Graduate Students

I am priveledged to work with many outstanding graduate students in our MS program in Geography. Their names and current project topics are listed below.

Current students 

• Jesse Adams - automated raster and  vector classification of forest habitat types in northern Minnesota (in progress)
• John Boentje - quantifying landscape fragmentation of the Moscow Green Belt using LANDSAT (in progress)
• Shirin Marvastian - breeding bird survey and landscape change analysis in Central Minnesota (in progress)
• Eric Peterson - Crane Meadows NWR vegetation and land survey database (in progress)
• Chad Yost - wild rice phytoliths' modern and paleostudy of Lake Ogechie (in progress)

Graduated 

• Qazi Iqbal - Urban sprawl and its effect on landscape fragmentation: a remote sensing approach (graduated 2004, works at GIS department , Fulton Co., GA)
• Namrata Shrestha  - Forest fires and roads in Ontario, Canada (graduated 2004, now at the U of Toronto, Ph.D. program)
• Samir Patti - Lake Alexander Preserve (TNC) vegetation study (works at Camp Ripley)
• Paul Reyerson - Columbia Plateau loess deposition/dust cycles study based on opal phytoliths (graduated 2005, now teaches geography at Anoka-Ramsey Community College)

I am currently looking for new students interested in the following topics (funding may be available - grant proposals pending):

• Central Alaska reconstruction of LGM vegetation from loess, paleosquirrel burrows and permafrost tunnel
• paleoenvironmental reconstructions of mid-continental grasslands in late Pleistocene and early Holocene (e.g., Nebraska, Alaska, Russia) using phytolith analysis
• modern alpine grasslands' response to climate change (specifically in Teberda Reserve, NW Caucasus, Russia)
• urban sprawl in Central Minnesota and its impact on connectivity of regional ecosystems, especially grasslands  (remote sensing or on the ground approaches)
• Central Minnesota grasslands' and forests' community ecology, especially TNC preserves 
• distribution of wild rice in Minnesota in the past 
• Orthodox church in the US - cultural diffusion and adaptations 
• any Russia-related conservation topics, e.g., endangered species, zapovedniks, national parks, or ecotourism

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