Faculty
Jennifer Blecha, Assistant Professor
Ph.D., University of Minnesota, 2007
Office: HSS 267
Hours: Tuesday 3:45-5:30; Wednesday 5-5:30; Thursday 1-2, 3:45-4:30 or by appointment
(415) 405-2495
jblecha@sfsu.edu
Interests: Urban ecology, food systems and sustainable agriculture, urban agriculture, gender, animals.
Leonhard Blesius, Assistant Professor
Ph.D., University of Iowa, 2002
Office: HSS 283
Hours: Tuesday/Thursday 9-10:30
(415) 405-2144
lblesius@sfsu.edu
Interests: Remote sensing of environment, landslide susceptibility analysis, geomorphological hazards, fluvial geomorphology, soils.
Geographic Areas: Southern California, San Francisco Bay area, mountainous regions.
Leonhard Blesius's research interests can be broadly divided into environmental systems analysis, in particular fluvial geomorphology and natural hazards, as well as remote sensing and its application to regions where few ancillary data are available. His focus in geomorphology is primarily related to fluvial systems in high-energy environments, specifically landslide susceptibility mapping. He approaches this problem from several angles, but an important component is the combination of engineering methods and remote sensing technology. Currently he is employing the infinite slope method, but other techniques may provide a potentially fruitful pursuit of further research. Due to his work in Southern California, he has become interested in fire dynamics, and how this affects the initiation of debris flows as well as the question of changes in friction angle and cohesion in soils due to fire.
Jerry Davis, Professor and Department Chair
Ph.D., University of Georgia, 1987
Office: HSS 277
Hours: Monday/Wednesday 1:30-3:30
(415) 338-2983
jerry@sfsu.edu
http://bss.sfsu.edu/jdavis
Interests: geomorphology, soils, GIS for environmental analysis, watershed assessment, field methods.
Geographic Areas: California, Bay Area, Sierra Nevada
Jerry Davis focuses on geomorphological field methods (morphometric survey, water quality and flow, GPS, terrestrial LiDAR) and GIS surface modeling in investigating the response of streams and hillslopes to disturbances, assessment of stream restoration projects, and karst systems. Current projects include sites in the San Pedro Creek Watershed impacted by urbanization, the northern Sierran montane meadows impacted by grazing and timber extraction, and the Marble Mountains Karst.
Courtney Donovan, Assistant Professor
Ph.D., University of Washington, 2008
Office: HSS 270
Hours: Tuesday 5-7; Thursday 3-5
(415) 405-0921
cdonovan@sfsu.edu
Geography 423: Gender, Environment, and Development
Geography 820: Seminar in Health Geography
Interests: Health geography, gender geography.
Patricia Foschi, Professor Emerita
Interests: Remote sensing, geographic information systems (GIS), quantitative methods.
Geographic Areas: California Bay-Delta, Polar regions.
Patricia Foschi is primarily a remote sensing specialist interested in applying Earth imaging techniques to real-world problems. She integrates remote sensing and GIS with data mining to improve the application of these techniques to environmental management problems. She is developing automated systems for detecting wetland invasive vegetation and creating new algorithms for quantitatively analyzing and comparing complex spatio-temporal data sets.
Qian Guo, Associate Professor
Ph.D., University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 1996
Office: HSS 270
Hours: Monday/Wednesday 2-3; Friday 2-4 or by appointment
(415) 338-1314
qguo@sfsu.edu
http://bss.sfsu.edu/guo
Interests: Regional geography, cultural geography, urban geography, economic geography.
Geographic Area: China.
Jason Henderson, Associate Professor
Ph.D., University of Georgia, 2002
Office: HSS 269
Hours: Tuesday/Thursday 11-12, 1-2
(415) 405-2483
jhenders@sfsu.edu
http://bss.sfsu.edu/jhenders
Interests: Urban transportation, land use planning, cities.
Geographic Areas: San Francisco Bay Area, New Orleans, U.S. South.
Jason Henderson is currently finishing a book on the politics of transportation in San Francisco, and has published articles in the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Antipode, Urban Geography, and the Journal of Transport Geography. His broad research interests are in how culture, economics, ideology, and politics shape urban transportation policy and the geography of cities. Specific topics include the politics of bicycling, parking debates, public transportation, and freeway removal. Future research includes a history of San Francisco's MUNI and a book on the growth and development of New Orleans.
Ellen Hines, Associate Professor
Ph.D., University of Victoria, 2002
Office: HSS 339
Hours: Tuesday/Thursday 11-1 or by appointment
(415) 338-1482
ehines@sfsu.edu
http://gis.sfsu.edu/coastal/default.htm
Interests: Geographic information systems (GIS), community GIS, marine and coastal conservation, marine mammals, endangered species conservation.
Geographic Areas: Southeast Asia (Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam), Belize, San Francisco Bay, California.
Ellen Hines's research addresses population and community ecology of threatened and endangered species as related to local conservation efforts and regional scale coastal and marine management science. Her emphasis is on the evolution of consistent standards of field methodology and monitoring techniques, and on the creation of educational materials that can be applied to community-based conservation planning. Her dissertation was a study of the assessment, mapping, and management techniques used in an area with a marine mammal population potentially threatened by coastal development and increasing fishing and tourist activities: the dugong on the Andaman coast of Thailand. She is the Director of the Marine & Coastal Conservation and Spatial Planning Center.
Barbara Holzman, Professor
Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 1993
Office: HSS 339
Hours: Monday/Wednesday 11-12:30 or by appointment
(415) 338-7506
bholzman@sfsu.edu
http://bss.sfsu.edu/holzman
Interests: Biogeography, resource management, environmental studies, vegetation change, disturbance recovery.
Geographic Areas: San Francisco, California, US and Pacific.
Barbara Holzman's research addresses issues of disturbance and human and floral and faunal interactions. Her emphasis is on understanding how plant species and communities react to natural and human caused disturbances such as fire, mining, or urban development. She is currently involved in projects for the California Department of Fish and Game examining Ione Manzanita populations and distribution, with the National Parks Service documenting the effects of the 1995 Mt. Vision Fire on the Bishop Pine community, and working with the city of San Francisco on their Significant Natural Areas Management Pln. She is also interested in environmental and geographic education.
Max Kirkeberg, Professor Emeritus
M.A., University of Wisconsin, 1959
Office: HSS 281
Hours: Most mornings, 8:30-12
(415) 338-1702
Interests: Regional geography, cultural geography.
Geographic Area: San Francisco.
XiaoHang Liu, Associate Professor
Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara
Office: HSS 269
Hours: Monday/Wednesday 11-12; 5-6
(415) 338-7509
xhliu@sfsu.edu
http://bss.sfsu.edu/xhliu
Interests: Urban remote sensing, geographic information systems (GIS), spatial analysis.
Geographic Areas: California Bay-Delta, Polar regions.
XiaoHang Liu's teaching and research interests are primarily in geographic information techniques (GIS, remote sensing, and spatial statistics) and its application in socioeconomic issues such as urban land use/land cover change, population distribution, and environmental modeling. Her ongoing research includes the linkage between built environment and public health, environmental justice, and using internet GIS to promote public participation in neighborhood revitalization.
Hans Meihoefer, Professor Emeritus
Office: HSS 281
Hours: Monday/Wednesday 12:15-1:30 or by appointment
Andrew Oliphant, Associate Professor
Ph.D., University of Canterbury, 2002
Office: HSS 273
Hours: Tuesday/Thursday 9-10; 1-2
(415) 405-2143
andrewo@sfsu.edu
http://bss.sfsu.edu/andrewo
Interests: Surface-atmosphere interactions, bioclimate and microclimate studies, surface energy, water and carbon budgets, urban climates and mountain meteorology.
Andrew Oliphant's research investigates interactions between Earth's surface and its atmosphere, including exchanges of energy, water and carbon, and how they change over space and time. His research methods primarily involve field-based observations using micrometeorological instruments mounted on towers above the surface and has included a diverse range of field sites from the Antarctic Dry Valleys to a central Iranian desert, although has primarily focused on terrestrial ecosystems. Most of this work has focused on a carbon flux tower site in the Morgan-Monroe State Forest in south-central Indiana. However, Andrew is currently working on a synthesis study using the FLUXNET database of approximately 400 carbon flux tower sites over a range of terrestrial ecosystems around the world. The focus of this research is the role of changing sky conditions on global terrestrial carbon sequestration. With the recent acquirement of a mobile atmospheric profiling system (CSU-MAPS), Andrew participated in an experiment on prolonged temperature inversions in Salt Lake City Basin and the role they have on air pollution dispersion (PCAPS) and looks forward to future collaborative projects that provide observational evidence for surface-atmosphere exchange processes, including over San Francisco and other urban surfaces.
Nancy Wilkinson, Professor
Ph.D., University of Oregon, 1983
Office: HSS 267
Hours: Monday/Wednesday/Friday 11:10-12; Monday 6-7 or by appointment
(415) 338-1439
nancyw@sfsu.edu
http://bss.sfsu.edu/wilkinson
Interests: Water resources, perception, environmental history.
Geographic Area: California.
Nancy Wilkinson explores the range and variety of stakeholder perspectives on California environmental issues, especially relating to water projects, watershed restoration, and agricultural preservation. She is also particularly interested in women's influences on California's environmental history.
Adjunct Faculty and Lecturers
Graydon Creed, Lecturer
M.A., San Francisco State University
Office: HSS 281
Hours: Wednesday 5:45-6:45 or by appointment
gcreed@sfsu.edu
Interests: Natural Hazard Studies, Remote Sensing, Water Resources, Cartographic Technique.
Ian Duncan, Lecturer
Ph.D., University of Washington
Office: HSS 273
Hours: Tuesday 4-5
iduncan@sfsu.edu
Richard Hutton, Lecturer
M.A., University of Canterbury, 1995
Office: HSS 281
Hours: Monday 12-1; Tuesday 12:30-1:30; Wednesday 12-1
hhutton@sfsu.edu
Ellen McElhinney, Lecturer
M.A., San Francisco State University, 1995
Office: HSS 288
Hours: Tuesday/Thursday 1:10-2:10
(415) 338-3566
mcelhi@gmail.com
Chris McGee, Lecturer
M.A., University of California, Berkeley
Office: HSS 283
Hours: Monday/Wednesday/Friday 10:30-11:30, 2-3
(415) 338-1868
rcm4@sfsu.edu
Kurt Menning, Adjunct Faculty
Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley
kmenning@sfsu.edu
Interests: Landscape ecology, biogeography, interplay of topography and evolution, disturbance (fire) ecology, island biogeography, glaciated landscapes.
Geographic Areas: Northern woods and lakes of Minnesota and Canada, central Rockies, Alaska and arctic, Pacific islands, Sierra Nevada.
Ian Signer, Lecturer
M.A., San Francisco State University, 2003
isigner@sfsu.edu
Interests: Biogeography, citizen science, environmental education, climate change, conservation, traditional land-management, nature-based spirituality, capacity building.
Geographic Areas: California, Central America, Subsaharan Africa, Madagascar, Borneo.
Ian Signer is interested in applying geographic analysis to involving communities in citizen science and action-oriented conservation of natural and cultural diversity. He has worked with a wide variety of institutions including World Wildlife Fund, Conservation International, the Wildlife Conservation Society and the National Geographic.
Tony Sparks, Lecturer
Interests: Urban, social, and legal geography, social policy, critical development studies, social/political theory, urban governance, poverty/homelessness.
Tony Sparks is an urban geographer whose research explores how culturally embedded notions of deviance work through law and social policy to secure socio-spatial hierarchies. He is particularly interested in how these modes of spatial governance shape everyday practices of domination and resistance in the contemporary city. His current work looks at the constitutive roles of policing, incarceration, and ‘care’ in the spatial management of mental illness in San Francisco.
Tiffany C. Vance, Adjunct Faculty
Ph.D., University of Washington, 2009
tiffany.c.vance@noaa.gov
Interests: Geographic information systems (GIS), fisheries oceanography, history of science, scientific visualization, application of GIS to historiography.
Geographic Areas: Gulf of Alaska, Bering Sea, Arctic.
Tiffany C. Vance's research addresses the application of multidimensional GIS to both scientific and historical research, with an emphasis is on the use and diffusion of techniques for representing three- and four-dimensional data. Ongoing projects include developing techniques to define and describe essential pelagic habitat, developing histories of environmental variables affecting larval pollock recruitment and survival in Shelikof Strait, Alaska, and the use of GIS and visualizations in the history of recent arctic science. Her dissertation was on the history and development of the Stommel Diagram, a representation of the spatial and temporal aspects of oceanic phenomena, and how similar techniques might be applied to current uses of GIS in fisheries.
Staff
Sarah Harling, Map and Equipment Librarian
Office: HSS 289
Hours: Tuesday 11-5; Wednesday 11-7; Thursday 11-5
(415) 338-1145
maplibrary@sfsu.edu
http://bss.sfsu.edu/geog/maplib.htm
Seth Hiatt, Associate Director
Institute for Geographic Science
Office: HSS 288
(415) 338-3566
shiatt@sfsu.edu
http://gis.sfsu.edu
Anne McTavish, GIS Site License Administrator
Office: HSS 272
(415) 338-6140
gis@sfsu.edu
http://csugis.sfsu.edu
Jessica Nogueras, Office Assistant
Office: HSS 279
