MWW | Geographer

Teaching

"New lines are additive and ambitious. It is not our task to only ever draw or trace them, but our unique role to force them toward different ends and, in doing so, take responsibility over all that they describe and all that they nudge from the margins into the bounding box of our collective conviction." (New Lines, 141)

My teaching philosophies and practices are committed to participatory learning and university-community partnerships, which I believe are key to fostering engaged public scholarship.

My courses challenge students to master a rigorous range of theory and applied skills while also emphasizing the responsibilities of geographic representations for creating sustained, positive change in society. My students benefit from opportunities to apply their knowledge and skills to real-world issues, and my goal is for them to emerge with a better sense of how their technical skills and critical thinking can be directly applied to the dynamic needs of their communities and the environment.

I conceptualize an attunement toward community partnerships as the teaching of socio-technical critique -- envisioning technical training as emergent from and within specific socio-political contexts. In other words, the teaching of technical skills is not only about mastery of the technology but also about understanding the potential of those techniques to intervene in the world.

Graduated Students from Residential Programs

Name	Degree(s)	Thesis/Dissertation	Currently
Debra Hollon	MS, Geography (Ball State University), 2011	GIS and the Prehistoric Landscape: An Examination of Applicability	Data Engineer, The Polis Center, Indiana University Indianapolis
Bryan Preston	MS, Geography (Ball State University), 2012	Urban Gardening South of the Tracks in Middletown USA: An embedded qualitative GIS approach	Geospatial Scientist, Prairie Research Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Ryan Cooper	MA, Geography (University of Kentucky), 2013	Re-Placing Sprawl: Mapping Place in an American Suburb	GIS Administrator, Wake County Public School System, North Carolina
Andrea Craft	MA, Geography (University of Kentucky), 2014	Planning and Protest in Memphis: The Limits and Possibilities of Participatory Discourse	Teaching Assistant Professor, Urban Planning and Policy, University of Illinois Chicago
Zulaikha Ayub	MDes, Graduate School of Design (Harvard University), 2014	Desert Sun: The Manhattan Project and Los Alamos, New Mexico	PhD Candidate, Architecture, Princeton University
Daniel Koff	MDes, Graduate School of Design (Harvard University), 2015	Spatialized Archives: An Analysis of Methodologies for Working through Collections	Instructor, Olin College of Engineering, Massachusetts
Eric M. Robsky Huntley	PhD, Geography (University of Kentucky), 2020	Reserved for the Whole Earth: Forms of Evidence, Ought Anxiety, and the Futures of Geographic Inquiry	Lecturer, Urban Studies and Planning, MIT
Emily Barrett	MA, Geography (University of Kentucky), 2020	Shiny objects, hiding places: Examining community-engaged data practices in Lexington, KY	Assistant Professor, School of City and Regional Planning, Georgia Tech
Amber Bosse	PhD, Geography (University of Kentucky), 2020	Cartographic Efficacy: Histories of the Present, Participatory Futures	Map Therapist and Coach, MapBosse
Jessi Breen	PhD, Geography (University of Kentucky), 2023	Picturing the Future City: Digital Mediation and Creative Placemaking	Program Director, Geospatial Research Support, American University
Ian Spangler	PhD, Geography, 2023; MA Geography, 2020 (University of Kentucky)	Property Protocols and the Social Relations of Real Estate Technologies "One More Way to Sell New Orleans”: Airbnb and the Commodification of Authenticity through Local Emotional Labor	Associate Curator of Digital and Participatory Geography, Leventhal Map and Education Center at the Boston Public Library
Kenny Stancil	MA, Geography (University of Kentucky), 2023	Hoarding Lifesaving Knowledge While Millions Die: The Political Economy of Global COVID-19 Vaccine Apartheid	Senior Research, Revolving Door Project
John "Jack" Swab	PhD, Geography, 2024; MA Geography, 2020 (University of Kentucky)	Transgressed | Constructed | Solidified: Examining Boundaries in Public Health, Population, and Higher Education Risky business: Visualizing and historicizing the role of geographic representation and thinking in American business	Assistant Professor, Geography and Sustainability, University of Tennessee
Jacob Saindon	PhD, Geography, 2025; MA Geography, 2021 (University of Kentucky)	Commercial Attention Spaces: A Century of Discourses, Measurements, and Models of Attention in the Construction of U.S. Advertising Markets The Use of Distraction: Doomscrolling, Losing Time, and Digital Well-Being in Pandemic Space-Times	Visiting Assistant Professor, Geography, Miami University
Sable Augustyn	MA, Geography (University of Kentucky), 2025	Lust, Labor, and Legitimacy: Visibility and Precarity in Platformed Sex Work	Pending Update