APCG 2025

Association of Pacific Coast Geographers 87th Annual Meeting

College of the Canyons, Santa Clarita, California

Registration and all paper, poster, and story map sessions will take place in the University Center (UCen) building at College of the Canyons (26455 Rockwell Canyon Rd, Santa Clarita, CA 91355) 

Questions can be emailed to  lily.housepeters@csulb.edu and elena.givental@csueastbay.edu

FINAL PROGRAM

Wednesday Oct 8

5:00-7:00              Informal Meetup at Brewery Draconum (24407 Main St., Santa Clarita) 

Thursday Oct 9

8:00-5:00              Field Trips

5:00-7:00              Welcome Reception at Pocock Brewing Public House (rooftop patio), 24329 Main                             

                               St., Santa Clarita, CA

Friday Oct 10

8:00-11:00            Registration & Geography Program Fair (UCen 1st Floor)

9:00-10:20         Paper Sessions 1

10:20-10:40          Coffee Break

10:40-12:00          Paper Sessions 2

12:00-1:20             Lunch Break/Optional Prepaid Box Lunch

12:00-1:20             Graduate Student Luncheon (UCen Ground Floor Patio)

1:20-2:40               Paper Sessions 3

2:40-3:00              Break

3:00-4:20              Paper Sessions 4

4:30-5:30               APCG Executive Council Meeting (UCen Room 222)

6:00-8:30              BBQ Dinner (6:30pm) with Keynote Presentation by Dr. Yolonda Youngs (Boykin Plaza & Lecture                                    Hall Boykin 105)

Saturday, October 11

8:00-11:00            Registration & Geography Program Fair (UCen 1st Floor)

9:00-10:20            Paper Sessions 5  

10:20-10:40          Coffee Break

10:40-12:00          Poster Session (UCen 2nd Floor Hallway) 

12:00-1:20             Lunch Break/Optional Prepaid Box Lunch

12:00-1:20             Women’s Network Luncheon (UCen Ground Floor Patio)

1:30-2:40               Keynote Address by AAG President Bill Moseley (UCen Room 258)

3:00-4:15               GeoBowl (UCen Room 206)

3:00-4:15     Award Deliberation (UCen Room 222)

4:30-5:30                 APCG Business Meeting (UCen Room 205)

6:30 -8:30               Awards Banquet with APCG President’s Address (UCen Room 258)

NOTE: Awards, scholarships and grants are available for students and faculty.  Please visit http://apcgweb.org/grants-scholarships for details.

FINAL SCHEDULE OF PAPER, POSTER & STORY MAP PRESENTATIONS

Each Presenter in a Paper Session will have 15 minutes to present + 5 minutes for questions

The annotations *U, *M, *P denote student award consideration at the undergraduate (*U), masters (*M), and PhD (*P) levels

Friday, OCTOBER 10

9:00-10:20am  Paper Sessions 1 (Friday, Oct 10)

1A – Geography Curriculum and Career Development I (UCen Room 205) (Session Chair: Christine Jocoy)

Christine Jocoy “Resources for Career Exploration and Development in Geography”

Melina Collins *M “Hosting an AAG Node: A Tool for Student Mentorship, Recruitment and Alumni Relations”

J. Chris Carter “Teaching Human Geography Using GIS.”

Zoe Lloyd *U “Practical Cartography: An Undergraduate Perspective on the Development of a Geographic Open Educational Resource”

1B – Blue Economy (UCen Room 206) (Session Chair: Varvara Krechetova)

Varvara Krechetova “Understanding the Blue Economy: Global Implementation of Sustainable Management Approach for Marine and Coastal Ecosystems”

Tuba Kayaarasi “Where Whales Meet Communities: The Sea of Cortez as a Living Laboratory Regenerative Tourism, Climate Change, and the Promise of the Blue Economy"

Aimee Tran *M "Keeping Up with the Tides: Comparing California Coastal Cities and Sea Level Rise Policy Using Text Analytics"

Robert West "Origin of the prominent shore platform at Goleta (UCSB Campus) Point."

1C -- Environmental & Human Inequalities & Justice I (UCen Room 207) (Session Chair: Hyowon Ban)

Aaron Guerra *P “Defining Disadvantage: Algorithms and Environmental Justice”

Christopher Ihinegbu *P “Environmental Justice and Environmental Behaviour in Disadvantaged Communities”

Hyowon Ban “COVID-19 and Anti-Asian Hate Incidents: In-depth Interviews and Mapping”

Shuo Liang *M “Historical Smelters and Cumulative Environmental Burden in the Northeastern United States”

1D -- Global & Political Geography (UCen Room 107) (Session Chair: Scott Warren)

Molly Miranker “Migrant deaths at the U.S. –Mexico border: Who, when, where and what we do not know”

Scott Warren “Immigration Enforcement vs. the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in the U.S.-Mexico Borderland”

Keavy McFadden “Chicago’s Post-Neoliberal Alternative: From Resistance to Governance”

Henryk Szadziewski "Narrating the Pacific: Think Tanks & Media in U.S. Policy Towards Oceania"

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10:40am-12:00pm  Paper Sessions 2 (Friday, Oct 10)

2A – Geography Curriculum and Career Development II (UCen Room 107) (Session Chair: Robin Datel)

Robin Datel “The Hornet Community Bus Tour: geographic education for faculty, staff, and administrators”

Jasmine Arpagain "Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences in Field Geography Classes”

Josh Merced “Learning by Doing: Embedding Course-Based Undergraduate Research in "Foods of the U.S.”

Sarigai Sarigai “Creating a modern and open-source curriculum for today’s GIScientist: The Guide to the Geographic Approach”

2B – Story Maps (UCen Room 205)

Raminder Singh Dubb (Co-Authors: Jonathan Pando Ocón & Kevin O'Sullivan): "Renter Realities in Los Angeles County, California (2010 to 2023)”

Brendan Curran *M “Habitat Explorer: How we created 360° video virtual field trips and you can too!”

Victor Zaragoza  *U (Co-Authors) Mariana Hernandez & Taylor Wardsworth) “The Evolution of the Los Angeles Rail Line System: A Story Map Analysis of Transit Equity and Gentrification Vulnerability”

Juan Sebastian Cortes *M (Co-Author: Brian Pidduck):  "From Ashes to Action: Documenting Altadena's Water Infrastructure Revival”

Iskar Waluyo “Food Insecurity: Suitability Analysis to Identify Locations in Los Angeles County for Food Hubs”

2C -- Agriculture & Climate Change (UCen Room 206) (Session Chair: Benjamin Timms)

Judith Bross *P “Agroforestry for Extreme Weather Resilience: A Multi-Method Approach to Nature-Based Solutions”

Jacquelyn Robles-Ernst *U “Resilience of Lettuce in California”

Parnian Shirdast *M "Using Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) to improve the quality of pseudo-absence data for crop suitability models"

Sara Snyder *U “Assessing the Future Viability of Christmas Tree Agriculture in Oregon Using Presence-Only Species Distribution Modeling”

2D -- Environmental & Human Inequalities & Justice II (UCen Room 207) (Session Chair: Terry Young)

Brian Pidduck *M “Exploring the effect of landscape vegetation on structure survival in the Palisade and Eaton fires in Los Angeles”

Caitlin Linehan *P “Who Gains, Who Loses? Equity Impacts of Park Closures and Open Streets”

Andres Reyna *P “Decision-making processes behind urban forestry in San Diego-Tijuana Region”

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1:20-2:40pm  Paper Sessions 3 (Friday, Oct 10)

3A -- Toward a Sustainable World (UCen Room 205) (Session Chair: Monika Calef)

Monika Calef “Wildfire Risk Assessment for Remote Alaskan Communities: A GIS-Based Approach for Identifying Priority Fuel Management Areas”

Sanchaeeta Adhikari “Mapping land degradation neutrality in California: Sustainable Development Goal framework 15.3.1”

Seqin (Sisi) Wang “Generative AI for Geographic Learning in Africa: Lessons from a Tanzanian Pilot Project”

William Selby “How Naturalists and Geographers Will Save California and the World”

3B – Food Geographies I (UCen Room 206) (Session Chair: Victoria Joya Euceda)

Waverly Ray “Teaching Food Geographies at San Diego Mesa College”

Gabriel Valle “Geographies of Food Apartheid: Mobility and the Challenge of the Rural”

Osvaldo Napoles Robledo *P “Resilience and community building among street food vendors: A foodscape case study of the city of San Diego, CA”

Victoria Joya Euceda *P “Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is: Credit Access and the Survival of Small and Immigrant-run Food Retailers in San Diego”

3C --  Urban Developement I (UCen Room 207) (Session Chair: Rhea Presiado)

Svetlana Babaeva *U "Mapping Urbanization Intensity and Land Cover Change in Las Vegas Valley”

Lily Heidger *P “Uncertainty in Cell-Phone Generated Bike and Pedestrian Volumes”

Valerie Washburn “The Global Radiant Garden City of Today: Los Angeles’ Park La Brea”

Brandon Wang *U “Corporate Shares in Atlanta’s Single Family Rental Market”

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3:00-4:20pm  Paper Sessions 3 (Friday, Oct 10)

4A – Interactive Workshop - "2YC - Community College Geography: Naming our Value and Staking our Place within the AAG" (Workshop Organizer: Lauren Hull) (UCen Room 208)

Community college (2YC) geography programs are on the forefront of Geography education and workforce development, yet their faculty, staff, and students frequently have fewer opportunities to engage with our professional associations and 4-year counterparts (4YC). This workshop centers on 2-year programs (2YC) as an untapped resource in sustaining and advancing the geographic discipline by exploring these questions:

• What innovations/successes do 2YC faculty/programs bring to the geographic discipline and the AAG?

• What barriers exist for 2YC faculty engaging with the AAG and it’s regional/national meetings?

• What changes could be made to regional/national meetings and AAG programmatic efforts to make them more valuable to 2YC faculty?

• What supports do 2YC faculty/programs need from their professional associations to enable engagement?

• What collaboration opportunities exist between and among 2YC programs, 4YC programs, and professional associations like the AAG?

At a time when geography degrees and programs are in decline, the inclusion and engagement of community college programs with professional associations and 4-year institutions not only strengthens our discipline as a whole, but our individual and programmatic efforts in geography.  Come join the conversation, make connections, and expand opportunities for collaboration. (This workshop is a product of an NSF Workshop Series “Strengthening Engagement between Disciplinary Societies and Community Colleges” led by the Geography Discipline Team composed of Lauren Hull (Portland Community College), Tamara Biegas (Harford Community College) and Patrick Shabram (Front Range Community College)).

4B– Food Geographies II (UCen Room 205) (Session Chair: Pascale Joassart-Marcelli)

Steve Graves "Evolving Food Landscapes of Los Angeles”

Mengya Xu, Kayla de la Haye, John P. Wilson “A GIS and Mobility Data Framework for Enhanced Measurement of Healthy Food Access and Environmental Exposures”

Greig Guthey “Beyond Access: The Structural Origins of Food Apartheid”

Pascale Joassart-Marcelli, Fernando Bosco, and Keavy Mcfadden “Digital Solutionism in “Food Deserts”: Can Platforms Fix Food Apartheid?”

4C -- Urban Development & Environment (UCen Room 206) (Session Chair: Josh Merced)

Mst Sanjida Alam *M "Geospatial Analysis of Urban Heat Islands and Heat Vulnerability in Chattogram, Bangladesh: Implications for Public Health Risks"

Yehua Dennis Wei “Geographies of Mortality Inequality”

Gulnara Nabiyeva *P “Open Government Data in Support of Planning and Sustainability in U.S. Cities”

Ricardo Contreras Giron *U “Spatial Association Between COPD Prevalence and Gas Station Density in Los Angeles County”

4D- Assessing the Natural World (UCen Room 207) (Session Chair: Alana Rader)

Alana Rader “The case for incorporating unassisted regeneration dynamics into urban oak woodland restoration following wildfire”

Martin Ha *U (Co-author Elijah Sagaran) “Automating the process to quantify total plant leaves and biomass for Salvia spp. for native plants’ field assessments for fire ecology and vegetation models.

Yash Kishorbhai Pansheriya *M (Co-author: Kristine Morquecho) “Quantifying Photosynthesis, Biomass, and Fire-Fuel Potential of Salvia mellifera (Lamiaceae) / (Black Sage) in Southern California.” 

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SATURDAY, OCTOBER 11

9:00-10:20am Paper Sessions 5 (Saturday, Oct 11)

5A - Geography Curriculum and Career Development III (UCen Room 107) (Session Chair: Gabriel Granco)

Gabriel Granco “Artificial Intelligence for Social Good: GIS and AI skills for undergraduates”

Nikita Prajapati “Community College Students’ Perception of Climate Climate Pre- and Post Analysis of Local Heat Exposures via Wearable Temperature and Humidity Sensors”

An-Min Wu “Advancing environmental and climate justice with place-based pedagogies in interdisciplinary environmental classrooms”

Lauren Hull “Queering Geography Education”

5B – Protected Areas Across the Globe (UCen Room 205) (Session Chair: Terry Young)

Terence Young “Teaching Conservation to ‘Africa’s Potential Leaders’”

Michael Pretes “Experiential Learning and Protected Areas: Reflections on Study Abroad Trips to Five Continents”

Ben Timms “Past and Future Research Concepts for Protected Area Analyses”

Xochizeltzin Castaneda-Camacho “Modeling Simultaneous Assessments in Arid Land Protected Areas”

5C- Urban Development II (UCen Room 206) (Session Chair: Kris Bezdecny)

Juan Cortez *M “Parcel-Level Adaptive-Reuse Readiness in Downtown Los Angeles’ Historic Core”

Gabrielle Peñaranda *P "The contentious health politics of car-free spaces and the pedestrian mobility movement”

Kris Bezdecny “There and Back Again”: Exploring Uneven Geographical Development in an Around-the-Westernish-US Train Journey”

Heather Bloom “Using Newspaper Content to Analyze the Effects of Automobile Parking on Clothier Location”

5D -- Cultural & Film Geographies (UCen Room 207) (Session Chair: Steve Graves)

John Harrington Jr. (Co-author: Thomas Larsen) "Sense of Climate: the Relevance of Seamon's Place Processes”

Jake Rowlett “Why not here? Why not us?:” How the “First Annual May the 4th Sci-Fi Film Festival” Created A New Cultural Space in Rural Ireland”

Daniel Grafton *P “Arctic Cinematic Cartography”

Ray Sumner "Outback Adventures of a Female Geographer”

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10:40am-12:00pm  Poster Session (Saturday, Oct 11) (UCen 2nd Floor Hallway)

Daniel Lott *M "Cannabis in Archaeology: GIS and Remote Sensing Approaches in Mainland China”

Galilea Marquez *M “Cultural Landscapes and Capital: Analyzing change over time in historic centers of power”

Ruohan Zheng *M “Developing a mathematical framework for identifying and quantifying shape similarity using concepts from topology”

Sneha Korat *M (Co Authors: David Penn, Stephany Garcia) “Stratification and Mixing in the Tijuana River Estuary”

Jingjing Li “Wildfire Trends and Air Quality Impacts in California: A Case Study of Woolsey Fire and Bobcat Fire”

João Bessa Santos (Co Author: Andrew Isaac Peterson Santos) “Portugal's 1986 European Union membership and its economic impact on the development of the Lisbon-Porto express train service during the 1980s”

Jinbo Niu *M “Spatial Heterogeneity of Area Deprivation Associated with Asthma Prevalence: A Cross-sectional Study in the U.S.”

Ashlee Campbell “Coastal Storm Modeling: Future cliff positions and reshaped coastlines under scenarios of a continued influx of rising sea levels”

Kestrel Whitewolf *U (Co-Authors: Quanyi Wang, Pierce Quijada & Miguel Ortiz)  “Distribution of castor bean in the lower arroyo secco”

Laura S. Grenot Jones *U (Co-Author: David E. Weber) “Geospatial Mapping of Lava Flows on Venus Using Manual Digitization and Machine Learning Techniques”

Maria Petra Lopez *U “Glacier Bay's Tourism Visibility and Warming Climate”

Kelly Huh (Co-Author: Sara Snyder) "Navigating Mt. San Antonio Gardens: A Community-Driven Campus Map Project"

Marisela Estrella *U (Co-Author: Jasmine Carranza) “Comparing Water Chemistry and Quality in Three Bay Area Tidal Marshes”

Maya Gallardo *U  “Climate Change Impacts on Fullerton’s Arboretum Vegetation”

Miranda Esteves *U “A trans-Atlantic transformation: Analyzing the influence of Geography in the birth of Cuban Santeria”

Serena Li *U “Why are all the therapists there? - How the spatial distribution of mental health providers in Los Angeles County correlates with demographic characteristics.”

Athina Rei Perez (Co-Authors: Andrew Halaby, Bryce Prim, Jacob Spier, Mario Giraldo, Jorge Vazquez, Latha Baskaran & Joe Roberts) “A Ten Week Internship Experience at NASA JPL, Exploring Ocean Variables in the California Coastal Region”

James Stembridge “China’s Língqú 灵渠 Magic Transport Canal: The World’s First Summit-Crossing Transportation Canal”

Justin Leist-Alston *U "The Palm Oil-Deforestation Nexus in Indonesia"

Lillian Dragu "Air Quality and Respiratory Health in Ventura County: Tracking PM2.5 with Asthma, 2015-2020"