Dr. Benhart’s recent work has focused on the analysis and interpretation of large-format mine maps, as well as the incorporation of these maps into searchable enterprise geospatial databases. Dr. Benhart will be honored, along with faculty members selected from other colleges, at a universitywide reception where the IUP Outstanding Researcher will be announced.

Fortnam’s paper, “The Identification of Archaeological Remains on Cyprus via Quickbird Imagery and Remote Sensing,” examines the use of satellite image analysis techniques to locate potential Late-Roman archaeological sites for future field work. Using high-resolution Quickbird imagery, along with principle components and normalized difference vegetation index analyses, Sara identified multiple linear features that displayed similar spectral properties of known sites in central Italy. Sara also won the top award in the student map competition for her entry “Olive Oil in the Ancient World.”

Bencloski presented a paper titled “The Impact of the 1997-98 El Niño on Vegetation Health in the Piura Region of Northwestern Peru: An NDVI Analysis.” Using Landsat digital satellite image analysis, he compared the differences in vegetation robustness in the Piura region before and during the 1997–1998 El Niño event.

Please check out the Weather Station webpage and add it as one of your favorites!

The AccuTerra HD product allows iPhone users to view on-line or off-line topographical (elevation) data in a totally integrated fashion with Global Positioning System (GPS) and compass capabilities. According to MacWorld, “Intermap Technologies’ AccuTerra uses forthcoming iPhone 3.0 technologies like in-app purchase to allow users to buy more detailed maps of various geographical areas of interest. The program allows users to plan, track, and share hiking and biking trips. Users can activate the iPhone’s GPS feature to track not only their exact route, but also later “play it back,” including showing geocoded photos at the places in the trip where they were taken.”

Dan Viet is an applications developer for Intermap Technologies, Inc. of Denver, Colorado. Congratulations, Dan!

Bulgaria is unique is the respect that the country contains cultural resources that were a product of Alexander the Great’s Balkan Empire, as well as the Roman and Ottoman Empires.

Begg, Benhart, and Hoch also began a collaboration with Bulgarian colleagues on a new set of grant proposals to research land use change along the Bulgarian Black Sea coast, as well as the analysis of demographic changes and geospatial specification of ecosystem services impacts within watersheds in the Balkan Mountains.

Students David Frick, Pam Hartwick, Adam Isenberg, John Krohe, Michael McDivitt, Paul Price, and Amber Snavley worked with Derry and Latrobe high school students to help them through a “visioning” planning process—identifying strengths and weaknesses of their communities and articulating ideas about what changes they would like to see in the future. IUP students also assisted Westmoreland County GIS coordinator Randy Strong with mapping and GIS data requirements for the program. Dr. DeWhit Watts, a planning faculty member in the department, also lent his expertise and accompanied the students to the Greater Latrobe Center for Student Creativity for the program.

The poster-based presentations were: “Impervious Surface Analysis of the Sewickley Creek Watershed” by Neil Gruber, Adam Isenberg, Michael McDivitt, and Jake Rougeaux; “Utilizing GIS to Locate Canoe Access Points of Western Pennsylvania” by Joe Saxfield, Josh Steiner, Mitchell Smail, and Andrew Vasko; “Windy Ridge Site Development Analysis” by Pam Hartwick and Stephanie Malandro; “Spatial Analysis of Late Woodland Villages in Southwestern Pennsylvania” by Tanya Boggs and Amber Snavley; and “Indiana County, PA Trail Connectivity Study” by David Frick and Paul Price.

Ms. Thomas , daughter of Tammy and Dale Thomas of Northern Cambria, is a Mathematics Education major and a Geography minor who achieved a 4.0 in her first semester of academic work at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

The Daniel A. and Diane E. Griffith Scholarship is awarded to high-achieving freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior students at IUP who have declared an academic course of study as a dual Geography-Mathematics major, a Geography major and a Mathematics minor, or a Mathematics major and a Geography minor.

Dr. Daniel Griffith attended IUP from 1966 to 1972, earning an undergraduate degree in Mathematics Education and a master’s degree in Geography. He went on to earn a doctorate in Geography from the University of Toronto and a master’s degree in Statistics from Penn State, becoming one of the world’s best-known scholars in the emerging field of Geospatial Information Science (GIS). Dr. Griffith and his wife, Diane, established the Griffith Scholarship to provide interested students with the financial support to pursue a joint program in Geography and Mathematics at IUP.

Dr. Carlson is an assistant professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota. He has a forthcoming book based on his reasearch, which was sponsored by the Quebec government.

The grant will be used to continue the work of the institute, which archives, digitally records, and geographically references large-format historical coal mine maps. Based on this work, institute personnel will work to initiate new mine safey protocols.

The IUP institute, based in the Geography and Regional Planning Department, is directed by Dr. John Benhart, Geography and Regional Planning professor, and codirected by Phil Zorich, director of IUP Libraries, and Dr. Lon Ferguson, chairman of the safety sciences department.

“These funds will help us to take the institute to the next level,” Benhart said. “Our ultimate goal is to create an on-line, searchable database of all of our digital mine maps that will help to improve the safety of future coal mining in Pennsylvania by providing needed information about abandoned or unknown mines.”

Funding will be used for additional personnel, including graduate and undergraduate students, to continue scanning existing maps and developing databases.

In 1998, IUP received the records of the Rochester and Pittsburgh Coal Co. from Consol Energy. The donation included not only artifacts and files, but also the mine maps depicting the location of mines and coal seams throughout the region and financial support to help organize the collection. R&P Coal Co., in operation from 1891 to 1997, was purchased by Consol in 1998.

In 2005, IUP received a $125,000 Cruse digital camera from the Pennsylvania Bureau of Deep Mine Safety to digitize large-format mine maps in the R&P collection as well as other large-format maps from across Pennsylvania.

At that time, IUP received a gift of $36,777 from Rosebud Mining Co. of Kittanning and a grant of $15,000 from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission to help organize and process the R&P collection at IUP.

In total, IUP has approximately three hundred hard copy, large-format mine maps and around five hundred digital mine maps in its collection and database, reflecting more than a century of Pennsylvania coal mining history.

In addition to supporting mine safety, community planning, emergency responders, and mine subsidence initiatives in the future, the institute is providing training and experience in the high-growth, high-demand geospatial field for Geography and Regional Planning students, Benhart said.

“This project embodies what we should be doing at a public institution of higher learning: contributing to communities and regions while providing our students with opportunities to learn how concepts, science, and technology really work.”

Officials are planning for Fall 2009 an exhibit at the University Museum titled “Pennsylvania Coal Culture, Featuring the R&P Coal Collection.”

More information about the institute is available at the Institute for Mine Mapping, Archival Procedures, and Safety.

2008 Pennsylvania Chapter of the American Planning Association Annual Conference

On behalf of the 2008 Conference Committee of the Pennsylvania Chapter of the American Planning Association, we welcome you to the City of Pittsburgh. 

Celebrating the 250th anniversary of its founding and continuing to reinvent itself, Pittsburgh exemplifies the logo of our conference: Cities of the past: America’s places of the future. The theme and location for the 2008 conference is especially fitting this year and should serve as a reminder that planners across the Commonwealth work to preserve our heritage while preparing communities to move into the future.

The City of Pittsburgh and her surrounding communities are experiencing yet another transformation that perpetuates a pattern of social and economic renewals. Ours is a region that has been reborn many times, beginning first as a strategic military location during the Revolutionary War, serving as the gateway for westward expansion and a center for commerce during the development of our nation, and eventually becoming known as the Steel Town that built America in the twentieth century. Today, our cultural and economic renaissance is centered on the arts and technology, propelled by worldclass educational institutions that employ more than 117,000 people in thirteen counties.

Pittsburgh leads the nation in automation technology for government and businesses. We invite you to experience the richness of our history, enjoy our vibrant social life, and encourage you to immerse yourself in the conference itself, which offers a myriad of workshops and events to increase your knowledge and awareness of sound land use practices and policies.

Sincerely,

Cochairs of the 2008 Conference Committee:

  Joy M, Wilhelm, AICP

  Brandi Rosselli, AICP

  Lew Villotti

On Thursday, October 9, at approximately 1:00 p.m., the Canaan Valley Institute (CVI), based in Thomas, W.Va., will be providing a technical presentation on LiDAR data acquisition at the Jimmy Stewart/Indiana Airport.

LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) is a remote sensing technique that collects high‐resolution elevation data and works similar to RADAR and SONAR.

Optech Airborne Laser Terrain Mapper (ALTM) 3100 sensor that also has an integrated 3‐band digital camera which enables the simultaneous collection of the elevation data with color or infrared digital photography.  CVI will bring the aircraft and sensors to the Jimmy Stewart/Indiana Airport for an up-close look at the sensor and its design.

This is a great opportunity to get an up‐close look at the sensor and its design, as well as to learn about the particulars of LiDAR specifically and low‐altitude remote sensing in general.

If you are interested in attending, please contact Richard Hoch (rhoch@iup.edu) and let himknow if you plan on riding in the van (space may be limited).

The Pennsylvania Map Program is currently in the process of delivering LiDAR and LiDAR derived products (including contour mapping) for all of western Pennsylvania and Indiana County.

All are invited. Pass the word.

For more information about the Canaan Valley Institute, go to http://www.canaanvi.org.

For more information about Optech, go to www.optech.ca.

Sponsored by the IUP Department of Geography and Regional Planning. 

Daniel Griffith,who earned his bachelor’s degree in Mathematics Education in 1970 and his master’s degree in Geography in 1972 from IUP, is an Ashbel Smith Professor at the University of Texas at Dallas. He earned a second master’s from Penn State University and his doctoral degree from the University of Toronto. IUP presented him with a Distinguished Alumni Award in 1982.

Recently, Griffith was an invited visiting researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany, and was awarded a Fulbright Senior Specialist grant by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars to convene a series of workshops and seminars about spatial statistics and geographic information systems at the invitation of the University of Alberta. Previously a member of the faculty at Syracuse University, Griffith was awarded a Leverhulme Visiting Professorship to the University of Cambridge. While at Syracuse, he specialized in quantitative, urban, and economic geography.

As described in a 1999 issue of IUP Magazine, which featured a story about Griffith, spatial statistics, his specialty, can be thought of as number crunching or processing mounds of data concerning designated geographic situations or conditions. The processing results yield the problems’ solution or at least a pathway to the solution. He was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 2001 and was first listed in Who’s Who in the World in 2002.

Rachel Sams will serve as the student speaker. She will receive her B.S.Ed. in Elementary Education. Having a special interest in educating youngsters in urban settings, she has participated in the unique collaborative program that IUP has with the Community College of Allegheny College and has completed four field experiences in urban schools in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

Commencement ceremonies will be held May 13 at 11:00 a.m. at Miller Stadium. More than 1,400 graduates are expected to participate.