Today in Geography

Today, we welcomed Dr. Sue Grady, a professor in the Department of Geography, Environment, and Spatial Sciences at Michigan State University.
Dr. Grady is a health and medical geographer. Her research focuses on women’s health, specifically maternal and infant health. She is interested in understanding how local environments in which women live impact their health (i.e., increase the opportunity for infectious disease transmission and/or contribute to chronic diseases), which in turn, impair their pregnancies, leading to adverse maternal and infant outcomes. Most of her current research focuses on reducing maternal and infant mortality. She is studying perinatal regionalization in Michigan to improve our understanding of inpatient hospital referral patterns of high-risk African American mothers and infants. Dr. Grady utilizes geographic information systems (GIS) and spatial epidemiological methods, including multilevel modeling, to disentangle these complexities. The students she mentors are interested in a variety of health and medical geography topics.
Dr. Grady discussed her research as well as the official declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic by the World Health Organization on March 11, 2020. 
If you would like to learn more about Dr. Grady’s research, please visit https://geo.msu.edu/directory/grady-sue.html or her Google Scholar page at https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=IdbEU9oAAAAJ&hl=en.
If you would like to learn more about the American Association of Geographers Health and Medical Geography Specialty group, visit ⁠ https://www.aag.org/groups/health-and-medical-geography/.  
Our sponsor for this episode is the MSU onGEO Professional GIS Certificate Program. If you are looking to revamp your current career, earn continuing-education credits, or simply learn new and marketable geospatial skills, visit today to learn how to earn a professional certificate in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) or Geospatial Data Analytics & Visualization. Learn more at https://ongeo.msu.edu/.

Today we welcomed Kyla Dahlin an associate professor in the ⁠Department of Geography, Environment, and Spatial Sciences at Michigan State University. Dr. Dahlin is also a member of AgBio Research, the Department of Plant Biology, the Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior (EEB) program, and the Environmental Science and Policy Program (ESPP) at MSU. Dr. Dahlin’s research aims to better understand and quantify ecosystem processes and disturbance responses through the application of emerging technologies, including air- and space-borne remote sensing, spatial statistics, and process-based modeling. She is currently interested in semi-arid forest/grassland transition zones, where vegetation patterns are readily observable but poorly understood. Dr. Dahlin approaches questions by integrating observational data, modeling, and focused field experiments to both refine our understanding of ecosystem function and to improve our ability to predict how ecosystems and the climate will change in the future.
Dr. Dahlin discussed her research as well as the failed launch on February 24, 2009, of the first Orbiting Carbon Observatory. 
If you would like to learn more about Dr. Dahlin’s research, please visit the Ecological Remote Sensing and Modeling Lab at ersamlab.com. To learn more about the work of the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), check out the NEON Science YouTube channel. If you’d like to get involved with some fun and interesting citizen science efforts, download iNaturalist and Seek.

Today, we welcomed Katie Brown, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Geography, Environment, and Spatial Sciences at Michigan State University. Katie is a health geographer interested in how the places we interact with impact our health. While pursuing her PhD, her work has focused on how urban transformations may affect residents' mental health in the city of Detroit, Michigan, which is presently undergoing significant investment and transformation. For her dissertation, she used both qualitative and quantitative measures to identify the mediating factors between neighborhood change and mental health outcomes. Additionally, her work aims to recognize resources that may protect residents' mental health in the face of neighborhood change. Based on this case, she hopes to provide insights that can inform policy and planning decisions in other urban environments facing similar transformations. Beyond the academic frontier, Katie is committed to making a meaningful impact on the lives of those affected by urban transformations and promoting health equity in urban communities.
Katie discussed her research as well as the founding of the American Association of Geographers on December 29, 1904, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  
If you would like to learn more about Katie’s research, please visit the Space, Health, And Community (SHAC) Lab at https://www.spacehealthandcommunitylab.org/
If you would like to learn more about the American Association of Geographers, visit https://www.aag.org.
Our sponsor for this episode is the MSU onGEO Professional GIS Certificate Program. If you are looking to revamp your current career, earn continuing-education credits, or simply learn new and marketable geospatial skills, visit today to learn how to earn a professional certificate in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) or Geospatial Data Analytics & Visualization. Learn more at https://ongeo.msu.edu/.

Today we welcome Sandhya Sharma, a dual-major Ph.D. candidate in the ⁠Department of Geography, Environment, and Spatial Sciences⁠ and the Environmental Science and Policy Program at Michigan State University. She earned her master's degree in forestry from the Forest Research Institute in Dehradun, India, and her bachelor's degree in forestry from Kathmandu Forestry College in Nepal. Her research focuses on forest and disturbance ecology, particularly forest fire dynamics and their assessment using remote sensing. She is studying how plant water stress can predict burn severity in Nepal while developing methods to map forest fires and recurring disturbances, and estimate aboveground biomass loss by integrating remote sensing with field data.
Sandhya discussed the 26th Anniversary of the launch of ArcGIS on December 27, 1999. ArcGIS is a comprehensive geospatial platform for professionals and organizations. It is the leading geographic information system (GIS) technology. Built by Esri, ArcGIS integrates and connects data through the context of geography.
If you would like to learn more about Sandhya’s research, visit the ERSAM Lab website. 
Our sponsor for this episode in the MSU onGEO on-demand course offering of Interpreting Wetlands & Deepwater Habitats from Aerial Imagery. This online professional course teaches participants how to successfully interpret and classify wetlands from aerial imagery and high-resolution satellite imagery. While there are many ways to extract wetland features from imagery, all of them require the user to know how to interpret them first. For instance, automated classification requires training sites, which are features with a known classification. To learn more and register today, visit https://ongeo.msu.edu/ondemand/index.html.

Today we welcomed Stephen Przybylinski, a professor of urban and political geography in the ⁠Department of Geography, Environment, and Spatial Sciences at Michigan State University. Dr. Przybylinski is broadly interested in the ways in which liberal democracies both enable injustices and how such political systems mediate responses to injustices within their frameworks. Before arriving at MSU, he had a two-year post-doctoral position at Uppsala University, where he was a researcher on the JustNorth project, a Horizon 2020 project examining the ethical implications of Arctic development. Dr. Przybylinski holds a Ph.D. in geography from Syracuse University, an MA in geography from Portland State University, and a BA in urban studies and geography from the University of Minnesota.
Dr. Przybylinski discussed his research as well as National Homeless Persons Memorial Day, an event on or near the winter solstice (December 21st) coordinated by national organizations, including the National Coalition for the Homeless, the National Health Care for the Homeless Council, and the National Consumer Advisory Board, which remembers those who died homeless in the past year.
If you would like to learn more about Dr. Przybylinski’s research, please see his book The Injustice of Property: Homeless Encampments and the Limits of Liberalism, available from University of Georgia Press. 
Our sponsor for this episode is the Undergraduate Degree Program for the Department of Geography, Environment, and Spatial Sciences at Michigan State University. Choose from Bachelor of Science concentrations in Earth Observation & Geospatial Analytics, Physical Environment & Climate, or Human-Environment & Economic Geography. Or tailor your path through human, physical, and regional geography courses with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Ready to map your future? Visit geo.msu.edu and talk with an academic advisor today.
Note: This episode was recorded on November 14, 2025.