Dr. Maggi Kelly, geospatial imaging expert, honored for 'excellence in education'
Maggi Kelly, director of CNR's Geospatial Imaging & Informatics Facility, associate cooperative extension specialist, and adjunct associate professor of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, recently earned the "Excellence in Education" award from the California Geographic Information Association.
The award honors programs with an extraordinary approach, contribution, development or commitment to GIS education in California. Nominees are judged on the basis of the breadth of courses offered, accessibility of classes, population served, technical facilities, and post-graduation support.
Kelly's research and outreach program has several themes and is informed by the disciplines of GIS science, geography, and landscape ecology. She links ecological patterns with process in spatially heterogeneous and dynamic landscapes -- providing data and expertise needed to understand current and projected drivers of landscape change in California. Her approach also embraces the evaluation of new technologies and development of best practices for ecological monitoring and landscape quantification. She is particularly interested in integrating high spatial resolution remotely sensed imagery and output from new active sensors with innovative image processing and spatial modeling techniques.
Many of Kelly's workshops combine instructor led classes with Internet-based workbooks. Both introductory and advanced classes are available.
For more information about webGIS, visit the GIIF website.
CNR Environmental Science Major Awarded Fulbright Scholarship
Senior Environmental Science major Daniel Song was watching the second round of the NCAA basketball tournament when he found the thick manila envelope addressed to him from the Fulbright Foundation.
“My heart skipped a beat,” he said. “I think it suffices to say I was ecstatic.”
Song, whose research has previously taken him to the Gump Station on Moorea, Cyprus, Turkey, and Washington D.C., will be spending a year as a Fulbright Scholar studying plants and bees on a Greek Island. The project is an extension of work he did last summer on the relationship between pollinators and a pesky species called the Yellow Star Thistle that has invaded California.
“Essentially I’ll be sitting outside in a thicket of thorny Yellow Star Thistle observing beetles, flies, bumble bees, solitary bees, and honeybees take sweet nectar from the flowers,” he said.
Want to play golf like Tiger Woods? The trick may be to play against him. A study conducted by Agriculture and Natural Resources Ph.D. candidate Jennifer Brown has shown that golfers may actually play better when pitted against a superstar like Woods. Brown analyzed over twenty thousand golf matches and factored in weather and course conditions to determine that golfers played an average of one stroke better when facing off against Woods.
Notice a rise in the cost of a loaf of bread at the supermarket? You’re not alone. Overall, retail food prices in the United States have increased 4.4 percent in the last year. Other parts of the world have been harder hit and extreme food shortages have lead to riots and civil unrest.
David Zilberman, professor of Agriculture and Resources Economics at CNR, has been studying food trends for thirty years. He thinks drought, biofuels, transportation costs as well as increased income and demand for food imports in Asia are responsible for the increase in food prices.
Maggi Kelly, director of CNR's Geospatial Imaging & Informatics Facility, associate cooperative extension specialist, and adjunct associate professor of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, recently earned the "Excellence in Education" award from the California Geographic Information Association.