by Dr. Marynia Kolak, assistant professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies
Join us on Friday, April 14th in Room 2049 NHB (or via Zoom) for presentations by 2022-23 Geography & GIS Roepke Research scholars Kei Yamato, Stefan Ilic, Amer Islam, and Giovanni Gianneli.
It was a record year for Roepke Scholarships, with eleven students awarded funds to enhance their study or conduct research with a GGIS faculty mentor on their chosen topic in geography and geographic information science. Roepke scholars are savvy GGIS undergrads interested in expanding their knowledge of the field, and may be awarded academic scholarships as freshman and sophomore, research scholarships for juniors and seniors, and/or study abroad scholarships across all levels.
Kei Yamato, a Junior majoring in geography, has worked with Dr. Bruce Rhoads and PhD candidate Tanya Shukla using historical land survey records to see if human impact has changed the configuration of rivers in the Midwest. “I enjoy the Roepke Research experience as it has allowed me to get my first experience on how to do research, and what goes into a research project, with a lot of help along the way,” said Kei.
Stefan Ilic, also a junior, is helping Dr. Marynia Kolak by wrangling data, appending that data to a larger data frame, and creating metadata for multiple projects within the Healthy Regions & Policies Lab. Stefan notes that “this experience has strengthened my ability to clean data in programs such as Excel and R, and has introduced me to creating metadata, which are very useful skills.”
Amer Islam is a senior working with Dr. Jim Best on quantifying sand mining in Bangladesh through remote sensing. His scholarship will facilitate a transcontinental flight, enabling field work abroad.
During the Roepke Scholar presentation, we’ll also hear an “audio postcard” from Giovanni Gianneli, a sophomore studying abroad in Heidelberg, Germany. He’s just arrived there and has started an intensive language course to prepare for coursework which will begin mid-April. He’s looking forward to taking Geopolitics of Sustainability and Geoscripting with Python, as well as more niche, specialty topic human geography courses.
See you on the 14th! Join us in-person in the Natural History Building’s Russell Room (2049) at 3pm CT or via Zoom.