Penn State professor of the week
Geography is so hot right now
This week, we found a prof who is more crazy about rocks than Justin Timberlake. She is a professor of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and in her third year teaching in Happy Valley. Her list of accomplishments is high, but we’re thinking having a chili pepper rating might just make the top of her list.
On RateMyProfessors.com, she has an overall quality rating of 3.9, obviously followed by a chili pepper rating. Let’s find out how she feels about this career defining moment.
What do you teach and how long have you been at Penn State?
I teach five classes. Geographic Information Systems, Advanced GIS Modeling, GIS Seminar: Interpersonal Relationships in Geographic Space, GIS Skills for Graduate Students and Spatial Network Analysis in GIS. It’s a lot of different courses to learn to teach, but I love my students. This is my third year at Penn State.
Have you read your ratings on “Rate My Professor” and do they affect how you teach?
I haven’t read the ratings – I don’t want to because I might read one and get too self-conscious! I do read my class feedback ratings from the official Penn State SRTEs. These are really helpful – even today I changed some slides based on feedback from last year’s class. My goal is to help students learn new things and foster a respectful, supportive classroom, so I focus on that. There’s also a known, statistical gender bias with Rate My Professors and other teacher ratings, which is terrifying to think about, but it’s cool that people are looking at the scores scientifically.
Did you already know you were deemed worthy of the pepper before this?
I was on the ice hockey team in college and my teammates and I stay in touch over long email chains. One of them found the chili pepper and I definitely got made fun of. I’m glad they’re checking up on me… best friends love you like that.
Would you have ever taken a class because of a ‘pepper’ rating, when you were in college?
Absolutely not, but I did use Rate My Professor to see if professors were nice before I’d take a class. Only in undergrad though. In graduate school, I cared more about the topics.
What is your ideal date in downtown State College?
I do actually study this as part of my research with my PhD student. And we have new research that hasn’t come out yet, but it shows that romantic memories in State College are often made via outdoor activities like going to the arboretum, going hiking, etc. Clubbing and the like, less so… In general, undergrads tend to hang out in groups, or one group will meet up with another groups. The mid to late 20-30 somethings tend to go to Saints. Check it out on a Sunday—it’s cool to see all the couples engrossed in their conversations, adorably unaware that everyone around them is doing the same thing. I forget the source, but I read once that middle age people on first dates like to go to Panera.
Personally, I think volunteering is a good date. So is ice skating and painting pottery…but I do know some guys who aren’t into those things.
Who is your own personal Hot Prof?
Thank you so much for asking. I have a celebrity professor crush on Mason Porter. He’s in the math department at UCLA. I’ve never met him, but I love his work on networks and complexity. He writes very directly as well. Mathematicians make the best writers. I think he’s a genius. Swoon, he’s so cool.
But there are a lot of hot professors out there—guys and girls. Having a passion, following your ideas, believing in something, doing good science—that kind of dedication is hot. I like nanofibers more than Adam Levine, text mining more than Channing Tatum and animal behavior more than Justin Timberlake. Maybe that’s why I’m still in the classroom.
My fellow colleague had lunch, here, on THIS campus, with NFL star and math PhD student John Urschel. Talk about #STEMcrushes.
Please tell us you are going to put this achievement on the top of your resumé?
This achievement is my new resumé.
Anything else you want to share with us?
Be a Geography major! Learn about satellite imagery, urban design, water rights, overseas movement of jobs and industry, nutrition in indigenous communities, terrorism, oil drilling, immigration, digital cartography, protecting animals…if it happens on earth, we’re on it.
Geography is so hot right now.