Professor Rydant has returned from Austria where he taught and conducted research at the University of Salzburg. During their spring semester he offered two courses in the Department of Geography and Geology: a graduate course in Natural Resource and Waste Management on a Global Base and a seminar in The Global Economy: Political and Economic Systems across Developed and Developing Regions. Dr. Rydant also conducted continuing research with Professor Wolfgang Kern on the process and patterns of migration of aging populations.

700 geographic K-20 educators from across North America gathered to attend the National Council for Geographic Education Annual Conference, San Juan, Puerto Rico September 23-27, 2009

Among the attendees were Keene State graduate J.J Prior (2009 Social Sciences), Professor A.L. Rydant (Geography), and former faculty member Kristin Alvarez (now at University of Redlands, CA). The group presented a paper entitled ‘Blogging from the Field: Challenges and Successes,’ which focused on student blogging as part of a geography/service learning field course in Ecuador.

Funding for the conference was provided by the New Hampshire Geographic Alliance.

Chris Brehme joined the faculty of the Department of Geography in the Fall of 2009. Dr. Brehme recently completed a Ph.D. in Geography at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York, with an emphasis in Geographic Information Science. At Buffalo, he was a Fellow in the Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT), an NSF-funded program that promotes interdisciplinary training in the sciences. At Keene State, Dr. Brehme teaches courses in Physical Geography, GIS, Remote Sensing and Cartography. Before earning his Ph.D., he worked as a GIS professional for community development and environmental organizations in Maine, and helped rural communities build local GIS capacity. Dr. Brehme’s current research interests center on Human-Environment Interaction, particularly in coastal environments. He is also interested in geographic cognition, participatory GIS and geographic visualization. His research and training in Geography have taken Dr. Brehme to the Pacific Northwest, Great Britain, Western Australia, coastal New England and the Canadian Maritimes.