I was born and raised in Glasgow, Scotland, where many formative geographical experiences took place. The first member of my family to finish high school (Allan Glen's) and go on to university, I stuck close to home and daily crossed the river from Govan to Gilmorehill. At the University of Glasgow (1969-1973) I graduated with an M.A. in Regional and Systematic Geography, thereafter traversing the Atlantic, not the Clyde, to pursue my graduate education.

Two degrees from the University of Alberta (M.A., 1975; Ph.D., 1980) convinced me that I might, after all, have a future career in education. Queen's University hired me in September 1979 on a one-year contract, ABD. After I defended my dissertation three months later, Queen’s re-hired me for another one-year position. Since then, I have remained at Queen's in various guises: Killam, SSHRC, and Plumsock postdoctoral fellow, tenure-track appointee, tenured professor, and now professor emeritus. At the Universidad Pablo de Olavide in Seville, Spain, I also serve (and have done since its founding in 1997) as visiting professor in Latin American history.

Degree Credentials:

• M.A. (Glasgow)
• M.A., Ph.D.. (Alberta, 1980)

Research Interests

For the most part, my research relates to a long-standing interest in the nature of the colonial experience in Latin America, which varied markedly from place to place. The regional setting I am most familiar with is Central America, specifically Guatemala, but over the years I have conducted research throughout Latin America, from Mexico in the north to Argentina and Chile in the south, including some work on Brazil. A central issue of my research is indigenous response to imperial intrusion. Of particular importance in this regard are patterns of native survival. Why, for example, were the Maya of Guatemala (today still half the national population) more successful in shaping a culture of survival than their autochthonous counterparts elsewhere in the Americas? What were the key determinants in the complex process of cultural continuity as well as cultural change? Answering these questions requires careful consideration (among other factors) of contact-period culture, environment and resource use, landholding and settlement, economic demands and ethnic relations, and demographic shifts over time. The colonial connection between Old World disease and New World depopulation has consumed much of my attention. In 1996, my work in these fields earned me the Carl O. Sauer Distinguished Scholarship Award from the Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers, a laurel that was followed by a Queen's University Prize for Excellence in Research in 2013 and an Award for Scholarly Distinction in Geography from the Canadian Association of Geographers in 2014. That same year, in recognition of my research achievements, I was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. In 2012-13 I was the recipient a Killam Research Fellowship from the Canada Council for the Arts, only one of a handful of geographers to be so honoured. Likewise, in 2016 I was one of very few non-US citizens elected to serve as President of the American Society for Ethnohistory. In 2018, the Conference of Latin American Geography bestowed on me its Preston E. James Eminent Career Award, my second such honour from the professional body I identify with most.

While the study of colonial Latin America is the subject I would consider my primary area of specialization, I am interested in other aspects of historical and cultural geography as they relate to regions outside of Latin America, especially Spain, where (as part of my affiliation with the Universidad Pablo de Olavide) I also supervise graduate students. I consider it important that, as academics, we try to share the results of our research with an interested general public and publish in languages other than English. With these ends in mind I have published op-ed pieces in the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, and the Ottawa Citizen as well as having my work translated into languages other than English, in Spanish, French, Italian, and Catalan. On two occasions (1995 and 2005) stories I have written have been short-listed in the CBC Literary Awards competition. My love of music is reflected in two memoirs about the British rock group, Procol Harum.

Also central to my research endeavours has been my co-editorship (with Armando J. Alfonzo) of the journal Mesoamérica, published in Spanish as a venture that began life more than forty years ago with the founding of Centro de Investigaciones Regionales de Mesoamérica (CIRMA) in Antigua, Guatemala. Over the past four decades Mesoamérica has emerged as the premier forum for scholarly research on the region between Mexico and Panama. Between 1998 and 2008 I co-edited issues 36 through 50 of Mesoamérica, as well as a bibliographical guide (Indice General) to the contents of all fifty numbers of the journal then published to date. I continue to serve Mesoamérica both as contributor and member of its editorial board, my ties to CIRMA ongoing too.

Teaching and Supervisory Duties

Undergraduate teaching duties at Queen’s have seen me teach at all levels in the curriculum, from introductory first-year courses to fourth-year Honours seminars. Two of the latter have included memorable field excursions to Spain, where Seville was the site of student inquiries. Others have involved day outings to archives, art galleries, and museums in Ottawa and Toronto. Over the past decade, besides instructing GPHY 101 (Geography and the Environment) and GPHY 229 (Place, Space, Culture, and Social Life), two courses in regional geography (GPHY 257/Middle America and GPHY 258/South America) have proven perennially popular not only among students in Geography but also those in programs of study across the Faculty of Arts and Science. At graduate level, the course I have offered most frequently, and fruitfully, is GPHY 874 (Seminar in Cultural Geography). Graduate students under my supervision at Queen’s undertake their investigations for the most part in the field of historical-cultural geography, their spatial focus being not only far-flung parts of Latin America, but Canada and Spain as well.

As noted above, I teach and supervise graduate students in the Master’s and doctoral program in Latin American history at the Universidad Pablo de Olavide in Seville, Spain. Though demanding, this is an experience I undertake with considerable satisfaction, as it allows me to engage with students from all over Latin America, something simply not possible given the way graduate programs at Queen’s are organized, funded, and run.

For further details and access to publications, please visit Professor Lovell's personal website.

Curriculum Vitae (PDF, 389 kB)

Dr Hok-Lin Leung is an architect-planner. He was Director of the School of Urban and Regional Planning from 1997-2009. He has also been a Specially Appointed Expert, Personnel Training Center Development Research Center, State Council, China; Member, Town and Country Planning Experts Committee, Ministry of Construction, China and  Research Fellow in the Chinese Academy of Land and Resource Economics. In 2002, he received the  Friendship Award from the State Council, China (This is the highest award by China to a foreign expert, administered by the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs).

Dr. Leung  is the director of the China Projects Office at the School. The office has training, exchange and research projects funded variously by CIDA, Canadian Donner Foundation, and the Chinese Ministry of Land and Resources. Currently, he does two lecture tours in China annually covering the following places: Development Research Center of the State Council, the Ministry of Land and Resources, the Ministry of Urban and Rural Construction and Housing, the China Executive Leadership Academy at Pudong, the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design, Tsinghua University, Peking University, the Central University of Finance and Economics, Fudan University and Tongji University.

He is the the co-founder of the National Executive Forum on Public Property, at Queen's. Founded in 1998, the Forum's mission is "to promote the development and sharing of knowledge and techniques for managing public property, by providing a neutral venue and a collegial environment for networking by senior executives responsible for the management of public property at all levels of government across Canada." It now has over 20  sponsors from all three levels of government across Canada.

Dr. Leung  is also the founder (2003) of the Ambassadors' Forum. It is a forum for the 20 ambassadors and high commissioners to Canada from the Asia-Pacific. The purpose is to share ideas and perspectives of informed and thoughtful Canadians on issues that are of interest to the group, as well as to provide a venue for international dialogue.

Credentials:

• B.Arch. (Hong Kong)
• M.C.P. (M.I.T.)
• M.Sc. (Cantab)
• Ph.D. (Reading)
• RIBA, FCIP, RPP

Research Interests:

His research areas include physical infrastructure (standards and financing), housing (especially for the elderly), urban design (environmental perception), history of planning ideas, policy evaluation methods, and comparative study methods. His current focus is on public policy analysis, Western cultural DNA and the development of Chinese planning theory.

Curriculum Vitae (PDF, 508 kB)

I am originally from Alberta and grew up spending much of my time in the Rocky Mountains, hiking and skiing. This cultivated a lifelong interest in the outdoors and understanding how landscapes are formed and respond to change. To this day I am happiest backpacking in the mountains. I graduated with a B.Sc.H. from the University of Alberta with a specialty in geomorphology. I was fortunate to have an early opportunity to be involved in research in the High Arctic and pursued this theme through my graduate research. I completed graduate work in climatology and paleoclimatology (Massachusetts Amherst, M.S.) and geomorphology and sedimentology (Alberta, Ph.D.). I came to Queen’s as a NSERC Postdoctoral Researcher in 1998 and joined the Department in 1999. I have also worked in a community mapping program office and in a rural planning office.

My teaching and research interests are in physical geography and in particular the areas of hydrology, geomorphology, limnology and climatology. I have carried out field research throughout North America and over 25 years of fieldwork across much of the Arctic. Current research focuses on the role of climate and permafrost change play in altering Arctic surface waters and landscapes. My research group combines field data collection with laboratory analyses of water and sediment, sediment core analysis, and modelling. We are investigating how surface water is generated in Arctic settings, and how landscape disturbance and change alters water availability and downstream quality. Research extends to lake systems where we are concerned with the physical and chemical processes, and the sedimentary depositional system. Research is taking exciting new directions, with geophysical and UAV (drone) mapping and subsurface characterization work underway.

My teaching varies by year but is usually a combination of GPHY 102, 209, 215 and 304. I also teach a graduate seminar on northern processes (GPHY 824). I try to bring the excitement and adventure of the field into courses to inspire student interest in the subject. I also supervise undergraduate special projects and theses in Geography and Planning.

Affiliate Website:

Environmental Variability and Extremes Laboratory

Curriculum Vitae (PDF 667 kB)

I was born and raised in Mattawa Ontario, situated in the Ottawa River Valley, on the traditional and unceded lands of my Algonquin ancestors. My interest in hydrology and water quality issues sprung from growing up in an environment where much of my day to day activities and well-being was dependant on the flow and quality of the Mattawa River.

I obtained my undergraduate degree in Geography at the University of Western Ontario (B.Sc. Hon. 1996), and I pursued additional undergraduate studies as a part time student in Geology at the University of Ottawa in 1997. I conducted my graduate studies in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Alberta (Ph.D. 2003). My thesis research investigated the hydrological and biogeochemical controls on the transport of organochlorine contaminants in glaciated alpine catchments as part of an interdisciplinary study investigating the elevated concentrations of organochlorine contaminants in the ecosystem at Bow Lake, Alberta.

I joined the Department of Geography at Queen's in July 2004. My research program at Queen’s examines the impact of climate change and anthropogenic activities on the hydrology, water quality, and biogeochemical processes of glacial and permafrost watersheds. I am the co-director of the Cape Bounty Arctic Watershed Observatory (CBAWO), a long term integrated watershed research facility on Melville Island, NU. My research combines the use of field observations and experiments across a range of scales, with laboratory experiments and biogeochemical analyses to investigate the impacts of hydrological and permafrost changes on the export, transport and cycling of carbon, nitrogen and dissolved metals and ions in watersheds in the Canadian Arctic. We engage in partnerships and knowledge exchange with the local Inuit communities who are the most directly affected by climate change, and strive to incorporate traditional knowledge to enhance the value, and our understanding, of collected data.

Links:

• FaBRECC
• ResearchGate

Research Interests:

My research interests lie in the area of climate change and human impacts on the hydrology and biogeochemistry of alpine and arctic environments. Climate warming and human activities (e.g. urbanisation, forestry, energy production, and agriculture) are altering and will continue to alter global biogeochemical cycles (e.g. atmospheric CO2, nutrients, and contaminants) and hydrological processes. Alpine and arctic environments are particularly sensitive to climate change due to feedbacks involving the cryosphere (snow, permafrost and glacier ice) and the cycles of energy and water. High rates of deposition and accumulation of atmospherically-transported chemical also make many cold environments sensitive to anthropogenically-driven changes in atmospheric chemistry. Current research interests include investigating the influence of anthropogenic inputs on nitrogen deposition and export in alpine catchments, and describing how the biogeochemical cycles of DOC and N in arctic catchments vary with changes in climatic, geomorphic and hydrological variables. These investigations involve a combination process studies and experimentation in the field, and laboratory analyses of surface water chemistry.

Graduate students under my supervision can expect to pursue a range of research interests related to climate change and biogeochemistry (nutrients, contaminants, metals) in arctic and alpine environments.

Curriculum Vitae (PDF 286kB)

A native of British Columbia, I completed a B.A. (1976) and M.A. (1978) at the University of British Columbia, and a PhD (1983) at UCLA. I taught in Geography and East Asian Studies at McGill University from 1983 to 1994, when I came to Queen’s, initially as Director of the Institute of Women’s Studies (1994 to 1999) and thereafter as Professor of Geography. I have spent time as a visiting professor at the University of British Columbia, University College London and, most recently, Canterbury University, Christchurch, New Zealand. In 1994, I was a Fulbright Fellow at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, DC. Other positions include President of the Canadian Association of Geographers (1999-2001), and Editor, People Place and Region, Annals of the Association of American Geographers.

Links:

• CERCIS

Research Interests:

My research interests revolve around the question of how processes of human differentiation − race, class, gender, ability, national identity − emerge in a range of landscapes that include homes, streets and workplaces. I place strong emphasis on public policy, on the legal and legislative frameworks that enable social change, and on the cultural systems and practices through which normative frameworks for human actions and human relations are developed. I am particularly interested in the public negotiation of these issues.

Continuing a long history of research on Japanese Canadian community, I am currently involved in two projects. The first is entitled “The right to remain” and involves a number of university researchers and graduate students in partnership with community advocacy organizations in the Downtown East Side of Vancouver, where rapidly increasing property prices and gentrification threaten the precarious residents in hundreds of single occupancy residences (SROs). Many of these buildings were erected by Japanese Canadians, who were forced from their homes during the 1940s. We have used activist art as well as more conventional research such as housing surveys and interviews to document this new uprooting.

“Landscapes of Injustice” is a historical project funded as an SSHRC Partnership Grant held at the University of Victoria. Using archival research, GIS, interviews, and legal analysis it documents the confiscation of property throughout British Columbia, but especially in Vancouver, during the 1940s.

With my Irish colleague, Mark Boyle, I am nearing completion of a book on the geographical ideas of Jean-Paul Sartre. This book is the culmination of a number of years of collaboration in which we have examined his conceptions of space, racialization, colonialism, war crimes, and community action, as well as several empirical case studies.

I am also working with a number of colleagues in the discipline to complete a book on geography in the 1970s, chronicling the rise and development of radical geography.

Curriculum Vitae (PDF 564 kB)

I am originally from southern Ontario, but I spent much of my early years in Haliburton’s cottage country, where I acquired a love of nature and its landscapes, which later developed into an interest in the mechanisms of their formation and how they change over time. After graduating with a B.Sc.H. from Queen’s University, specializing in GIS and remote sensing, I headed overseas to undertake a Master's at the University of Cambridge where I developed expertise in terrain modelling and applied my new-found skills to forest ecology research. I then headed north to the University of Leeds where my Ph.D. research investigated terrain modelling for high-precision applications (e.g., flood plain modelling), developing approaches for managing quality issues of large topographic data sets derived from aerial photography and laser altimetry. As I finished my Ph.D., I was invited to join the Glaciology Group at Leeds after which point I began working with stunning satellite and aerial imagery of glaciers and ice caps in Svalbard and Greenland. After completing two postdoctoral research fellowships (and 14 Arctic field expeditions), I took on the project management responsibilities of the Climate Change Consortium of Wales (C3W); a consortium of Welsh Universities whose aim was to establish a global centre of excellence for climate research. With my time split between project management, field logistics, research, and teaching, I was able to develop skills for managing large, multi-stakeholder projects and logistically demanding field work while maintaining my academic responsibilities. When C3W wrapped up, I finally returned to Canada (after nearly 20 years) and set my sights on the NGO sector, becoming a scientific advisor and consultant for WWF-Canada and WWF’s Arctic Programme while simultaneously establishing my communications business, High Impact Communications, which specializes in crafting and editing projects that target high impact journals and other outlets.

Last but not least, I have taught at all levels of undergraduate and graduate education, and my teaching interests are broad. However, I remember vividly during my early years at Queen’s being enthralled by my first-year physical geography module where I learned about all the processes behind the landforms I knew so well from several childhood cross country road trips and drives through Ontario’s cottage country. For this reason, I really enjoy introducing new students to the wonderful world of geomorphology and quantitative methods for change detection monitoring.
 

Credentials:

• B.Sc.H. (Queen's) 1996
• M.Phil. (Cambridge) 1997
• Ph.D. (Leeds) 2004

Curriculum Vitae (pdf, 222kB)

I obtained my Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Geography from Queen’s University in 1994 and my Master of Arts in Geography from Carleton University in 1997. Following graduation I consulted on urban issues for CIDA and worked as an IDRC intern mainstreaming gender into urban agriculture projects.  I received my PhD in Geography from Clark University in 2003, which focused on gender and urban agriculture in Botswana. I joined the University of Guelph Department of Geography in 2003 as Assistant Professor and was promoted to Full Professor in 2014. In January 2015 I joined the Department of Geography and School of Environmental Studies at Queen’s University.

Links:

• The Lives of Animals

Research Interests:

My research program broadly explores human-environment relationships and is theoretically informed by feminist, poststructuralist and posthumanist philosophical perspectives. I explore issues related to animal geographies, gender and environment, urban geography, and Southern Africa.

I currently explore how animals shape human society. We cannot understand human affairs and relations without recognizing the ways in which animals are wrapped up with social constructions, organizations and dynamics. How do we think about animals? Where do we put them and where do they belong? How do we interact with them? Are these human-animal relations good, bad, otherwise? What circumstances and experiences shape the lives of animals? Chickens, donkeys, cattle, wild dogs, elephants, and community dogs in Botswana serve as case studies exploring the positionality of animals as influential actors.

Curriculum Vitae (PDF 415 kB)

I was born and grew up on the edge of the Peak District National Park in Derbyshire, England; a landscape that shaped my early interest in geology and geography.  I received my geographical education at the University of Sheffield and at The Ohio State University where I received my PhD and studied with Larry Brown, Kevin Cox and Reg Golledge. I came to Queen's University in 1971 on a one-year sabbatical replacement appointment and never left!  From 1993-2004, I served as Head of Department. I retired formally in June 2013 (i.e. Queen’s stopped paying me!) but have continued to co-supervise graduate students and maintain an active funded research program.

During sabbatical leaves, I held visiting appointments at the University of Sussex (1977-78), University of Wales, Swansea and UWIST (1985-86) and the University of Manchester (1999). In Winter Term 2007, I was the Invited Visiting Professor in the Institute of Political Economy at Carleton University. 

In the decade prior to my retirement, I was active in the Queen’s University Faculty Association (QUFA) – the union representing academic staff at Queen’s - and served as QUFA President 2005-07. Presently, I serve as Treasurer of the Retirees’ Association of Queen’s (RAQ), a Trustee of the Kingston and District Labour Council, and as a Director on the Eastern Workforce Innovation Board and the Automotive Policy Research Centre (APRC Inc.) Board.

Credentials:

• B.Sc., M.A. (University of Sheffield)
• Ph.D. (Ohio State University, 1974)

Research Interests:

My primary research interest is in geographical aspects of the political economy of contemporary economic and social change; especially the restructuring and reorganization of production and work. My recent interests lie in three areas:

• Auto Industry Research: I continue to work on research related to the political economy of the North American automobile industry.  Most recently, projects have focused on innovation and competitiveness in the Canadian automotive parts industry, automotive trade, and automotive collective bargaining in Canada and the United States. I am affiliated with the Automotive Policy Research Centre (APRC) and was a researcher on the major Automotive Partnership Canada (APC) funded five-year project– “Manufacturing policy and the Canadian automotive sector.”  I am a member of the Paris-based Groupe d’Étude et de recherche Permanent sur l’Industrie et les Salariés de l’Automobile (GERPISA), an international network for auto industry research.
• Work, Employment and Labour Relations Research: I am a co-researcher with the Montréal-based Centre de recherche interuniversitaire sur la mondialisation et le travail (CRIMT) and CRIMT’s Institutional Experimentation for Better Work Partnership Project 
• Climate Change and Work: Research into the impacts of climate change on the future of employment and work in Canada as part of a SSHRC Partnership funded project titled Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces to Respond to Climate Change led by Dr. Carla Lipsig-Mummé (York University).

Curriculum Vitae (PDF 393 kB)

Gerald Hodge

by David Gordon, Hok-Lin Leung and Mohammad Qadeer.

Professor Emeritus J.F. Gerald Hodge FCIP passed away peacefully on November 18, 2017 at his home on Hornby Island, BC.

Gerald Hodge was born in 1931 in British Columbia. He received his BA in Sociology and Geography from UBC in 1957; MCP from UC Berkeley in 1959 and PhD from MIT in 1965.

Gerald was a professor for almost 30 years, starting at UBC and then at the University of Toronto from 1964-73. He was Director of the School of Urban and Regional Planning at Queen’s from 1973-1986. During that period he taught every graduate of the school and was an influential mentor to hundreds of students, many of whom went on to become leading Canadian planners.

As a social scientist, Dr. Hodge introduced rigorous policy analysis into the curriculum, with an emphasis on regional planning and smaller communities. He also was a leader in expanding urban studies across Queen's. Gerald continued to teach at Simon Fraser University into the 1990s, focusing on the adequacy of community environments to support the activities and independence of seniors.

Dr. Hodge was the author of numerous monographs and several significant books, including Towns and Villages in Canada: the Importance of Being Unimportant (1985, with M.A. Qadeer); Planning Canadian Communities (1986 +); and The Geography of Aging: preparing communities for the surge in seniors (2008). His most recent book is a second edition of Planning Canadian Regions, with Ira Robinson and Heather Hall, published in 2017.

Professor Hodge’s most influential book is Planning Canadian Communities, which is now in its sixth edition (co-authored with D. Gordon) and is used as a text in many universities across Canada. The book was written in response to student protests over the lack of Canadian materials in the curricula of Canadian planning schools during the late 1970s, when the literature and practice of planning in Canada were dominated by British, American and French examples. Planning Canadian Communities has served as an introduction to the field to two generations of Canadian planners (over 25,000 students), and additional use in professional education. The sixth edition of the won the CIP’s 2014 Award for Planning Excellence in publications.

Professor Hodge also published numerous articles in refereed journals, magazines and Plan Canada. As a scholar, he has documented the evolution and practice of community planning as a distinctly Canadian endeavor. His international reputation was demonstrated by an invitation from the Journal of the American Planning Association to write the lead article for their 1985 special issue on Canadian planning.

In professional service, Dr. Hodge led the Plan Canada editorial team from 1974-80, with Professors Godfrey Spragge and Mohammad Qadeer. The Canadian Institute of Planners’ professional journal had ceased publication in 1973, but the Queen’s team re-launched it as one of the top planning journals. During this period, the journal published some of the earliest articles on the history of planning in Canada and high-calibre refereed research that attracted international contributors.

Professor Hodge was also policy advisor to various national agencies, especially the CIP and CMHC, for whom he wrote the important 1972 report, The demand and supply of urban and regional planners in Canada, recommending the expansion of the Canadian schools. He continued his advisory work into the 1990s, serving on the National Council on Aging and producing a film series, Harvest of Age.

Gerald’s role as a leader in Canadian planning was honoured with the CIP President’s Award in 2008 and admission to its College of Fellows in 2017.

In addition to his research, teaching and service, Gerald would want it noted that he practiced what he preached throughout his career, advising over 100 smaller communities and rural regions in BC and five other provinces. Extensive stakeholder participation was always part of the program and his rural planning often involved Indigenous communities, especially when he spent a year in Moose Factory ON.

Finally, Gerald was an engaged citizen in his urban life, working with community groups that questioned a freeway through downtown Vancouver, or a waterfront airport in Toronto or inappropriate waterfront development in Kingston. He nurtured lifetime interests in photography and music, acting as a Jazz DJ at the Hornby Island radio station into his final days.

Most of all, Hodge was that rare breed of an intellectual who combined the love of ideas with advocacy and action. One could sit with him for hours and the talk could range from politics, esoteric philosophies to the foibles of friends.

He will be greatly missed by his former students and colleagues at Queen’s.

Professor David Gordon FCIP was a student of Gerald Hodge. He is the Director of the School of Urban and Regional Planning in the Department of Geography and Planning. Professors Emeriti Hok-Lin Leung FCIP and Mohammad Qadeer FCIP were colleagues of Gerald Hodge and former SURP Directors.