Dr. Grant Harley, courtesy of the University of Southern Mississippi.
A faculty member from the University of Southern Mississippi will speak in Missouri Western State University’s Interdisciplinary Nature of Geography Speaker Series at 5 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 4 in Agenstein Hall, room 124. Dr. Grant Harley’s presentation, “How cattle, logging, fire and climate shaped the Mississippi Piney Woods since 1750,” is free and open to the public.
Dr. Harley is assistant professor of geography at Southern Mississippi. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee in 2012 and has research interests in climatology, biogeography, dendrochronology, and forest ecology.
“During this period of rapidly changing climate, we face new environmental challenges that require a better understanding of the complex spatiotemporal responses of vegetation communities to climatic variability,” Dr. Harley said. “I use tree-rings and spatial analysis to investigate present-day climatic and ecological processes, how they functioned in the past, and how these systems are likely to be altered in the future due to human-induced changes.”
The series is sponsored by the Missouri Western State University Foundation, the Department of History and Geography and the Department of Biology.
Missouri Western State University is a comprehensive regional university providing a blend of traditional liberal arts and professional degree programs. The university offers student-centered, high quality instruction that focuses on experience-based learning, community service, and state-of-the-art technology. Missouri Western is located in St. Joseph, Mo., and is committed to the educational, economic, cultural and social development of the region it serves. Visit www.missouriwestern.edu.