VSU Panel Discussion Focuses on Earth, Climate, Sustainability

VALDOSTA — Valdosta State University’s Geoscience Student Society will host Earth Month Panel 2022 at 5 p.m. on Monday, April 18, in Student Union Meeting Room 1A. Admission is free of charge and open to the academic community and the general public.

Earth Month Panel 2022 will feature a variety of topics related to Earth and its climate, including Environmental Injustice: Fighting Polluting Industries in Real Time; Health Implications in 2022 and Beyond; Biomass Pelletization and Industrial Forestry; Land Use Planning, Transportation, and Their Importance on Environmental Protection; and more.

Dr. Michael Noll, professor of geography at VSU, will serve as moderator during Earth Panel 2022. He teaches courses in world regional geography, cultural geography, European geography, and geography of the Middle East. He enjoys conducting research on Germany’s remembrance culture, with a special focus on Gunter Demnig’s Stolpersteine Project, as well as community development along U.S. Highway 41, the Hispanization of the South, geopolitics of the Middle East, and clean and renewable sources of energy.

Earth Month Panel 2022 will feature the following panelists:

• Dr. Treva Gear, instructional coach at Lowndes High School, United States Army veteran, founder / chair of Concerned Citizens of Cook County, and VSU alumna.

• Dr. Jason Allard, professor of geography at VSU who teaches courses in weather and climate, global climate change, as well as physical environmental hazards that influence human health and habitation and conducts research on climate change and variability, quantifying climate change, human impacts on the climate, socio-economic impacts of climate change, and land surface-atmosphere interactions.

• Dr. Christine James, professor of philosophy and religious studies at VSU who routinely teaches, publishes, and presents research in bioethics / medical ethics, aesthetics, philosophy of mind, environmental ethics, and disability studies.

• Dr. Victoria L. Meredith, clinically active allopathic / integrative physician with more than 22 years of global medicine and environmental health experience, United States Air Force veteran, project director at SW EdenArk Inc. in Adel, founder of ShepherdsWay Healing Centers, and avid supporter of re-forestation, habitat preservation, and community health and wellness projects throughout the region.

• Dr. Jia Lu, professor of geography at VSU who teaches courses in regional planning and environmental management, urban community planning, world regional geography, introduction to land forms, as well as geographic information system applications in planning and conducts research in population and employment analyses, urban modeling, spatial analyses, city planning and urban development, and environmental analyses