Steven D. Prager, PhD

Suffice it to say, my professional and academic trajectories have been anything but conventional. I have an undergraduate degree in earth science and master's degree in geography, both from the Department of Geography and Earth Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Following that, I moved to Simon Fraser University in British Columbia where I received my PhD in Geography in 2002 following quite a few years of time split between the Puget Sound area and Vancouver, BC. Towards the latter part of this time period I began working, initially as a contractor and then later in a full capacity, for the Advanced Simulation Center, a division of Lockheed Martin Simulation, Training and Support. Though my time at LM put some distance between my degree and my first tenure track position, this was very valuable in that I was able to hone a variety of skills ranging from proposal writing and software engineering to project management. In addition, I was involved in cutting edge research and development which was ultimately a segue into my research in my current position.

Students in my lab work in a cross-section of areas with their research typically drawing from and merging elements from a set of common themes including: advanced analytic and modeling techniques, decision making and decision sciences, human-environment issues, and stakeholder engagement. I currently have several active graduate students. Among them:

• Ryan Anderson is in the process of wrapping up his research and his second year in his master's program. Ryan is examing how the spatial distribution of policy-based land management practices can influence the overall effectiveness of the land managagement at the watershed scale. His research is a subset of my broader work with the International Water Management Institute looking into the role of social-ecological networks as one basis for understanding potential approaches to implementing water management strategies in Ethiopian highland agroecosystems.
• Upendra Bom is also in his first year of studies. Upendra is interested in the role of participatory processes in waste management decision-making. His study will examine the transition from drop-off to curbside recycling in Laramie, WY, and the relationships between stakeholder participation and stakeholder satisfaction in that process.
• Deeppan Sapkota is in his first year of studies as well. Deeppan is focusing his research on understanding whether privatization of water supply services is exacerbating or improving water equity and water security in the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal.

• Jason "J.Z." Edwards is a PhD student in the University of Wyoming interdisciplinary Program in Ecology. I am Jason's committee co-chair working in conjunction with William Reiners in the Botany department. Jason is currently in Ethiopia on a Boren Fellowship conducting field work in the Fogera plain in the Amhara region. He is working on understanding local characteristics of soil dynamics utilizing a cellular automata model to better understand soil and water transport under different management and rainfall regimes. He will remain in Ethiopia for nine months. As with Ryan, Jason is also working on an extension of our research in partnership with IWMI.

• Lacey Johnsen is in the process of finishing her analysis and wrapping up her thesis. Lacey is developing approaches to use decision support processes for identifying the most appropriate enterprise GIS configurations for modern rural electric cooperatives.

• Dongdong "Cosmo" Wang is working with me and co-chair Michael Brose to finish up his master's research examining the role of the Semuren people in the Mongol-controlled Yuan Dynasty in China. Dongdong is using both social-network analysis and GIS to understand whether the qualitative narratives characterizing the Semuren roles in Mongol China are supported with more quantitative approaches.

I have recently graduated several students who have gone on to bigger and better things:

Adam Regula graduated in 2011. Adam's research addressed issues regarding the sense of experience and place on the Appalachian Trail. His research involved numerous interviews with a variety of stakeholders and a review of the different ways in which sense of place is cultivated among the diverse set of individuals who identify the Trail as important in their lives. Building on his experiences at Wyoming, Adam is pursuing a second master's degree with the Peace Corps Master's International program with the WVU Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Design. His current research examines hardwood regeneration in central Appalachia and landowner and resident perceptions of prescribed burning.

Grant Gardner completed his master's degree in 2011. His thesis, "Using Bird Diversity to Evaluate Ecosystem Change in the Madrean Sky Islands," examines how changes in bird diversity over time can be used to evaluate ecosystem state. Over the long-term, Grant is interested in understanding the potential effects of climate change and development on bird biodiversity how we can use this information to inform adaptive management in the area. Grant was funded by the Geography GIS Teaching Assistantship and a Department of Geography scholarship. He is currently a GIS Specialist for Western EcoSystems Technologies in Laramie, Wyoming.

Arjun Dongre defended his thesis and graduated in 2010. His thesis, "A Spatially Explicit Model to Minimize Landscape Disturbance in Wyoming Energy Development Sites," uses geodesign approaches to support decision making in order to minimize the impact of road building in energy development areas. Arjun's research combines network analysis techniques with spatial decision support methods and landscape metrics and offers a new approach for designing road networks in sensitive areas. His research was partially funded by the UW School of Energy Resources. Arjun works as a GIS Specialist/Environmental Scientist for Golder Associates, based in Denver, Colorado, and is currently on assignment in Calgary, AB Canada.

Patrick Dammann graduated in 2010 when he defended his thesis on issues regarding the representation and visualization of network concepts for purposes of creating complex functional networks (e.g., multi-modal transportation networks serving a specific purpose - see my Student Showcase for a screen shot of his work). Patrick was here on exchange from Hochschule Karlsruhe - Technik und Wirtschaft in Germany. He is currently working for exp Energy Services, Inc. in Tallahassee, Florida as part of their Geomatics division. There, among other projects, he is involved in the design and planning of the Keystone XL Pipeline Project.

Please contact me if you are interested in the work of any of these students. Students are frequently interested in hearing about job opportunities or graduate school options in their areas of expertise.