Maxwell School News and Commentary

Tom Perreault, professor of geography, says water withdrawals for irrigation from upstream rivers reduce the lake’s size, along with the huge amount of water used by nearby mines, and the contamination they produce.

“For those interested in digging deeply into a topic that they are passionate about or looking for a chance to try graduate school before deciding to apply, REU [Research Experiences for Undergraduates] programs are a good choice,” says geography student Hamish Gibbs.

Mark Monmonier, Distinguished Professor of Geography, discusses his approach to maps and how to avoid data distortions with geographic data.

Professor of Geography Thomas Perreault earlier this month was a visiting scholar with the Elisée Reclus Chair.  The Elisée Reclus Chair was established in the 1990s for the purposes of bringing French geographers to lecture and teach in Mexico, and later expanded to include geographers from more countries. Perreault was the first U.S. geographer to hold the chair.

Andrew Wender Cohen, professor of history, has been announced as the recipient of the Montgomery Gruber Professorship. Additionally, the O’Hanley Faculty Endowed Fund for Faculty Excellence, which serves to help recognize, reward and retain excellent teachers at the school, announced three new scholars: Azra Hromadžić, associate professor of anthropology; Natalie Koch, associate professor of geography; and Rebecca Schewe, assistant professor of sociology. 

Patents have generally been ignored by map historians, says Mark Monmonier, Distinguished Professor of Geography,  but they reveal a lot about how people have used maps over the years. He found that like many discoveries and inventions, patents for similar ideas seemed to spring up independently around the same time—a phenomenon known as the theory of multiple discoveries.