Three Geography graduate students recently received awards from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Edgar Sandoval (left) and Rob Anderson (right), both first-year graduate students in the Department, were awarded the NSF’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program, and Jen Porter (center) received an NSF Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement (DDRI) award.
The DDRI is awarded competitively to fund specific research projects. Jen’s award will support her doctoral research investigating urban planning as an innovative solution to the problem of domestic violence, and the relationship between the built environment and social milieu across generations in one designed community in Costa Rica’s Central Valley.
The GRFP will provide multiple years of graduate funding for Edgar and Rob, as well as additional opportunities for professional development and international research. Edgar plans to conduct research on the UndocuQueer movement and how UndocuQueers create spaces for social and political identity formation, specifically focusing on the politics of alliance building with which UndocuQueers engage, and Rob’s work will focus on the geography of ecological restoration in the Pacific Northwest.