Education

B. A. New College
Liberal Arts

B. A. University of Minnesota
Philosophy and Geography

M. A. University of Minnesota
Geography

Ph. D. University of Minnesota
Geography

Research

My work is at the intersection of cultural geography and the history of geographic ideas, of space and place and nature. Over the course of my career I have attempted to answer questions like the following: How do people construct a world composed of places that are very different one from another? How do they think about those differences? As people develop and mobilize new technologies, how do those places change, and how does their ability effectively to think about those places change?

Over the last ten years I have spent a great deal of time thinking about the nature and implications of the development of geographic information technologies, including geographic information systems, but also remote surveillance systems, global positioning systems, and computer-assisted cartography. This research has been closely connected to the concepts mentioned here--space and place and representation--but also to broader social and cultural issues, such as privacy, property, and identity.