Biography

I taught geography at City College from fall1990 through spring 2021, and served as chair of the Earth Sciences Department from fall 1995 through spring 2009.

After completing my bachelor’s degree in geography at U.C. Berkeley in 1978, I served for two years as a teacher with the Peace Corps on Jeju Island in Korea. Upon returning to the United States after the Peace Corps, I worked for six years as a photographer, writer and educational audiovisual producer. I completed my master’s degree in geography at UCLA in 1990.

I am the author of the textbook, McKnight's Physical Geography: A Landscape Appreciation by Darrel Hess, illustrated by Dennis Tasa and published by Pearson. My association with the late founding author Tom McKnight began while serving as one of his teaching assistants at UCLA. I first wrote the Study Guide for the fourth edition of his book, and then the Laboratory Manual for the fifth edition. In 1999 Tom asked me to join him as co-author for the sixth edition of the textbook. After Tom's death in 2004, I took over as sole author of this book through its twelfth national edition and Fourth California Edition. The thirteenth edition of the textbook, with my new coauthor Redina Finch of Western Illinois University, was published in 2021.

I'm a member of the American Association of Geographers (AAG), the largest organization of professional and academic geographers in the country (link to AAG Website). I sponsor the AAG Darrel Hess Community College Geography Scholarship that provides funds for community college geography majors transferring to four-year colleges and universities (link to AAG Hess Community College Scholarship). In April 2014, I was deeply humbled to receive the American Association of Geographers 2014 Gilbert Grosvenor Geographic Education Honors.

My wife and I live in the East Bay. In our leisure time we enjoy photography, hiking, camping, scuba diving and amateur astronomy.

Annual Department Newsletter

To read about more of my personal activities and travels, see my contributions to our annual department newsletter:

Link to my Department Newsletter Articles. [For the highest quality photographs, download and open the PDF files.]

You may also read all of our department newsletters (link to Earth Sciences Department Newsletters).