معرفی
Mark Alan Fonstad is an Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Oregon in the College of Arts and Sciences. He specializes in the physical geography of rivers, the fusion of physical geography with geographic information science, geomorphology, hydrology, and remote sensing. His work focuses on riverscape and mountain environments, particularly in the western United States, examining how humans interact with their environments through lenses such as theory, management, hazards, sustainability, law, engineering, restoration, and habitat.
- University of Oregon, Department of Geography, College of Arts and Sciences
- Environmental Studies Program affiliate
- Environmental Sciences Institute affiliate
Dr. Fonstad's educational background includes secondary education at Lourdes Academy (Oshkosh, WI), a B.S. in Geography at the University of Wisconsin (Madison, WI), a M.A. in Geography at Ohio University (Athens, OH), and a Ph.D. in Geography from Arizona State University (Tempe, AZ) in 2000. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Montana State University from 2000-2001, taught at Texas State University from 2001-2011, and has taught at the University of Oregon since 2011. He is the son of geographer Todd Fonstad and cartographer Karen Wynn Fonstad.
Dr. Fonstad's research spans geomorphology, hydrology, remote sensing, and environmental simulation, with particular focus on rivers and mountain environments. His work integrates physical geography with geographic information science to understand river systems, water resources, and environmental change. He has made significant contributions through his development of the HAB Transform for converting river images into depth maps, measurement of spatial variations in mountain stream power, mapping and modeling of treeline ecotones, cellular automata models of instream hydrodynamics, and the critical riverbank conjecture for which he received the AAG's 2005 G.K. Gilbert Award. His recent work focuses on high-resolution remote sensing of river habitats, modeling river dynamics, and hydrological applications related to NASA's SWOT satellite mission.
- AAG's 2005 G.K. Gilbert Award (with W. Andrew Marcus) for the critical riverbank conjecture
- Environmental Sciences associate editor of the Annals of the Association of American Geographers (2010)
- Editor of the Annals's Special Issue on Water (2012)
Dr. Fonstad has advised numerous graduate students on the fusion of physical geography, environmental geography, and GIScience, as well as intersections with sustainability and hazards. He coordinates the University of Oregon River Group and has secured research grants from NASA and other agencies for river systems, remote sensing, and environmental monitoring projects. His recent research demonstrates a clear shift toward innovative technological approaches including UAVs, autonomous surface watercraft, and deep learning for fluvial scene analysis, positioning him at the forefront of the river remote sensing revolution with emphasis on high-resolution, basin-wide observations and practical applications for river management and restoration.
