For information on new research grants awarded to our faculty please click here.

Other news:

3/2009: USGIF donates funds for the establishment of outstanding student awards.
USGIF, the US Geospatial Intelligence Foundation donated funds for the establishment of 4 new outstanding student awards at the undergraduate, graduate Certificate, M.S., and Ph.D. level.

3/2009: Department alum Douglas Howard receives patent for work performed at GMU.
Douglas Howard, who recently completed his Ph.D. in our Department received a patent for a 'Thermal Exitance and Bidirectional Reflectance Goiniometer' developed while he was a student at GMU.

2/2009: Caixia Wang, Prof. Tony Stefanidis, and Prof. Peggy Agouris receive Outstanding Paper Award from the American Society for Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing (ASPRS).
ASPRS has awarded the 'John Davidson President's Award for Practical Papers' to the paper 'Map Registration of Image Sequences using Linear Features', published in the journal Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing in January 2008, and authored by Ms. Caixia Wang, a graduate student in our Department, Prof. A. Stefanidis, and Prof. Peggy Agouris (both with our Department) and Prof. Arie Croitoru (of the University of Alberta).

12/2008: Prof. Self secures funding for Spring '09 teacher workshop focusing on Middle East.
During this month's Northern Virginia Geographic Alliance meeting held in Richmond, Prof. Burl Self secured a new grant to support a workshop he is planning for Spring 2009, with focus on Middle East.

12/2008: GMU signs MOU with China and launches new Joint Environmental Science and Technology Center.
Provost Stearns, COS Dean Chandhoke, and GGS Professor John Qu participated in a recent ceremony in Beijing, China, where a China-GMU Joint Center for Environmental Science and Technology was launched, and a corresponding MOU was signed. The Chinese counterparts of GMU in this endeavor are Tsinghua University and China's Ministry of Water Resources. The ESTC is a joint interdisciplinary center focusing on the fields of global environmental and climate monitoring, flood forecasting and defense, water resources management, ecological protection and restoration, and Earth observations.

12/2008: Karen Owen receives Alexander Goetz Instrument Support award and publication stipend for 2009
ASD, Inc. has awarded Karen Owen, PhD student in Geography and Geoinformation Science, a 2009 Instrument Support Award for her proposal "Development of an enhanced Ellenberg Soil Fertility Indicator in a High-slope Temperate Rainforest Region". The award includes temporary use of the ASD FieldSpec handheld spectroradiometer for soil fertility research and a $500 publication and travel stipend.

12/2008: Prof. Barry Haack appointed CTA of the HKKH Partnership Project
Professor Haack will serve as Chief Technical Advisor (CTA) of the HKKH Partnership Project. The HKKH Partnership Project aims at the consolidation of institutional capacity for systemic planning and ecosystem management in the Hindu Kush-Karakoram-Himalaya (HKKH) region. As a multi-scale initiative, the Partnership works together with local, national and regional stakeholders on capacity building and decision support tools for ecosystem management on different temporal and spatial scales. As a key output, a modular Decision Support Toolbox (DST), composed of software and participatory modules, is being developed. The DST features qualitative and quantitative socio-ecosystem models, GIS functions, decision analysis, and an extensive collection of data and information on mountain socio-ecosystems in the HKKH Region.