Graduate Students

(Updated October 10, 2009)

Lily Ahrens
Interests: Urban Geography, Performance Space
Advisor: Dr. Ron Foresta
Email: eahrens@utk.edu

Joshua Albritton (M.S. student)
Interests: Biogeography, Habitat Conservation and Restoration, Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction
Advisor: Dr. Sally Horn
Email: jalbritt@utk.edu

Andy Baker (Ph.D. student)
Interests: Globalization of Sport, GIS and Social Theory, Popular Cultural Geography, Urban Geography (Commuter Patterns), American South, Geography Education
Advisor: Dr. Tom Bell
Email: abaker17@utk.edu

Latha Baskaran (Ph.D. student)
Interests: GIS, Remote Sensing, Land Use and Land Cover Change, Habitat Modeling
Advisor: Dr. Liem Tran
Website: http://www.esd.ornl.gov/people/baskaran
Email: lbaskar1@utk.edu

Kevin Birdwell
Interests:
Advisor:
Email: birdwellkr@ornl.gov

Jill Brickey
Interests:
Advisor:
Email: jbricke1@utk.edu

Jessica Brogden (M.S. Student)
Thesis topic: Disentangling the effects of wildfires from climate response in ponderosa pine, central Idaho, USA
Advisor: Dr. Henri D. Grissino-Mayer
Email: jslayton@utk.edu

Charlynn Burd
Interests:
Advisor:
Email: cburd@utk.edu

Maria Caffrey (Ph.D. student)
Dissertation topic: Late holocene climate and environmental change in the northeastern Caribbean.
Advisor: Dr. Sally Horn.
Website: https://portfolio.du.edu/pc/port?portfolio=macaffre
Email: mcaffrey@utk.edu

Eric Carr (Ph.D. student)
Interests: GIS, Ecological Modeiling, Networks
Advisor: Dr. Shih-Lung Shaw
Email: carr@NIMBioS.org

Angela Danovi (M.S. student)
Interests:
Advisor:
Email: adanovi@utk.edu

Sarah Deane (M.S. student)
Thesis topic: Scanning electron microscopy to distinguish glacigenic microtexture patterns on quartz sand grain populations from Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic.
Advisor: Dr. Ken Orvis
Email: sdeane@utk.edu

Dawn Drake (Ph.D. student)
Interests: Agriculture, rural geography, industrial location decisions for agricultural machinery manufacturers, precision agriculture, GIS
Advisor: Dr. Ron Kalafsky
Email: ddrake2@utk.edu

Matthew Durnin
Interests:
Advisor:
Email: mdurnin@utk.edu

Ian Feathers (M.S. Student)
Interests: Dendrochronology, Biogeography, Natural Disturbance, and Geomorphology
Advisor: Dr. Henri D. Grissino-Mayer
Email: ifeather@utk.edu

Ryan Foster
Interests:
Advisor:
Email: wfoster@utk.edu

Drew Gaskins
Interests:Urban geography, downtown revitalization, social ecology
Advisor: Dr. Ron Foresta
Email:agaskins@utk.edu

Tim Green (M.S. student)
Interests: The relationship between forest fragmentation, land use/cover change, and socioeconomic drivers.
Advisor: Liem Tran
Email: tgreen1@utk.edu

Joe Guttmann (Ph.D. student)
Interests: American South, Appalachia, Urban, Agriculture, Sports
Advisor: Dr. Tom Bell
Email: jguttman@utk.edu

Jorene Hamilton (Ph.D. Student)
Interests: human impacts on streams and sediment transport
Advisor: Carol Harden
Email: jhamil28@utk.edu

Grant Harley
Interests: Dendrochronology, Fire history, Cave and Karst Management, GIS
Advisor: Dr. Henri Grissino-Mayer
Email: glharley@gmail.com

Peggy Jackson (M.S. candidate)
Interests:Cultural and Historical Geography, Gender Issues
Advisor: Dr. Micheline van Riemsdjik
Email: pjackso7@utk.edu

Claire Jamieson
Interests:
Advisor:
Email: cjamies2@utk.edu

Austin Judkins (M.S. Student)
Interests:Immigration, migration and refugee studies
Advisor: Dr. van Riemsdijk
Email: ajudkins@utk.edu

Kevin Kempf
Interests:
Advisor:
Email: kkempf@utk.edu

Desiree Lynn Ketteringham
Interests:Biogeography, GIS, Climate Change
Advisor: Dr. Sally Horn
Email: dketteri@utk.edu

Rusty Kirby (M.S. student)
Interests:
Advisor:
Email:

Matthew Kookogey (M.S. Student)
Interests: GIS, Biogeography, and Cartography
Advisor: Dr. Liem Tran
email: mkookoge@utk.edu

Lisa Laforest
Dissertation Topic: Fire Regimes of Lower-Elevation Yellow Pine (Pinus) and Pine-Oak (Quercus) Stands in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee
Advisor: Dr. Henri Grissino-Mayer
Website: web.utk.edu/~grissino/ltrs/personnel.htm; Email: lwilkins@utk.edu

Yanan (Nancy) Li
Interests: Dendrochronology, Biogeography, Climate and Environmental Change
Advisor: Dr. Henri Grissino-Mayer
Email: yli49@utk.edu

Ingrid Luffman (Ph.D. student)
Interests: physical geography, hydrology
Advisor: Dr. Liem Tran
Email: LUFFMAN@mail.etsu.edu

Mike Meyers
Interests: GIS, Climate and Human Health
Advisor: Dr. Bruce Ralston
Email: mmeyers@utk.edu

Maggie Patrick (Ph.D. student)
Interests:
Advisor:
Email:

Jamie Phillips (M.S. student)
Interests: hydrology, GIS
Advisor: Dr. Carol Harden
Email: cphill11@utk.edu

Amy Rose (Ph.D. student)
Interests: GIS, population
Advisor: Dr. Nicholas Nagle
Email: amyrose@tennessee.edu

Monica Rother (M.S. student)
Interests: Biogeography, Dendrochronology, Human and Natural Disturbance, Climate
Advisor: Dr. Henri Grissino-Mayer
Email: mrother@utk.edu

Linda Rust (M.S. student)
Interests: Community development, affordable housing and urban planning, and the geography of homelessness.
Advisor: Dr. van Riemsdijk
Email: Lrust@utk.edu

Austin Rutledge (M.S. Student)
Interests: urban and economic geography, migration, historical geography, transportation and GIS
Advisor: John Rehder
Website: http://insidethewalk.org/staff/austin/; Email: austinrut@utk.edu

John Shubzda (M.S. student)
Interests: Atmospheric Deposition Monitoring in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Advisor: Dr. Carol Harden
Email: jshubzda@utk.edu

John Sakulich (Ph.D. Student)
Interests: Biogeography, Dendrochronology, Fire Ecology
Advisor: Dr. Henri Grissino-Mayer
Email: sakulich@utk.edu

Nicole Samu (M.S. Student)
Interests: Environmental modeling, physical geography, cartography
Advisor: Dr. Liem Tran
Email: nsamu@utk.edu

Benjamin Shultz (Ph.D. Student)
Interests: Distributed Innovation, the Knowledge Economy, and the Geography of Creativity
Advisor: Dr. Ronald Kalapsky
Email: bshultz@utk.edu
Website: http://benshultz.geography.googlepages.com/

Ian Slayton
Interests:
Advisor:
Email: islayton@utk.edu

Mark Spond
Interests: dendrochronology, paleoclimatology, fire-history research, old-growth forests, and resource conservation
Advisor: Dr. Henri Grissino-Mayer
Email: mspond@utk.edu

Robert Stewart (Ph.D. student)
Interests: GIS, Transportation, Environmental Risk
Advisor: Dr. Shih-Lung Shaw
Website: web.utk.edu/~rstewar1/; Email: stewart@utk.edu

Joshua Streufert (M.S. student)
Interests: Web-based and Open Source GIS, GIS Programming
Advisor: Drs. Bruce Ralston, Liem Tran
Email: jstreufe@utk.edu

Zack Taylor (Ph.D. student)
Dissertation topic: Spatial variation in organic carbon and stable isotopic composition of lake sediments at Laguna Zoncho, Costa Rica
Advisor: Dr. Sally Horn
Email: ztaylor1@utk.edu

J. Hunter Terrell
Interests:Water Resources, effects of land-use on aquatic systems, geomorphology, Habitat modeling, GIS
Advisor: Dr. Carol Harden
Email: jterrel1@utk.edu

John Thomason
Interests: urban geography and South America
Advisor: Dr. Foresta
Email: jthoma40@utk.edu

Chris Underwood (Ph.D. student)
Dissertation Topic: Using Soil Charcoal as a Proxy for the Reconstruction of Fire Histories in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, U.S.A.
Advisor: Dr. Sally Horn
Email: cunderw5@utk.edu

Matthew Valente (Ph.D. student)
Interests: Paleoenvironmental reconstruction, biogeography, paleoecology, conservation, and phylogeography
Advisor: Dr. Sally Horn
Website: web.utk.edu/~mvalente/; Email: mvalente@utk.edu

Brian Watson
Interests: Paleoenvironmental reconstruction, biogeography, paleoecology, conservation, anthropogenic environmental change
Advisor: Dr. Sally Horn
Email: bwatson@utk.edu

Yitu (Frank) Xu (M.S. Student)
Interests: Transportation, Location based service, and GIS
Advisor: Dr. Shih-Lung Shaw
Email: yxu22@utk.edu

Dennis Yankee (Ph.D. Student)
Interests:
Advisor: Dr. Carol Harden
Email: dhyankee@tva.gov

Ling Yin (Ph.D. Student)
Interests: Transportation, Time-Geography, and GIS
Advisor: Dr. Shih-Lung Shaw
Email: lyin@utk.edu

Ziliang (Ray) Zhao (M.S. Student)
Interests: GIS, Transportation, Time-Geography
Advisor: Dr. Shih-Lung Shaw
Email: zzhao7@utk.edu

Chunhao Zhu (Ph.D. Student)
Interests: Environment modeling and GIS
Advisor: Dr. Liem Tran
Email: zhuchunhao11@yahoo.com.cn

Contact Information

Department of Geography
Burchfiel Geography Building Room 304
Knoxville, TN 37996-0925

Phone: 865-974-2418
Fax: 865-974-6025
Email: utkgeog@utk.edu