| Urban
& Regional Planning
Sustainable Development
Landscape Ecology
My main focus of research and service applies
planning and spatial analysis tools to urban
and regional planning problems. In the course
of this work, I design spatial decision
support systems using GIS and mathematical programming models
and explore problem formulation for policy implementation.
Some of the planning problems that I have been researching include
school district facility planning, subdivision design, reserve
location, habitat restoration, trail design, campus transportation,
and local economic development. I am interested in working with
both undergraduate and graduate students in these areas, especially
on the local, landscape, and regional scales.
I teach many classes at WMU including: Human
Geography, Map, Chart, and Air Photo Reading, Undergraduate Research
Methods, Introduction to City and Regional Planning, Introduction
to GIS, Transportation Planning, Urban and Regional Planning Techniques,
and a Seminar in Landscape Ecology and Regional Planning. I
am happy to answer any questions about any of these courses, as
well as advise on the Urban and Regional Planning undergraduate
concentration, on careers in the field, and about Graduate theses
and Undergraduate honors and directed research in these areas.
My research to date has been funded by the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA), the National
Science Foundation, the Kalamazoo
Foundation, and the WMU Environmental
Institute. I was also recently awarded an international
research exchange fellowship in 2003 to spend a month in residence
at the University of Passau (Bavaria, Germany).
Articles derived from my recent research have
been published in Socioeconomic
Planning Sciences, Journal of Great Lakes Research, and Environmental
Modeling & Assessment. My service role as
a planner to the University and the community include election
to the Campus Finance and Planning
Council and chairmanship of the subcommittee on
Parking and Transportation
(writing a Campus transportation recommendation report), membership
on the Campus Sustainability Committee,
and participation in the Campus
Master Planning Process. I am also chair of the
Board of Directors of the Great
Lakes Center for Maritime Studies. I have provided
planning support to many local communities, agencies, and units
including Kalamazoo, Portage, Texas Township, Bangor, Barry State
Game Area (Michigan DNR), Gun River Watershed, Black River Watershed,
and St. Joseph County.
I am currently working on a Heritage
Water Trail System for the State of Michigan by
authority of Michigan Public Act 454 of 2002 (Senate Bill 415)
with pilot projects underway in St. Joseph County, the coast of
the “Thumb” and on the Black River in Van Buren County.
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