Faculty
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Kathleen Benison
PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY
Kathy uses sedimentary geology, geochemistry, and geomicrobiology to study the deposition and diagenesis of continental evaporites and red beds. Her active research projects include modern acid saline lake systems in Western Australia and Chile, their Permian analog deposits in the U.S. midcontinent, and similar systems on Mars.
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Martina Angela Caretta
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF GEOGRAPHY
Martina Angela Caretta is a feminist geographer investigating the human dimensions of water. Her research focuses on the social issues revolving around water resources in Appalachia. Dr Caretta holds a PhD in Geography from the University of Stockholm and her doctoral research investigated gender contracts in smallholder irrigation farming systems in Kenya and Tanzania. Dr Caretta has published on smallholder irrigation farming in the Global South, feminist participatory methodologies, emotional geography and gendered consequences of the neoliberal university.
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Jamison Conley
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF GEOGRAPHY
The overarching theme is an interest in the statistics, algorithms and techniques for the analysis of spatial data. Jamison has worked in the past on methods for finding and analyzing disease clusters, but is venturing beyond that narrow focus. He has open-source projects that are available for those interested.
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Karen Culcasi
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF GEOGRAPHY, ASSOCIATE CHAIR FOR GEOGRAPHY
Karen’s research and teaching uses critical and feminist geopolitical frames to examine contested places and identities. Her work focuses on the Middle East and the Arab world.
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Dengliang Gao
PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY
Gao is interested in developing and applying 3D seismic interpretation technologies for more effective subsurface structure, facies, and reservoir characterization.
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Cynthia Gorman
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF GEOGRAPHY
Cynthia’s research focuses on gender, migration, legal regimes and international human rights campaigns. She teaches courses on world regional geography, global migration and women and international development.
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Megan Govindan
Service Instructor; Director of Community Leadership and Social Action, WVU Center for Resilient Communities
Megan Govindan, MPH, MS, RDN, LDN is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist that uses action-based research to examine food systems, public health, and community geography.
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Jonathan Hall
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF GEOGRAPHY
Jonathan’s research focuses on human impacts on species abundance and persistence. Specifically in how local culture and subsistence practices impact endangered and threatened species. His dissertation research focused on the impact the Bishnoi people of Rajasthan, India have on Indian vultures (Gyps indicus), blackbuck antelope (Antilope cervicapra), and the Khejeri tree (Prosopis cineraria).
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Amy Hessl
PROFESSOR OF GEOGRAPHY
Dr. Hessl uses the environmental information stored in the growth rings of trees to study climate variability, ecosystem processes, and human activities over the last 2000 years.
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Randall W. Jackson
PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY AND GEOGRAPHY; DIRECTOR, REGIONAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE
Research Interests: Regional economic development; technological change; innovation; industry clustering; interregional trade; regional econometric, input-output, and conjoined models; energy and environmental systems and simulation; energy policy analysis.
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James Lamsdell
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY
Paleobiology, Paleontology, Arthropods, Macroevolution, Mass extinction, Macroecology, Paleoecology, Phylogenetics
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Rick Landenberger
RESEARCH ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF GEOGRAPHY
Rick’s research combines forest ecology with land use management and restoration, using mapping and spatial analysis as tools to address basic questions of ecosystem structure and function. Working closely with the land conservation community in West Virginia through the West Virginia Land Trust, his research applies primarily to properties managed through conservation easements or other land use protection strategies.
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Aaron Maxwell
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF GEOGRAPHY
Dr Maxwell’s research interests are in geospatial instruction, hands-on learning, and learning via travel. His primary research is in remote sensing image analysis, spatial modeling, GIS, object-based image analysis, terrain analysis, physical geography, geomorphology, and hydrology.
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Brent McCusker
PROFESSOR OF GEOGRAPHY; DEPARTMENT CHAIR
Brent is concerned with how the environment is produced, reproduced, and commodified to promote development in historically lesser developed areas, specifically sub-Saharan Africa. His research is focused around two themes (environment and development) with an interest in interaction between academia and policy makers, specifically the international development donor community.
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Brenden McNeil
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF GEOGRAPHY
Brenden uses fieldwork, remote sensing, and GIS to examine human impacts on the spatial patterns of forest ecosystem services, particularly in the eastern USA. In addition to the geography senior capstone course, he teaches undergraduate and graduate classes in physical geography, resource sustainability, environmental GIS, and spatial ecosystem ecology.
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Mehmet Öztan
Service Assistant Professor
Dr. Öztan holds a B.S. and M.S. in hydrogeology, and he did his Ph.D. work on GIS-enabled groundwater modeling of Michigan’s watersheds. In 2013, he transitioned from his engineering career into becoming a full-time seed grower, steward, and heirloom seed advocate.
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Maria Perez
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF GEOGRAPHY
I am an Assistant Professor here in the Geography Program at West Virginia University’s Department of Geology and Geography. A cultural anthropologist by training, I investigate the cultural and historical context of scientific practice. More specifically, I approach science as a cultural activity. Speleology (cave science and exploration) serves as a case study with which I examine a range of topics such as identity (Who are we? What brings us together?), place and emotion (How do places become meaningful? Why is it that we come to love some places more than others?), value (How do we come to value, beyond economic considerations, places that are hidden or not part of our everyday livelihoods?). Really, these questions are relevant well beyond caves, karst, and even bunkers, another site of research!
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Christopher Russoniello
Assistant Professor of Geology
chris.russoniello@mail.wvu.edu
Coastal Groundwater, Surface Water/Groundwater Interactions, Climate and Groundwater
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Shikha Sharma
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY
Dr. Sharma’s research bridges the fields of stable Isotope geochemistry, biogeochemistry, and hydrogeochemistry to address a wide variety of issues related to the “Energy-Environment” nexus.
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Jamie Shinn
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF GEOGRAPHY
Jamie is interested in topics of environmental governance, political ecology, and adaptation to climate change, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Her current research investigates how existing social vulnerabilities lead to differential adaptive capacities for people living in changing environments. She has projects in Botswana and South Africa.
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Jaime Toro
PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY, ASSOCIATE CHAIR for GEOLOGY
Zircon Geochronology of Middle Devonian (Tioga) Ash Beds in the Marcellus Shale, Tectonic Evolution of Chukotka (NE Russia), Intelligent Systems Approach to Reservoir Characterization, Fault-related gas reservoirs in the Appalachian Foreland.
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Dorothy Vesper
PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY
Dorothy is a low-temperature geochemist with a focus on karst hydrogeology, temporal changes in water quality (diel and storm), high-CO2 waters, metal geochemistry, thermal-mineral springs, coal-mine drainage, and how contaminant move in karst aquifers. Much of her recent research considers the relationship between inorganic carbon and sulfur in natural waters.
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Timothy Warner
PROFESSOR OF GEOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY
Tim specializes in remote sensing applications and the spatial analysis of images. He utilizes optical and thermal imagery, as well as lidar, to study terrestrial features including biogeographical and geological phenomena.
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Amy Weislogel
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY
Dr. Weislogel's research group uses grain-scale to basin-scale techniques in Sedimentary Basin Studies to reconstruct tectonic and climatic controls on paleoenvironments. Our primary tools include provenance, stratigraphic and sedimentologic analyses and our projects investigate both subsurface and outcropping sedimentary records.
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Bradley Wilson
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF GEOGRAPHY
My research links debates in social theory to ethnographic fieldwork. I see the dialectic between participant observation and theory-building as useful for generating nuanced and insightful critiques of the injustices of global capitalism. In particular I am interested in the meteoric rise of ethical product labeling as a moral response to the globalization of commodity networks.