UNT Grad Students take 1st and 2nd Place in Paper Competition | Department of Geography and the Environment
November 3, 2014

UNT Grad Students take 1st and 2nd Place in Paper Competition

UNT geography graduate students and undergraduate students piled into vans to attend this year's Southwestern Division of the Association of American Geographers Meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Two of our students, Levi McCollum and Ingrid Dunn, entered the graduate student paper competition and gave an oral presentation to SWAAG participants. Both came home winners!

Levi won first place for his research, which aims to understand how the Bolivian people experience the government's push to transition from gasoline and diesel-powered engines to compressed natural gas. He is conducting this research in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia's most automobile-centric urban center and Latin America's second fastest growing city. After spending a month in Bolivia this summer, Levi's research is revealing that automobile owners are currently the main beneficiaries of this transition, although somewhat surprisingly, participants who do not own an automobile speak more favorably of change over to natural gas. By dissecting the transition to compressed natural gas in Bolivia, Levi aims to deepen our understanding of governmental influence on people's transportation-related decisions and the gas's future as an alternative fuel.

Ingrid won second place for her research on the vegetation structure and species composition of Cross Timbers forest fragments in Denton County. She is currently comparing and contrasting forests in differing land-use contexts; some are protected, while others are surrounded by residential and agricultural land use. Ingrid spent one month gathering data this summer and has found that many of the forests do not share a large proportion of the same tree species. In addition, the abundance of trees and snags differs among the forest. These results are important because they suggest that a strategy that aims to protect all types of Cross Timbers fragments will be important for conserving plant biodiversity and endangered and threatened species such as the black footed ferret, the prairie chicken, Bobwhite quail, and the North American bobcat.

Congratulations!!