau software to create dynamic data visualizations

Ruoxin Li – Illinois Sustainable Technology Center, Prairie Research Institute
Worked on a project that gives industry officials in the Great Lakes Region access to information about the Toxics Release Inventory and greenhouse gas emissions

Xu Li – CyberGIS Center for Advanced Digital and Spatial Studies, University of Illinois
Developed a website application to help farmers analyze and predict crop yields

Fikriyah Winata – State Farm Research and Development Center, Illinois Research Park
Studied the 2011 Prague, Oklahoma Earthquake Sequence Loss Study, which examines the association between earthquake magnitude/intensity and insured damage

Det Yang – Dow AgroSciences, Illinois Research Park
Conducted GIS data mining and analysis, and developed machine learning models for aiding the product development process

Hao Zhang – CEB Data Innovation Center, Illinois Research Park
Used web development technologies and visualization libraries to create interactive graphs

Daniel Zhang – Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI), Redlands, CA
Used ESRI software to access different geodatabases, and added support for Postgre, an open source database management system

Stephanie Zhang – Dow AgroSciences, Illinois Research Park
Helped produce Weed Resistance Maps, performed analysis on drone images, and assisted in debugging Dow’s online product

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Monday, October 9th, 4:00 p.m.
Room 2049 NHB - Russell Seminar Room
Geography & GIS Spring 2018 Course Showcase
GGIS faculty will give overviews of their Spring 2018 courses, and answer general questions about our curriculum.
Snacks Provided!

Professor Mei-Po Kwan is the 9th most cited author in the field of urban geography, based on an analysis of all papers in this area published between 1990 and 2010. She is among other prominent geographers as one of the top 10 most cited urban geography scholars (e.g., Jamie Peck, Michael Storper, Allen J. Scott).
(Source: Lily Kong and Junxi Qian. 2017. Knowledge circulation in urban geography/urban studies, 1990–2010. Urban Studies, July 24, pp. 1–37.)

Friday, October 6th, 3:00 – 4:00 p.m.
2049 NHB, Russell Seminar Room
The Gradaute College Presents: Introduction to the Thesis Process
Whether you are just beginning your research or putting the final touches on your paper, the Thesis Office is here to help! This workshop will explain the stages of the thesis process, discuss doctoral exam committee policies, point out campus resources to assist students, and offer tips to ease the thesis deposit process.
Pizza and soft drinks will be served! RSVP: https://illinois.edu/fb/sec/1282438

American Geographical Society (AGS) Council Fellowship - Now accepting applications for 2018
Deadline: November 1
The AGS Council Fellowship program supports graduate students in pursuit of geographic research, especially research that includes a field component. The fellowship is open to all graduate students who are members of the Society. Each fellowship is worth $1,500 and four will be awarded in the Spring.

West Lakes Regional Division meeting of the American Association of Geographers
October 19-21 at Missouri State University-West Plains
Geography & GIS will pay the registration fee for graduate students who attend, if you are willing to staff a booth with information about our department and its graduate programs. Dr. Julie Cidell will cover transportation, but you are responsible for lodging and meals. The conference usually has about 150 to 200 people and is a great opportunity to get to know what's going on in regional universities or liberal arts colleges. As further incentive, the best student paper at the conference (one Master's and one Ph.D.) will receive $1,000 towards the AAG 2018 Annual Meeting in New Orleans.
*Registration deadline is October 5th (tomorrow!)*

Our department, in conjunction with the Unit for Criticism, has established a graduate student exchange program with the Heidelberg Center for American Studies, at the University of Heidelberg in Germany.
It is a beautiful university nestled along the Neckar River and the mountains in Central Germany. It also has a superb American Studies program (complemented by great Geography, Urban Studies, Cinema, and Literature departments). As we begin the exchange, there is an opportunity for you to visit and study at Heidelberg this upcoming Spring semester. We can help you make all the arrangements, should you be interested. You would not have to pay any money to the University of Heidelberg, your registration would take place at UIUC, and you can go there to study (and play). All classes are taught in English and the University of Heidelberg welcomes US an other international students.

The Spring 2018 semester at the University of Heidelberg begins a bit later than ours, so please note the dates:

• March 1st: Recommended arrival (for students participating in the pre-semester language course)
• March 5th–29th: Preparatory German language course (80 hours of Instruction)
• April 10–12: Orientation for all new international students
• April 16–July 28: Lecture period

Please contact Dr. David Wilson (dwilson2@illinois.edu) if you are interested in this exchange program.

Monday, October 9th, 4:00 p.m.
Room 2049 NHB, Russell Seminar Room
Geography & GIS Spring 2018 Course Showcase
GGIS faculty will give overviews of their Spring 2018 courses, and answer general questions about our curriculum.
Snacks Provided!

Dr. Teresia Olemako researches energy access and women’s entrepreneurship in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, with a focus on designing reliable energy solutions for women micro-entrepreneurs through improved cooking stoves. At the University of Illinois, Teresia is also part of an interdisciplinary research team examining water delivery, sanitation and resource management in refugee settlements and host communities in Uganda.

Teresia has a PhD from the Sokoine University of Agriculture in Tanzania. She will be a Social Dimensions of Environmental Policy (SDEP) fellow through August 2019, in Room 1036 NHB.

Kieran P. Donaghy, Clufford R. Wymer, (2017) Geoffrey J.D. Hewings and Soo Jung Ha, (2017) “Structural change in the Chicago region and the impact on emission inventories in a continuous-time modeling approach,” Journal of Economic Structures (forthcoming)

Raquel Ibar-Alonso, Carolina Cosculluela-Martínez and Geoffrey J.D. Hewings (2017) “Time indicator of the Human Development Index,” Time & Society, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0961463X17716553

Xiangwei Sun, Fei Chen and Geoffrey J. D. Hewings (2017) “Spatial Perspective on Regional Economic Growth in China: Evidence from an Extended Neoclassic Growth Model,” Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1540496X.2016.1275554