Archive for February, 2012
Bad UV map hurts melanoma risk screening
A few years ago I tried my hand at writing a few NIH grant proposals. I struck out. I had a couple applications scored but none were funded and they didn’t really come very close. In any case, while I was researching my topic I came across the map below on the National Cancer Institute’s [...]
Big Changes in Geography Department Rankings
Yesterday I posted my Top 20 Geography Department Rankings. There were some big changes since the last time that the NRC produced rankings and I thought it would be interesting to look at how some departments have moved up and down. So, I compared the 1995 rankings with the 2010 rankings and prepared the list [...]
Top 20 Graduate Geography Programs in the U.S.
2013 Rankings are now available! I love lists and, especially, ranked lists. Even though I never seriously considered going to medical school or engineering school I was always very interested to find out which programs were ranked at the top. I routinely read the US News & World Report annual rankings of top colleges and [...]
Geospatial MBA: a win-win for business schools and geography
I recently posed the following question to a group of geography academic types on LinkedIn: Why don’t more Geography departments team up with Business Schools to offer joint MBA-MA degrees (or undergraduate double majors)? It seems to me that this combination would be valuable to many businesses and would serve to promote the discipline of [...]
Geospatial Visualization in Business: Bringing John Snow into the Boardroom
John Snow was a physician in London in the 19th Century and he is famous for having used maps to identify the source of the Broad Street cholera outbreak in 1854. Dr. Snow’s work is often cited as the founding event in epidemiology. For me, it represents a key event in applied geography, demonstrating the [...]
How to Launch a GIS Career
I was recently asked to respond to the following inquiry. My response here is also posted on the Association of American Geographer’s (AAG) website under their Jobs and Careers FAQ I have heard that the field of geography is growing, especially in the area of GIS. I graduated with a degree in geography a couple [...]
Top 25 Sunniest US Cities Ranked by Housing Cost
I recently put together a way to calculate the price of a day of annual sunshine. I thought some people might be interested in finding just the sunniest places in America ranked by the cost of owning a home in those locations. Abilene is #1 and Texas dominates with 5 of the top 7 locations. [...]
The Price of a Sunny Day: Top 5 Bargain Cities for Sunshine
I recently learned that my hometown, Pueblo, Colorado, receives more sunshine than San Diego, California. I was really surprised and began to wonder who pays the most and who pays the least for sunshine in America? So I decided to take a look and see what I could find out. This simple analysis assumes that [...]
Moneyball and the Automotive Aftermarket on AftermarketAnalytics.com
I recently made a post on the aftermarketanalytics.com blog on Moneyball & the Automotive Aftermarket. Please check it out and, as always, leave a comment and let me know what you think! Just to give you an idea of what the article is all about, here are the first couple paragraphs: “I recently watched the [...]
Why Relocate to Pueblo Colorado – a Geographer’s Approach to Residential Location
I’m one of the growing numbers of fortunate people who are able to work from a home office and can live just about anywhere in the US. My only key work requirements are a good phone line, a solid internet connection and a major airport within driving distance (well, a quiet room and a pot [...]
