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Dr. Steven M. Graves

Home

Image: Photo of Steve Graves and daughter Nikobe, 1998.Steve's Home Page

I am building a new website off -campus - http://geographyplanet.org/

You can visit my website for my free textbook, Introduction to Human Geography, A Disciplinary Approach. It's hosted on a Google website.

You can also visit my website I'm building to host a massive photographic slide collection - The American Landscape Project

I have created several COVID-19 Maps which offer some differing perspectives on the prevalence of the disease in the United States.

Map 1: COVID-19 by US County (Daily Updates) - Updates on demand, displaying primarily rate of infection per 100,000 persons.

Map 2: COVID-19 by US County (Weekly Update - Updates weekly on Wednesday, displays cases, rates of infection, hospital capacity by county, and the location of major ski resorts in the US, which functioned as locii of infection during the early weeks of the pandemic in the United States (hosted on ArcGIS Online)

Map 2 Presentation: A short slide-show of the contents and logic used to construct Map 2. Seems to render best in Firefox or MS Edge.


I teach a variety of courses at C.S.U.N., but I focus on human or cultural geography where I enjoy teaching students how to read the landscape and how to understand cultural processes that color their lives.

My research in recent years has focused on the spatial dymanics and the local effects of predatory lending, especially payday lending. I am keen to demonstrate how site location behaviors exhibited by this industry lay bare the business strategies employed by payday lenders and how these strategies affect the lives of people living in regions targeted by predatory lenders. I have also done research on the music industry, cultural landscapes and waste transportation issues.

On the service front, I have worked for a number of years on a variety of initiatives to improve the quality of teacher preparation programs. Most significant has been my involvement with Teachers for a New Era, an ambitious project to reconfigure the way school teachers are trained in the university.

When I'm not working I enjoy spending time with my kids and traveling. I am an avid fan of the teams fielded by my alma mater, The Ohio State University. I also like to listen to blues, bluegrass and rock 'n roll.

Links

On the left navigation bar, you'll find links that take you to web pages designed for courses I teach, plus some information about my research and service activities.

If you need to contact me, my email, postal and electronic addresses can all be found at the bottom of the left-hand navigation bar.

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