Today in Geography - Celebrating the founding of the American Association of Geographers with Katie Brown

Today, we welcomed Katie Brown, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Geography, Environment, and Spatial Sciences at Michigan State University. Katie is a health geographer interested in how the places we interact with impact our health. While pursuing her PhD, her work has focused on how urban transformations may affect residents' mental health in the city of Detroit, Michigan, which is presently undergoing significant investment and transformation. For her dissertation, she used both qualitative and quantitative measures to identify the mediating factors between neighborhood change and mental health outcomes. Additionally, her work aims to recognize resources that may protect residents' mental health in the face of neighborhood change. Based on this case, she hopes to provide insights that can inform policy and planning decisions in other urban environments facing similar transformations. Beyond the academic frontier, Katie is committed to making a meaningful impact on the lives of those affected by urban transformations and promoting health equity in urban communities.

Katie discussed her research as well as the founding of the American Association of Geographers on December 29, 1904, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  

If you would like to learn more about Katie’s research, please visit the Space, Health, And Community (SHAC) Lab at https://www.spacehealthandcommunitylab.org/

If you would like to learn more about the American Association of Geographers, visit https://www.aag.org.

Our sponsor for this episode is the MSU onGEO Professional GIS Certificate Program. If you are looking to revamp your current career, earn continuing-education credits, or simply learn new and marketable geospatial skills, visit today to learn how to earn a professional certificate in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) or Geospatial Data Analytics & Visualization. Learn more at https://ongeo.msu.edu/.