Visualizing Three Decades of Scholarship

More than 6,000 scholars and creative artists have received AIIS support, with their work spanning the humanities, social sciences, social policy and natural sciences. The Institute has been directly responsible for fostering several generations of new scholars, and its senior fellows have returned to classrooms where they have taught tens of thousands of American college students.

Thanks to the work of Harman Singh and former AIIS fellow Trevor Birkenholtz, we can now add a visual dimension to the work of AIIS over the past three decades.

Click the image below to open an ESRI Story Map (new window) that describes the work of AIIS and illustrates the diversity and impact of AIIS fellowship programs.

Harman Singh is an undergraduate majoring in Geography and minoring in Sustainability Leadership at Penn State University. She hopes to attend a graduate program starting in 2021. Her undergraduate research focuses on flash flooding in Kerala. This project draws on research from socio-political geography to examine the relationship between government institutions and people’s perceptions of flash floods; and examines spatial-temporal rainfall statistics that capture impactful flash flood events.

Trevor Birkenholtz is Associate Professor of Geography at Penn State University. His research focuses on understanding the politics of water development and agrarian change in India. He has conducted research on the political ecology of groundwater-led development, the politics of environmental expertise, the tensions surrounding farmers’ adaptation to climate change, the impact of water conservation technologies on gendered labor burdens, and the public contestation of new large-scale water infrastructure. He is also a former AIIS fellow.