Faculty & Staff

Dr. William A. Wetherholt, Chair

Associate Professor
GTU (Geography Honor Society) Advisor

Office: Gunter 230
Telephone: 301-687-4266
Email: wawetherholt@frostburg.edu

Degrees:

Ph.D. Geography, Kansas State University
M.A. Geography, University of North Dakota
B.A. Geography, Kent State University

• Additional Information

  Areas of Interest

  Place attachment, critical cartography, rural geography, qualitative/mixed methods, privacy and ethics in GISci

  Publications

  Briwa, R. and W. Wetherholt. 2020. Teaching critical cartography in the introductory classroom. The Geography Teacher 17 (4): 162-168.

  Wetherholt, W. 2020. Review of Across the Continent: The Union Pacific Photographs of Andrew J. Russell. By Daniel Davis. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press and Utah State Historical Society, 2018. In Great Plains Quarterly 40 (2): 174-175.

  Wetherholt, William A. and Gregory S. Vandeberg. 2019. Reading the Landscape in Antler, North Dakota: Repeat Photography in an Atrophying Northern Plains Town. In S. D. Brunn, R. Kehrein (eds.), Handbook of the Changing World Language Map. Springer, pp.1-23.

  Wetherholt, W., and B. Rundquist. 2010. A survey of ethics in college-level remote sensing courses in the U.S. Journal of Geography 109 (2): 75-86.

  Presentations

  "Integrating OSM into an Undergraduate Cartography Curriculum." OpenStreetMapUS: Mapping USA Virtual Event, 22 May 2021.

  "Rootedness in the very rural Great Plains counties of Kansas and Nebraska." 9^th Quadrennial Conference of British, Canadian, and American Rural Geographers, Vermont, USA. July 2019

  "Retracing Lacock’s Footsteps on The National Road." American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA. 13 April 2018.

  "Rural Identity in the Academy" (panelist). American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA. 11 April 2018.

  “Place Attachment in Kansas and Nebraska’s Emptying Plains.” American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA. 31 March 2016.

  “Gamma Theta Upsilon (GTU): Engaging Exceptional Students in the Geography Honors Society” (Panelist). American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA. 30 March 2016.

  “Articulating Rural Sentiment in the Central Great Plains Through Grounded Theory.” Great Plains/Rocky Mountain Division of the Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, Kearney, NE. 03 October 2015.

  “A Humanistic Investigation of Place in the Very Rural Great Plains of Kansas and Nebraska.” 8th Quadrennial Meeting of British, Canadian, and U.S. Rural Geographers, Swansea – Aberystwyth, UK. 11 July 2015.

Dr. Phillip Allen

Professor

Office: Gunter 211
Telephone: 301-687-4891
Email: ppallen@frostburg.edu

Degrees:

Ph.D. Quaternary Science, Coventry University
M.Sc. Quaternary Science, Royal Holloway-Univ. of London
B.Sc. (Hons) Geography, Middlesex University

• Additional Information

  Areas of Interest

  I am interested in many aspects of Earth Science, particularly the Quaternary period. My main interest is geomorphic evolution of landscapes, especially in cold climate regions. Specifically I attempt to understand the factors that condition, initiate and drive landscape change. My recent work has examined the roles of climate change and human impact in modifying the landscape over the mid - Late Holocene. The techniques I employ are varied and range from geomorphological mapping to palynology (pollen analysis).

  Publications

  Stephan Harrison, Tim Mighall, David A. Stainforth, Phillip Allen, Mark Macklin, Edward Anderson, Jasper Knight, Dmitry Mauquoy, David Passmore, Brice Rea, Matteo Spagnolo, Sarah Shannon. 2019. Uncertainty in geomorphological responses to climate change. Climatic Change 156(1-2): 69-86
  
  Allen, P.P., Hewitt, R., Obryk, M.J. & Doran, P.T. 2014 Sediment Transport dynamics on an ice-covered lake: the 'floatin' boulders of Lake Hoare, Antarctica. Antarctic Science, DOI:10.1017/S0954102014000558

  Allen, P.P., Sewell, N. 2014. EcoCount: A New Digital Approach to Environmental Data Recording. SAGE Open, Apr/June 2014:1-5 DOI: 10.1177/2158244014537500

  Research Projects

  Holocene Climate & Hydrological Change in the Finzel Wetlands, MD
  Periglacial History of Dolly Sods
  The Map that Changed the World!!

Dr. Tianna A. Bogart

Associate Professor

Office: Gunter 229
Telephone: 301-687-4264
Email: tabogart@frostburg.edu

Degrees:

Ph.D. Climatology, University of Delaware
M.S. Geography, University of Delaware
B.S. Environmental Science, University of Delaware

• Additional Information

  Courses

  Physical Geography, Descriptive Meteorology, Physical Climatology, Natural Hazards, Climate Change, Principles of Atmospheric Science, Research Methods

  Areas of Interest

  Climatic response to land cover change, adjustment of climate data biases, spatial interpolation, model sensitivity to input data and parameters, Safe Spaces / LGBTQIA + Ally, diversity in the sciences

  Publications

  Dunmyre, J., Fortune, N., Bogart, T., Rasmussen, C., & Keene, K. A. (2019). Climate change in a differential equations course: Using bifurcation diagrams to explore small changes with big effects. Community of Ordinary Differential Equations Educators: Special Issue Linking Differential Equations to Social Justice and Environmental Concerns.

  Fortune, N., Dunmyre, J., Rasmussen, C., Bogart, T., & Keene, K. A. (2019). Bringing social justice topics to differential equations: Climate change, identity, and power. In A. Weinberg, D. Moore-Russo, H. Soto, & M. Wawro (Eds.), Proceedings of the 22nd Annual Conference on the Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education (pp. 891 – 896). Oklahoma City, OK: Oklahoma State University and the University of Oklahoma.

  Legates, D. R. and T. A. Bogart. 2009. Estimating the Proportion of Monthly Precipitation that Falls in Solid Form. Journal of Hydrometeorology, 10:1299-1306.

  Presentations

  Bogart, T.A. (2018). Energy budget changes from the inclusion of the urban land unit in a global climate model, The American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA.

  Bogart, T.A. (2017). Climate Change: Separating Fact from Fiction, Focus Frostburg: FSU's annual Day of Learning on sustainability and climate awareness, Frostburg, MD.

  Bogart, T.A. (2016). Modeled climatological impact of urban development in the Indian Subcontinent. The American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA.

  Bogart, T.A. (2014). Sensitivity of a Global Climate Model to the urban land unit, The American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, Tampa, FL.

  Bogart, T.A. (2014). Impact of Urban Density type in a Global Climate Model, The American Geophysical Union Fall meeting, San Francisco, CA.

  Bogart, T.A. (2012). Using a GCM to better understand the urban-climate relationship, The Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, New York, NY, February 2012.

  Bogart, T.A. (2011). Sensitivity of a Global Climate Model to the Urban Environment," The Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA, April 2011.

Ms. Tracy L. Edwards

Lecturer

Office: Gunter 210
Telephone: 301-687-7596
Email: tedwards@frostburg.edu

Degrees:

M.A. Geography, Syracuse University
B.S. Geography, Frostburg State University

• Additional Information

  Areas of Interest

  human, physical

Dr. Hai Lan

Assistant Professor, Director of Western Maryland Regional GIS Center

Office: Gunter 205
Telephone: 301-687-3704
Email: hlan@frostburg.edu

Degrees:

Ph.D. GIS Science and Cartography, University of Maryland, College Park
M.S. Computer Science, New York University
M.S. Geographic Information Science, Eastern Michigan University
B.E. Software Engineering, Wuhan University

• Additional Information

  Courses

  Principles of GIS, Advanced Topics in Mapping and Geospatial Sciences, Research Methods

  Areas of Interest

  My research spans the interdisciplinary fields of GIScience, environmental science, and computational science. Currently I’m mainly focusing on using AI as an assist, leveraging distributed big geospatial data analytics and integrating with spatiotemporal modeling and computing to overcome urban public health challenges from both human and environmental perspective. Related projects:

  • NASA NCCS: Improving urban air quality prediction using spatiotemporal simulations. PI. Funding: 50k
  • NSF PFT-TT: Translating the Campus Reopening Research into a Commercial Prototype for the Urgent School Reopening Societal Challenge. Co-PI. Funding: 150k
  • NSF I-Corps: A spatiotemporal simulation system to predict COVID-19 case trajectories in schools. Co-PI. Funding: 50k

  
  Publications

  Google Scholar Link

   

Mr. Adam P. Lewis

Lecturer

Office: Gunter 227
Telephone: 301-687-4577
Email: aplewis@frostburg.edu

Degrees:

M.Ed. Frostburg State University
B.S. Geography & History, Frostburg State University

• Additional Information

  Areas of Interest

  human, physical

Dr. Matthew E. Ramspott

Professor

Office: Gunter 207
Telephone: 301-687-4412
Email: meramspott@frostburg.edu

Degrees:

Ph.D. Geography, University of Kansas
M.S. Applied Geography, Texas State University-San Marcos
B.S. Environmental Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

• Additional Information

  Areas of Interest

  aerial photo interpretation, remote sensing theory and applications, physical geography, environmental studies, mapping and geographic information sciences, spatial data analysis and quantitative methods

   

Dr. Richard A. Russo

Professor

Office: Gunter 231
Telephone: 301-687-4053
Email: rarusso@frostburg.edu

Degrees:

Ph.D. Geography, University of Maryland - College Park
M.A. Geography, Syracuse University
B.A. Geography, Mary Washington College

• Additional Information

  About Dr. Russo

  Richard has been a faculty member in Maryland institutions (either full-time or adjunct) since 1996; he started at FSU in Fall 2010. As a broadly-trained human/cultural geographer, his scholarly interests are in the geographies of identity, sovereignty, food systems, and urban systems. He was a 2017-2018 Fulbright Scholar to the Centre canadien de recherche sur les francophonies en milieu minoritaire (CRFM) in La Cité universitaire francophone at the University of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. He was appointed to a 5-year term to the City of Frostburg’s Planning Commission. Richard is a native of the Wissahickon Creek watershed in southeastern Pennsylvania.

  Areas of Interest

  Canadian studies, language geographies, sacred ecology, geohumanities, food systems, small and medium-sized cities
  
  2017-2018 Fulbright Canada Visiting Research Chair, Centre canadien de recherche sur les francophonies en milieu minoritaire (CRFM), La Cité universitaire francophone, University of Regina

  Publications

  [forthcoming] Russo, R.A. 2025. Les collections des bibliothèques publiques en contexte de bilinguisme officiel: une étude comparative de quelques pratiques européennes (Linda Savoie, trad.). In Alain Roy et al., Bibliothèques et archives dans les communautés de langue officielle en situation minoritaire: Enjeux et devenir. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press.

  Russo, R.A. 2019. French-Language Books in a Minority Setting: A Report from Rural Saskatchewan. Minorités linguistiques et société / Linguistic Minorities and Society, 11: 52–73.

  Russo, R.A. 2019. Book Review: Defining Métis: Catholic Missionaries and the Idea of Civilization in Northwestern Saskatchewan, 1845-1898 by Timothy P. Foran. American Review of Canadian Studies 49(3): 483-484.

  Russo, R.A. 2015. Appalachian Cities at the Beginning of the 21st-Century. Journal of Appalachian Studies 21(2): 157-172.

  Russo, R.A. 2012. Local Food Initiatives in Tobacco Transitions of the Southeastern United States. Southeastern Geographer 52(1):55-69.

  Russo, R.A. 2012. Southern Maryland Tobacco Barn (cover photo and essay). Southeastern Geographer 52(2):109-111.

  Paper Presentations

  "The World of Books in a Linguistic Minority Setting." Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers, Washington, D.C. 5 April 2019

  “Books as Spatial Agents of Identity in Francophone Saskatchewan.” Northeast Modern Language Association Convention, Pittsburgh, PA. 15 April 2018.

  "Perspectives géographiques sur l'identité et le maintien des langues minoritaires: la Saskatchewan et au-delà." Centre canadien de recherche sur les francophonies en milieu minoritaire, La Cité universitaire francophone, University of Regina, SK, Canada. 11 October 2017.

  "Understanding the Complex Geography of Francophone Communities in Ontario." Middle States Division of the American Assn. of Geographers Annual Meeting, Altoona, PA. 4 November 2016.

  "Geographic Patterns in the Recent Growth and Decline of Young Farmers in the Continental U.S." Middle States Division of Assn. of American Geographers Annual Meeting, Binghamton, NY. 2 October 2015.

  "Urban Renaissance or Decline? The Fate of the Mid-Atlantic's Small Cities." Middle States Division of Assn. of American Geographers Annual Meeting, Buffalo, NY. 19 October 2013.

  "Mapping the Maintenance of Pennsylvania German: It's All Verhoodled!" Middle States Division of Assn. of American Geographers Annual Meeting, Shippensburg, PA. 2 November 2012.

  Panelist “Author Meets Critics: The Agrarian Vision: Sustainability and Environmental Ethics by Paul B. Thompson.” Assn. of Applied and Practical Ethics Annual Meeting, Cincinnati, 4 March 2011.

Dr. James C. Saku

Professor

Office: Gunter 232
Telephone: 301-687-4724
Email: jsaku@frostburg.edu

Degrees:

Ph.D. University of Saskatchewan
M.A. Wilfrid Laurier University
B.A., Dip.Ed. Cape Coast (Ghana)

• Additional Information

  Areas of Interest

  human, economic, regional

  C.V.

  Course Syllabi

  GEOG 104 Human Geography
  GEOG 300 Economic Geography
  GEOG 301 Geography of North America
  GEOG 302 Geography of Maryland
  GEOG 403 Geography of Sub-Saharan Africa
  GEOG 410 Locational Analysis
  GEOG 425 Geography of Transportation

Staff

Jason Litten

Co-Director, Western Maryland Regional GIS Center, Power Plant Research Program Project

Office: Ort 210
Telephone: 301-687-4369
Email: Jason Litten

Degrees:

B.S. Environmental Analysis and Planning, Frostburg State University

Staff

Staff

Staff

Antonia Zais

Environmental Specialist, Western Maryland Regional GIS Center

Office: Ort 210

Email: arzais@frostburg.edu

Degrees:

student, MEM Environmental Management in Sustainability, Frostburg State University
B.S. Geography, Frostburg State University

 

Emeriti Faculty