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As a geographer, I am often thinking about the meaning of place and it’s wonderful to be reminded how much this place, our Urbana campus and surrounding communities, means to our students and alumni. Gary Molyneaux (PhD ’79) shared this feeling with us when he visited earlier this fall, attending our Friday Colloquium, catching up with PhD advisor John Jakle, and cheering on the Illini at Memorial Stadium. And when Aisling Reynolds-Feighan visited in April to accept her Distinguished Alumni Award, she was delighted to back and reminisced on how this place was home for several years. I’ve had a similar experience returning to my own alma mater: a place that was home for a brief but formative time when I was coming into my own as a scholar and as a human being, a place that is still pinned on my map. 

One highlight of being department head is meeting with alumni who return to Illinois and seeing how this place is so much more than a classroom or workplace. And it’s just as exciting to see our current students learn, grow and develop  memories, and a strong attachment to place that will hopefully remain throughout their lives. I’m also glad that several of our Online Master’s program graduates have been coming to campus each May, sometimes from great distances, to join the Commencement weekend activities and experience this place in person. 

I hope you are all doing well in your current places amid these challenging times. Let us know what you’ve been up to, and remember we are always glad to welcome alumni back home. 
 
Julie Cidell 
jcidell@illinois.edu 

• Kian Barreiro 

• Katelyn Dodge 

• Joseph Carr 

• Giovanni Giannelli 

• Giezi Naranjos 

• Yide Guo 

• Raul Guzman 

• Yuchen Huang 

• Jack Lia 

• Diego Lopez 

• Qingyang Meng 

• Yuan Ochoa 

• Pratham Patel 

• Hantang Qin 

• Amelia Thornton 

• Rebekah Turner 

• Shishir Vasanth 

• Amanda Wang 

• Kyla Wolski 

• Gabe Zeller 

Bachelor of Science in Computer Science + GGIS

• Dian Jin 

• Yikuan Ye 

• Jiacheng Zhang 

• Tianchen Zhang 

• Wenjie Zhao 

José Miguel Acosta-Córdova 
Dissertation: “’The Inland Port City’: How Regional Economics, Labor Demand, and Uneven Development Shaped the Development of Chicago as the Freight Hub of North America” 

Mishel Milagros Melendez Bernardo started last summer as a geomorphologist and river restoration engineer with Wetlands Research Associates (WRA) Inc. in San Rafael, California. “Lateral Response of Alluvial Rivers to the Downstream Passage of Episodic Sediment Pulses” 

Colt Pierce is now a teaching assistant professor of urban studies at the University of Pittsburgh.  “Hearing Like a City: Sonic Gentrification and the Political Economy of Sounds” 

Rebecca Vandewalle started this fall as assistant professor in the School of Information at the University of South Florida. "A CyberGIS-ABM Framework for Scalable Spatial Agent-based Modeling of Emergency Evacuation” 

Chishan Zhang is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Boston University Global Development Policy Center.  “A Phenology-guided Deep Learning Framework for Advanced Soybean Prediction in the Americas” 

Yilun Zhao joined Virginia Tech’s Department of Biological Systems Engineering as a postdoctoral researcher.  "Evaluating the Influence of Biocontrol Program on the Colorado River Biodiversity with Multi-Source Time Series Imagery "

 
Messina-Stanley Graduate Scholarship in Medical or Environmental Geography 

José Miguel Acosta-Córdova 
Endowed by Dianne Messina Stanley (née Massock), this annual scholarship provides a $2,000 award to a graduate student whose research focuses on medical or environmental geography. Dianne was born and raised in Champaign and earned an A.B. from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and an M.S. from the College of Media at Illinois. Her daughter Jane Messina also attended Illinois, where she earned a Master’s degree in geography from our department. Jane’s work as a medical geographer and Dianne’s own passion for environmental issues prompted her to designate this award for graduate students in these fields of study. 

Alonso Bueno earned a BA in geography with a concentration in Urban Planning from DePaul University. He is interested in environmental justice, zoning, and transportation planning, and plans to focus on these areas during his MA studies. Advisor: Julie Cidell 

Lark Cummings graduated from Eastern Washington University in 2022 with degrees in anthropology and geography. He is interested in the history of migrant labor markets in the United States and his MA research will explore them in the context of historical and contemporary urban development in the US and elsewhere. Advisor: David Wilson 

Erin Hermann has a BS in Earth, Society, and Environmental Sustainability from Illinois. Their MS research interests include fluvial geomorphology and river management. Advisor: Bruce Rhoads 

Ömer Emre Kuşcu is from Istanbul, Türkiye and holds both undergraduate and master’s degrees in geography from Istanbul University. He aims to continue his studies on political and military geography, military intelligence/history, and contemporary geopolitics. Advisor: Brian Jordan Jefferson 

Liam Llewellyn has a BS in geographic information science from the University of Oklahoma with a minor in meteorology. His master’s research will focus on GIS, meteorology, social science, and interface development. Advisor: Raechel Portelli 

Saket Pochiraju has a BS in Computer Science + Geography & GIS and economics from Illinois. He is interested in applying remote sensing and GeoAI at the intersections of climate science and public health during his master’s studies. Advisor: Marynia Kolak 

Yuankun Wang earned a master’s of engineering in photogrammetry and remote sensing from Wuhan University in 2025. Her doctoral research will focus on advancing large-scale crop mapping to support sustainable agriculture and food security planning. Advisor: Chunyuan Diao