Wednesday, March 2, 2005

WRITER: Philip Lee Williams, 706/542-8501, phil@franklin.uga.edu

SOURCE: Kavita Pandit, 706/542-1058, pandit@uga.edu

HEAD OF UGA DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY ELECTED VICE-PRESIDENT OF ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN GEOGRAPHERS

ATHENS, Ga. – Dr. Kavita Pandit, professor and head of the department of geography at the University of Georgia, has been elected vice-president of the 8,000-member Association of American Geographers, which was founded in 1904. She will become president of the group for 2006-2007.

Pandit’s research interests are in the areas of immigration and Third World development. She is the co-editor of a book entitled Immigration and Restructuring in the United States: A Geographic Perspective and has published more than 40 articles and book chapters in the areas of migration, development, health and geographic education.

She also teaches an introductory course in human geography, upper division courses in population geography and the geography of development and a graduate seminar on immigration and transnationalism.

In a separate honor for the UGA department of geography, Dr. Maguerite Madden has been elected as vice president of the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing.  She will serve as vice president this year, president-elect in 2006 and president in 2007. 

Madden will be the sixth woman president since the 7,000-member organization was founded in 1943.