I am delighted to announce this year’s graduate student winners for the Ryan M. Poehling 2023 Memorial Fellowship. This is our highest honor for our graduate students and all students must be nominated by a faculty member to be considered. This year the awards committee had a very difficult time due to the amazing set of nominee’s. The winners each receive a $2,000 award, will receive their certificate and be honored at the Annual Spring Awards Banquet, and will have their names added to the Award Plaques in the main office.
The PhD Student winner is: Ali Alruzuq
Ali Alruzuq is a Ph.D. student at the University of Florida in the Department of Geography. He holds an MS from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. His research interests and specializations are in Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Remote Sensing (RS), Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), hydrology, geomorphology, sustainability, socioeconomic impacts, natural resources, and natural hazards and disasters, particularly under the circumstances of climate change. Ali is the student representative for the Water Institute at UF and the deputy chair of the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing – Student Advisory Council. His Ph.D. research focuses on understanding how anthropogenic activities can influence a geographical area using Geospatial Artificial Intelligence (GeoAI) and other advanced assessment methods to further our understanding of environmental change and mitigation strategies.
The Masters Student Winner is: Morgan Metrailer
Morgan Metrailer is a master’s student in UF’s department of Geography. She was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona and completed her bachelor’s degree in Biology at Northern Arizona University in 2020. In her current research with the Spatial Epidemiology and Ecology Research (SEER) laboratory, she has focused on the spatiotemporal relationships that are encouraging the persistence and proliferation of infectious diseases, such as Bacillus anthracis and Brucella spp., in Vietnam. She is an experienced laboratorian who has been using BSL-2 wet-bench laboratory methods to investigate infectious diseases since 2018. She approaches her research from multiple angles using geospatial techniques, wet-bench laboratory methods, and bioinformatics. In her free time, she is an avid reader and rock climber who loves plants and long walks on the beach.
Please join me in Congratulating Ali and Morgan!
Go Geogators!