Geography welcomes Martin Swobodzinski!

The Geography Department is excited to welcome Martin Swobodzinski to the Department! Martin has a two year appointment as Assistant Professor and he will be teaching GIS courses. Martin's general research interests are in geographic information science and behavioral geography. His current research investigates the factors that guide the decision making of individuals in public participation scenarios. Most importantly, his work examines the role of information and decision-support technology as a means to more meaningful participation, better decision-making outcomes, and greater satisfaction of the stakeholders involved in participatory transportation planning. In addition, he has a long standing interest in disability geographies and spatial cognition with an emphasis on computational aspects related to human orientation and navigation without sight.

Home-grown celebrities!

Sophie Oldfield, president-elect of the Society of South African Geographers
and Eric Sheppard, vice president of the Association of American Geographers.

Go Minnesota!

Geography welcomes new Assistant Professor Lorena Muñoz

Starting in Fall 2011, Lorena Muñoz will be joining Geography as a new Assistant Professor.
Lorena is an urban/cultural geographer whose research focuses on the intersections of place, space, gender, sexuality and race. Through qualitative frameworks she examines the production of Latina/o informal economic landscapes in trans-border spaces.

Geography welcomes new Assistant Professor Lorena Muñoz.
Lorena is an urban/cultural geographer whose research focuses on the intersections of place, space, gender, sexuality and race. Through qualitative frameworks she examines the production of Latina/o informal economic landscapes in trans-border spaces.
Her current project examines how queer Latina immigrant women who work in the low wage service sector, negotiate and perform their gendered and queer identities differently across 'pseudo' heteronormative, male-dominated spaces of low-wage labor in Los Angeles. Her other research interests are focused on minority students access to STEM education. Her research is currently funded by the National Institute of Health.
Her new office is 427 Social Science. Stop by and say hi!

Geography welcomes Assistant Professor Abigail Neely

Starting in Fall 2011, Abigail Neely will be joining Geography as a new Assistant Professor. As an historical geographer trained in the nature-society tradition, Abby seeks to explain relationships between the material world (microbes, crops, and economies) and the way people understand that world (as mitigated through culture, knowledge, and experience).



Her work sits at the intersection of health geography and political-ecology. Her dissertation, provisionally titled "Reconfiguring Pholela: Local People and Government Bureaucrats from the 1930s to the 1980s," examines how interactions between residents and locally-based government bureaucrats had surprising implications for a rural, Zulu-speaking area of South Africa.
Her dissertation reveals that by paying attention to, for example, the addition of beetroot to gardens and cooking pots, the abandonment of long-standing healing rituals, and the failure of government anti-tuberculosis campaigns we can understand how local people and places shape the outcomes of large state policies. In Neely's research she uses a mix of qualitative methods like archival research, ethnography, participatory GIS, household surveys, interviews, focus groups, and oral history collection to document the evolution of local illness and ideas about health and healing through two distinct phases of government intervention, one in health in the 1940s and 1950s and one in community planning in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. She says she is absolutely thrilled to be joining the geography faculty at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities!