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Map of Hawaiʻi CC (Hawaiʻi Community College):
Map of UH Hilo (University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo):
APCG 2026 Conference Schedule
Association of Pacific Coast Geographers 88th Annual Meeting
Hawaiʻi Community College & University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo, Hawaiʻi
Locations of Conference Sites
Thursdayʻs registration and kīpaepae welina ~welcoming ceremony, keynote and huakaʻi ~excursion check-in location will take place at Papaʻā Hale at Hawaiʻi Community Collegeʻs Manono Campus (1175 Manono St, Hilo HI 96720)
Fridayʻs registration and keynote, and paper and story map sessions will take place in Campus Center 301 and University Classroom Building (UCB) at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo (200 W Kāwili St, Hilo HI 96720).
Saturdayʻs registration and paper and poster sessions will take place at Haleʻōlelo at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo (113 Nowelo St, Hilo HI 96720). The awards banquet will take place across the street at ʻImiloa (600 ʻImiloa Place, Hilo HI 96720).
Relative Locations of Campuses
Hawaiʻi CC (Thursday AM) and UH Hilo (Friday) are approximately 4 blocks apart - a 5-minute drive or 20-minute walk along West Kāwili St.
Hawaiʻi CC is makai ~ seaward, and UH Hilo is mauka ~ inland.
Parking is free and generally readily available on both campuses.
The UH Hilo buildings and conference sites Haleʻōlelo & ʻImiloa (Saturday) are approximately a 5- to 10-minute walk mauka from the main UH Hilo Campus. Although Haleʻōlelo and ʻImiloa are slightly separated from each other, they are just a few minutes walking distance. Each building has a free parking lot.
Questions can be emailed to Drew Kapp at dkapp@hawaii.edu (Hawaiʻi CC) and Chris Knudson at knudsonc@hawaii.edu (UH Hilo).
FINAL PROGRAM
Thursday, October 22 ~ Mohalu moon
Hawaiʻi CC Manono Campus
Registration 8:00–10:30 am, with complimentary light breakfast items (Papaʻā Hale)
9:00–9:30am Kīpaepae Welina ~ Welcoming Ceremony, Land Acknowledgement/Commitment by Hawaiʻi CC Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs Kimberley Collins (Papaʻā Hale)
9:30-10:15 am Hawaiʻi Keynote Kumu Kainana Francisco (Papaʻā Hale)
10:15–10:30 am Break
10:30 am Depart for Huakaʻi ~Excursions - transportation is provided
6:00 pm ish Pau Hana Gathering at Hale Kanikapila in Downtown Hilo (optional)
Friday, October 23 ~ Hua moon
UH Hilo Campus: Campus Center 301 & University Classroom Building (UCB)
Registration/Information 8:00–11:00 am (Campus Center 301)
Paper & StoryMap Presentations, Session 1
9am-10:20am (UCB 114, 115, 118, 331, K110)
Session 1A “Connecting Pacific Islands”
Session 1B “Parks & Protected Areas”
Session 1C “Urban 1: Hazards, Health & Justice”
Session 1D “HydroGeographies”
Session IE "Siting the Next-Generation Gravitational-Wave Observatory in the US"
10:20–10:40 am Break
Paper & StoryMap Presentations, Session 2
10:40am-12pm (UCB 114, 115, 118, 331)
Session 2A “Community Resource Management & Governance”
Session 2B “Geography Education: Pedagogical Approaches”
Session 2C “Urban 2: Urban Spatial Form”
Session 2D “Cultural Geography”
12:00–1:20 pm Lunch for purchase at UH Hilo campus (Dining Hall)
12:00–1:20 pm Graduate Student Luncheon (Campus Center 301)
1:30–2:30 pm Hawaiʻi Keynote Kumu Kuʻulei Keakealani, introduced by UH Hilo Chancellor Bonnie Irwin (Campus Center 301)
2:30–2:45 pm Break
2:45–4:00 pm Hawaiʻi Keynote with Dr. Kuʻulei Kanahele, with interactive Chant/Hei Workshop (Campus Center 301)
4:00–4:10 pm Break
Paper & StoryMap Presentations, Session 3
4:10pm-5:30pm (UCB 114, 115, 118, 331)
Session 3A “Risks & Hazards”
Session 3B “Rights to the City/Place”
Session 3C “Political Economy/Ecology”
Session 3D “Data & Methods”
5:40–6:40 pm APCG Executive Council Meeting (Campus Center 301)
6:00 pm ish: Downtown Hilo for Hilo Town Nightmarket experience and gathering at the Hawaiʻi Science & Technology Museum (optional)
Saturday, October 24 ~ Akua moon
UH Hilo Campus: Haleʻōlelo
Information Table 8:00–11:00 am (Lānai/Piko)
Paper & StoryMap Presentations, Session 4
9am-10:20am (lumi/room 202, 207, 211, 101)
Session 4A: "Risks & Hazards 2"
Session 4B: "Cultivating New Paradigms for Knowledge, Action & Adaptation"
Session 4C: "Food Geographies"
Session 4D: "Physical & Biogeographies"
10:20–10:40 am Break
10:40 am–12:00 pm Poster Session (Lumi Pāhiahia)
12:00–1:20 pm Lunch by Hawaiʻi CC Culinary Arts (Lānai/Ka Piko)
12:00–1:20 pm Women's Network Luncheon by Hawaiʻi CC Culinary Arts (112)
1:30–2:30 pm AAG Keynote Address: Dr. Sara Smith (Lumi Pāhiahia)
2:40–3:00 pm Break
3:00–4:20pm GeoBowl (Lumi Pāhiahia)
3:00-4:00pm APCG Business Meeting (202)
UH Hilo Campus: ʻImiloa
4:30-5:30pm ʻImiloa Exhibit Hall and Native Gardens Visit (optional)
5:30-7:30pm Awards Banquet with APCG President's Address: Dr. Lily House-Peters (Moanahōkū Hall, ʻImiloa)
DETAILED PROGRAM
DETAILED PROGRAM
Note:
(*PhD) denotes PhD level, (*M) denotes Masters level, and (*U) denotes Undergraduate level student papers and posters submitted for consideration in the Best Paper and Poster competitions. Students must be the presenting first authors to be eligible.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23
FRIDAY, 9:00-10:20am Paper Session 1
1A – Connecting Pacific Islands (Room UCB 114)
Session Chair: Kieren Rudge
1. Kieren Rudge (*PhD), Mina Adabag and Erythrina Ngirkelau “U.S. militarization and climate change along the “Second Island Chain”: Destruction and resistance across an imagined archipelago”
2. Keegan Kessler (*PhD) “Dancing Across the Sea: Digital Geographies of Performance in Kānaka ‘Ōiwi Diaspora”
3. Sofia McCabe (*U) and Sophia Perez “Oceanic Imaginaries: Understanding conceptualizations of “the Pacific” in and out of western educational institutions”
4. Alessandra Shea and Alexander Mawyer “Stone Fishing: Māʻohi Fishing Practices as Rituals of Sovereignty in Maupiti, French Polynesia
1B – Parks & Protected Areas (Room UCB 115)
Session Chair: Michael Pretes
1. Michael Pretes & Justin Spelbrink, “Geocaching in California State Parks”
2. Terence Young, “Parks, Firearms, and the Making of an Accidental Expert”
3. Xochizeltzin Castaneda-Camacho, “Mining Extractivism in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, Minnesota”
4. Deseret Weeks, “Protected Areas under the Second Trump Administration: Power, Governance, and Socio-Environmental Consequences Across Six Cases”
1C – Urban 1: Hazards, Health, & Justice (Room UCB 118)
Session Chair: An-Min Wu
1. An-Min Wu, Nelson Henriquez, Jiayi Lu & Guoping Huang, “Modeling Pedestrian-Level Shade Availability in South Los Angeles”
2. Andrés Peñalosa Reyna (*PhD), Ethan M. Nichols & Amy Quandt, “Urban tree preferences for climate action: Community perspectives in Lemon Grove, California”
3. Ann Marie Beasley (*U), StoryMap, “Prisons, Pollutions, and Place: Mapping Environmental Hazards in Carceral Landscapes”
4. Yuezhi Shen, “The 1968 Transit Referendums in Los Angeles, Seattle, and Atlanta”
1D – HydroGeographies (Room UCB 331)
Session Chair: Sean Pries
1. Sean J. Pries, “Pure Water, Pure Profit: Selling Strawberry Creek”
2. Melinda Collins, “Hydrologic Connectivity of a Sub Alpine Meadow: Eastern Sierra Nevada, California”
3. Sara Snyder (*M), “Post-Wildfire Water Quality Response in Castaic Lake: Integrating Multi-Source Observations and Random Forest Modeling”
4. Shruti Soman (*M), “Integration of SWOT and OPERA for Lake Area-Elevation-Volume Change”
1E – Siting the Next-Generation Gravitational-Wave Observatory in the United States (Expert Panel) (Room: Edith Kanaka’ole Hall 110)
Panel Description: The National Science Foundation’s Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), alongside international partners Virgo and KAGRA, revolutionized astrophysics by detecting hundreds of binary black hole and neutron star mergers. Cosmic Explorer (CE), the next-generation U.S. gravitational-wave observatory, will scale detector arm lengths from LIGO’s 4 km to CE’s 40 km. This expansion will extend gravitational-wave astronomy to the edge of the observable universe, probing remnants of the first stars, extreme matter, strongly warped spacetime, and unforeseen cosmic phenomena. In parallel with technical design, an NSF-funded collaborative effort is identifying and evaluating candidate sites. This panel presents the methodology used to uncover optimal locations that maximize scientific impact, remain within budget constraints, support workforce retention, and foster sustainable host community partnerships. The evaluation framework encompasses four key phases: use Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to conduct national and local suitability analyses, assess "science per cost" efficiency paired with calibrated financial models, conduct technical field assessments of site geology, seismicity, and ambient environmental noise, and develop collaborative synergies with host communities. These efforts will down-select six candidate locations for an official NSF report, directly enabling future discoveries that advance science and inspire the public.
Panel Chairs: Chris Lukinbeal (The University of Arizona) & Joshua Smith (CSU Fullerton)
Panelists:
Anike Sharma, The University of Arizona
Warren Bristol, The University of Arizona
Geoffrey Lovelace, CSU Fullerton
Laurence Datrier, CSU Fullerton
Oscar Romero, CSU Fullerton
10:20am-10:40am Break
FRIDAY, 10:40am-12pm Paper Session 2
2A – Community Resource Management & Governance (Room UCB 114)
Session Chair: Monika Calef
1. Monika P. Calef and James O. Spady, “Locating historic Acjachemen rancherias in Orange County, CA”
2. Andrew Kalani Carlson, “Loko iʻa: A coastal refuge for sovereign ʻŌiwi stewardship under and beyond settler-colonial occupation”
3. Noah Schlager (*PhD), “Native Seed Bank Heist: Liberating O’odham Seeds as Conservation and Sovereignty”
4. Mary Bannister (*PhD), “Trekking Futures: Indigenous Place-Based Tourism Initiatives in Dolpo, Nepal”
2B – Geography Education: Pedagogical Approaches (Room UCB 115)
Session Chair: Christine Jocoy
1. Heather L. Bloom, “Geospatial librarians lack critical advanced skills: A literature review of the implications for library managers”
2. John Harrington Jr. and Lisa Tabor, “Teaching with a Planetary Geography Mindset: Reorientation Toward Global Repair”
3. Linna Li, “Beyond the GIS Lab: Teaching Urban GIScience Through Research Reproduction”
4. Christine Jocoy, “Making Career Readiness Visible for Geography Students: A California State University Learning Innovation for Future-Forward Teaching (CSU-LIFT) project”
5. Gabriela Shirkey, Madeleine Pascolini-Campbell, Kerry Cawse-Nicholson, Gregory R Goldsmith, Glynn Hulley, Christine Lee, Kelly Luis, Kenlea Pebbles, Richelle Tanner, Claire Villanueva-Weeks & Joshua B. Fisher, “CONNECTing Classrooms to Research: Undergraduate Training in Thermal and Imaging Spectroscopy”
2C – Urban 2: Urban Spatial Form (Room UCB 118)
Session Chair: Menga Xu
1. Mengya Xu, “Neighborhood characteristics and hypertension prevalence among older U.S. adults: Implications for age-friendly cities”
2. Arson Kim (*U), Story Map, “Read Between the Signs: An Examination of Continuity and Change in Chinatown, Los Angeles”
3. Jialin Tang (*M), “The Spatial Relationship Between Chinese Restaurants and Chinese Population in Los Angeles County”
4. Yue Wu (*M), “Assessing Spatial Accessibility to Healthcare Clinics for Children in San Francisco Using the Two-Step Floating Catchment Area Method”
2D – Cultural Geography (Room UCB 331)
Session Chair: Steve Graves
1. Mia Gonzalez (*U), “The Bluest Things on Earth”
2. Natalii Reyes (*U), “The Geography of Sexism in Fairytales”
3. Shawkat Sanbar, “Mapping the Blues: Regional Sound and Black Geographies”
4. Steve Graves, “From Textbook to Interactive Atlas: Teaching Cultural Geography through StoryMaps and Interactive Atlases”
12:00–1:20 pm Lunch
Lunch for purchase at UH Hilo campus (Dining Hall)
Graduate Student Luncheon (Campus Center 301)
1:30-2:30pm Hawaiʻi Keynote Kumu Kuʻulei Keakealani, introduced by UH Hilo Chancellor Bonnie Irwin” (Campus Center 301)
2:30pm-2:45pm Break
2:45-4pm Hawaiʻi Interactive Keynote with Dr. Kuʻulei Kanahele, with Chant/Hei Workshop (Campus Center 301)
4pm-4:10pm Break
FRIDAY, 4:10-5:30pm Paper Session 3
3A – Risks & Hazards (Room UCB 114)
Session Chair: Gabriel Granco
1. Gabriel Granco, “Impact of Extreme Weather Events on Specialty Crop Land Use in California (2008-2023)”
2. Steve LaDochy, “Southern California's 2026 Heat Waves”
3. Evelyn Daniela Macias (*U), “Spatial Analysis of Mass Movements in the Interior Wrangell Mountains”
4. Laura Grenot Jones (*U), StoryMap, “Lifelines at the Earthquake Gate: A Story Map of Infrastructure Exposure in the Cajon Pass–San Gorgonio Corridor”
3B – Rights to the City/Place (Room UCB 115)
Session Chair: Bethany Manalo
1. Bethany N. Manalo (*PhD), “Moms, Take Up Space!: Student-Mothers, Spatial Rhetoric, and the Paradoxes of Public Belonging”
2. Osvaldo Napoles Robledo (*PhD), “Popular Economies, Public Space, and Urban Change: Livelihoods in San Diego and Emerging Frontiers of Gentrification in Mexico City”
3. Xiaoyun Neo (*PhD), “Place Attachment and Socioecological Relationships in Nature-based Third Places in Singapore”
4. Tomas Piedad, “Homeland Regional Identity, Labor Pathways, and Belonging among Filipino Immigrants in Long Beach, California”
3C – Political Ecology/Economy (Room UCB 118)
Session Chair: Jessica Barlow
1. Jessica Barlow, “Engaging geography students and faculty in large-scale, transdisciplinary, community-based participatory research”
2. Induja Kumar (*M), “Semiconductor Hinterlands: Land, Water, and Labor Between Silicon Valley and the Interior West”
3. Mark Krzyzanowski (*PhD), “Deciding the Dwelling: Administrative Invisibility, Climatic Opportunity, and Hawai’i County's Uncounted Homes”
4. Samuel J. King (*M), “USAID-Zambia: The Lived Experience of an Aid Rupture and the Retrenchment of U.S. Soft Power”
3D – Data & Methods (Room UCB 331)
Session Chair: Olivia Jarvis
1. Olivia Jarvis, Ryan Perroy, Joseph Percival & Patricia Pérez, “Searching for spectral and structural signatures of strawberry guava (Psidium cattleyanum) in aerial imagery and lidar data”
2. Christopher Swindell (*PhD), “When Models Err: Spatially Explicit Evaluation of Explainable AI for Correct and Incorrect Predictions”
3. Elisabeth R. Roche (*M), “Agent-Based Modeling the Trophic Cascades of Keystone Species: The Southern Sea Otter of California's Pacific Coast”
4. My-Thu Tran (*PhD), “Multi-source remote sensing for surface flood mapping in smallholder rice paddies in Cambodia”
5. Manny Lopez, “Measuring the Hydrologic Footprint of Pre-Contact Hawaiian Agricultural Walls: A LiDAR Counterfactual Analysis at Waiʻele, Puna”
5:40–6:40 pm APCG Executive Council Meeting (Campus Center 301)
6:00 pm ish: Downtown Hilo for Hilo Town Nightmarket experience and gathering at the Hawaiʻi Science & Technology Museum (optional)
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24
Saturday, 9am-10:20am Paper Session 4
4A – Risks & Hazards 2 (Room 202)
Session Chair: Ryan Tans
1. Jingjing Li, Erik Weisner & Alireza Farahmand, “Modeling Post-Wildfire Runoff and Hydrologic Recovery Following the 2020 Bobcat Fire in Southern California”
2. Ryan Tans & Anwar Jimpe Rachman “The Growing Land: A local history of coastal reclamation in Makassar, Indonesia”
3. Melinda Collins, “Hydrologic Connectivity of a Sub Alpine Meadow: Eastern Sierra Nevada, California”
4. Ibisia Jack (*PhD), “Maladaptive Fire Governance in the Kgalagadi District, Botswana: How Knowledge, Distance, and Inequality Shape Wildfire Vulnerability”
4B – Cultivating New Paradigms: Knowledge, Action & Adaptation (Room 207)
Session Chair: Lisa Chaudhari
1. Lisa Chaudhari & Subha Chowdhury, “Cultivating local ecological knowledge among students in the San Fernando Valley”
2. Mira Busch (*M), “Beyond Intention and Towards Action: Navigating Responsible Research by Centering Indigenous-led Research Methodologies with Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT)”
3. Michelle Harangody, “Sociotechnical imaginaries of adaptation in Hawaiʻi: Coral reefs as infrastructure”
4. Plunkett, Kamuela “Project Wao: Initiating an Intergenerational Land-Use Planning Paradigm that Restores Resilience by Restoring Islander Pilina ‘Āina (Land Relationship)
4C – Food Geographies (Room 211)
Session Chair: Rajrani Kalra
1. Lia Faaleava (*PhD), “Exploring Food Literacy Among Samoans Living in the San Francisco Bay Area”
2. Ran Ma (*M), “From Environmental Suitability to Agricultural Planning: A Maxent-Based Analysis of Tropical Fruit Cultivation on Hawai’i Island”
3. Rajrani Kalra & Ann Marie Beasley, “A geographic analysis of food hunger and the unhoused population in the city of San Bernardino”
4. Yansong Li, Edward Spang, Claire Napawan, Catherine Brinkley & Brian E. Roe, “Excess to Access: The Role of D2C Surplus Food Platform in Reducing Food Waste and Insecurity”
4D – Physical & Biogeographies (Room 101)
Session Chair: Judith Bross
1. Judith Bross (*PhD), “Can Trees Keep Farms Cool? Causal Estimates of Tree Density Effects on Farmland Surface Temperature During Extreme Heat”
2. Mario A Giraldo, “Investigating Ocean fronts at the UNESCO Sea Flower Reserve in the Caribbean”
3. Charles Cole (*U), StoryMap “Community-Based Conservation and Human-Snow Leopard Conflict in Dolpo”
4. Nai'a Odachi, Ryan Perroy & Stacey Torigoe, StoryMap, “Forest mortality patterns following ungulate management in Hawaiʻi”
10:20am-10:40am Break
Saturday, 10:40am-12pm: POSTER SESSION (Lumi Pāhiahia)
1. Gabriela Shirkey, Kyla Monique Cabrera, Maize Lewis, Kelly Luis & Richelle Tanner “Examining spectral diversity-biodiversity relationships in California’s rocky intertidal zone”
2. Kelly Luis, Theola Kumangai, Gil Lopez, Sam Kuhn & Gabriela Shirkey, “Connecting the Ways We See Our Island Watersheds”
3. Viv Kammerer, “Media Coverage of Climate Disasters Across Pacific Islands and Asia—A Comparative Study of Hawaiʻi and the Himalayas"
4. Anna Neubauer Vickers (*M), “No Common Ground? Narratives and Discourse in the Protected Areas Conflict in Point Reyes National Seashore”
5. Valerie Neale “Using Remote Sensing and GIS to promote Human-Elephant Coexistence in Tanzania”
6. Kaiinipuuwai PatriciaAnn Keliihoomalu-Holz, “Reconnecting Place and Story: Sharing Kaimū’s History Through Community-Based Mapping and Storytelling”
7. Dexter Hamilton (*M), Daniel Sousa, Janet Franklin, Takuma Chipman & Brooke Rose, “Observing oaks: Uncovering seasonal changes in California oak tree canopies using hyperspectral aerial imagery”
8. Hannah Lehman (*M), “Mapping Land Cover and Emergent Vegetation Classes on the Exposed Playa at the Salton Sea”
9. Joe Caxton Odawa (*M), “Where is the Shade: Shade Equity and Distribution and its Effects on the Residents of Long Beach, California”
10. Lucas South (*M), “Impacts of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Satellite Constellations on Local Dark Skies”
11. Peisen Gong (*M), “Measured or Inferred? Testing Whether Generated Imagery Can Replace Drone Flight Lines in 3D Scene Reconstruction”
12. Sam Flexo (*M), “Is Firewise, Firewise?”
13. Zhiyuan Yang (*M), “Capacity, Warning, and Mobility: A Zone-Level Framework for Wildfire Evacuation Risk in Los Angeles County's Wildland-Urban Interface”
14. Christina Maria Carasis (*U), “Arvanitochoria: Arvanite Cartographies in the Greek Nation-State”
15. Crystal Francis (*U), “Dogs IN, Dogs OUT! (Understanding Differences in Shelter Statistics)”
16. David Pincus (*U), “Characterizing Urban Forest Connectivity Through the Nature Patches Program in Portland, Oregon”
17. Joanna Baca (*U), “When Ancestors Burn: The Threat of Buffelgrass and Stinknet to the Saguaro Communities of the Tohono O'odham Nation”
18. Tamara Hakobyan (*U), “Pioneering Geospatial Methods to Investigate Internal Solitary Waves in the Bay of Bengal”
19. Maria Petra Lopez (*U), “California Coastal Erosion and Management”
20. Lilikoi L. Litulumar (*U), Sita Hale, Janis Rinell Taitano, Benny Lat Jr & Sam Lee, “Maisu (“Fallen Breadfruit”): Pacific Islander Oral Histories of Climate Change and Community Resilience”
12:00–1:20 pm
Lunch by Hawaiʻi CC Culinary Arts (Lānai/Ka Piko)
Women's Network Luncheon by Hawaiʻi CC Culinary Arts (Room 112)
1:30–2:30 pm AAG Keynote Address: Dr. Sara Smith (Lumi Pāhiahia)
2:40–3:00 pm Break
3:00–4:20 pm GeoBowl (Lumi Pāhiahia)
3:00-4:00 pm APCG Business Meeting (Room 112))
4:30-5:30 pm ʻImiloa Exhibit Hall and Native Gardens Visit (optional)
5:30-7:30 pm Awards Banquet with APCG President's Address: Dr. Lily House-Peters (Moanahōkū Hall, ʻImiloa)
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