Gabriella Subia Smith

Gabby Subia-Smith Awarded Summer Fellowship

Anonymous — Thu, 20 Apr 2023 15:59:11 +0000

Gabby Subia-Smith Awarded Summer Fellowship Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 04/20/2023 - 09:59

Gabby Subia-Smith has been selected to receive the Summer 2023 Fellowship. The Graduate School Summer Fellowship awards graduate students with external funding for research and living expenses during the summer months. Gabby will be using the fellowship to complete her dissertation research on public participation in Colorado's 2021 congressional redistricting. Leading up to the summer she has used mixed methods to analyze feedback given to Colorado's Independent Redistricting Commission. Over the summer she will interview the commissioners and participants who provided feedback in order to learn about their roles, perspectives, and experiences of the redistricting. As a result, she hopes to better understand how participant knowledge was negotiated by the Commission and ultimately influenced decision-making over how to draw congressional district lines.

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AAG Preview Talks 2023

Anonymous — Fri, 17 Mar 2023 16:20:47 +0000

AAG Preview Talks 2023 Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 03/17/2023 - 10:20

Xiaoling Chen
PhD Candidate
"Creating, Competing for, and Transforming Digital Spaces: Free Expression, Alternative Truths, and Civic Engagement Regarding Covid-19 Response in 2022"

Gabby Subia-Smith
PhD Candidate
"How the Western Slope Won: The Production of Colorado's 3rd Congressional District"

Huck Rees
MA Student of Geography
"Beaver dams as sites of carbon accretion and sediment storage and implications for river restoration"

In Person:
GUGG 205
Mar 17, 2023, 3:35 PM - 5:00 PM

Or Join Zoom Meeting:
Zoom login required (free account available at zoom.us)

Xiaoling Chen Abstract 1

Creating, Competing for, and Transforming Digital Spaces: Free Expression, Alternative Truths, and Civic Engagement Regarding Covid-19 Response in 2022

China’s zero-Covid policy has lasted for almost three years until December 2022. While most countries have adopted strategies to live with the virus, the central government of China insisted on a “Zero Covid” policy. The policy entailed a large apparatus of containment regimes, including but not limited to pervasive daily surveillance, travel restrictions, instantaneous lockdowns, and expansive mass testing. This apparatus has resulted in myriad disturbance on Chinese people every-day life and livelihood, immeasurable economic and social loss, physiological and mental health issues, and many other profound impacts in every aspect of the Chinese society. What are Chinese people’s responses to such a prolonged, restrictive containment? This paper highlights efforts and tactics Chinese people have deployed to create, compete for, and transform social media spaces for civic engagement. In doing so, the author makes visible both the advantages and constraints of the Chinese social media platforms in terms of civic engagement, as well as the efforts Chinese citizens have made to carve out spaces for diverse voices and explore approaches towards Covid-19 variants and their containment. In China, Governmental narratives have dominated public spaces while squeezing spaces for alternative voices, and institutional violence hampers civic engagement. By recognizing the efforts Chinese citizens make and the constraints they face, this paper attempts to shed light on state-citizen relationships in post-socialist China.

Xiaoling Chen Abstract 2

This is a lightening talk for the Alumni and Friends Celebration next week.

The Chinese government is facing three acute, intertwined challenges: an underdeveloped public healthcare network, Covid-19 outbreaks, and an aging society. The central government has addressed them by implementing public hospital reform (i.e. lowering drug price and wage restructuring) and a zero-Covid policy (i.e. lockdowns, mass testing, surveillance technologies, and self-developed Covid vaccines). This dissertation is based on ethnographic research in spaces of health governance coupled with social media observation. This study views sites of healthcare as spaces of government where hierarchical power relationships and geographical, sociocultural factors such as guanxi interact to mediate the policies’ implementation, effects, and consequences. I argue that China’s biopolitical management has shifted away from population control to health governance where a high degree of control remains. Covid outbreaks allow the government to expand the sites for health governance from traditional medical establishments like public hospitals to spaces like gated communities, social media, and private spaces. Such an expansion threatens the integrity of public healthcare, administrative and legal structures, and Chinese people’s private spaces and human rights.

Huck Rees Abstract

Beaver dams as sites of carbon accretion and sediment storage and implications for river restoration

In recent years, land managers, restoration practitioners, and government agencies increasingly have been employing beaver-based restoration techniques in rivers and streams, including reintroduction of beaver populations and construction of beaver dam analogues (BDAs). Beaver-based restoration has the potential beneficial effects of increasing geomorphic heterogeneity, increasing riparian vegetation biomass, storing water on the landscape, creating habitat for biota, and storing fine sediment and associated pollutants, nutrients, and organic carbon (OC). However, the rates sediment and OC accrual within beaver ponds are not adequately quantified. We conducted sediment surveys and radiometric dating of sediment cores within beaver ponds in the southern Rocky Mountains of Colorado at Manitou Experimental Forest and Coal Creek near Crested Butte. Sediment samples and cores were analyzed for OC content (%) and converted to total OC stock per area. Using a time-series of historical aerial imagery coupled with 7Be:210Pb radionuclide dating, we calculated sedimentation and carbon accretion rates. One of our study locations, Trout Creek, is an incised stream impacts by flow regulation and cattle grazing. We compare rates of sediment accumulation in beaver ponds to the amount of sedimentation that would be required to reconnect the channel to the abandoned floodplain in this system. Our study aims to provide insight into the rates at which beaver-based restoration can address human-caused stream incision. Understanding these processes on a variety of timescales, including both short-term (1-10 year) and multidecade (10-100 year), will aid river management decisions.

Gabby Subia-Smith Abstract

How the Western Slope Won: The Production of Colorado's 3rd Congressional District

U.S. congressional [JB1] district lines are a peculiar example of borders that, while rarely experienced in the day-to-day, have lasting impacts on political, economic, and social life across a district, state, and the country as a whole. The jurisdictional power of district lines is virtually unknown by many residents of a district until they cast their ballots. District lines only indirectly interfere in how people live their lives, as a result of law and policy put forth by elected officials. Furthermore, the drawing of district lines is often confusing and shrouded in mystery. In recent years, Colorado, along with many other states, has taken great steps to make redistricting more transparent and inclusive, adopting an independent redistricting commission and encouraging public participation in the process. In the 2021 redistricting cycle, Coloradans submitted nearly 2500 online comments, generated 140 of their own district maps, and participated in 250 hours of public hearings. Across the state, the most feedback came from residents of Colorado’s Third Congressional District, the state’s largest and most sparsely populated congressional district by area. This paper seeks to ground the production of the district, using discourse analysis of Coloradans’ feedback to better understand how and why district lines were drawn the way they were. While composed of a mostly rural population, District 3 is also home to most of Colorado’s tribal lands and a significant portion of the state’s Hispano population in the Southwest corner of the state. The drawing of District 3’s lines to include both Indigenous and Hispanic Coloradans among the much whiter and wealthier communities of Northwest Colorado and other white but socio-economically challenged communities stretching out into the Eastern Plains stands to disenfranchise already minoritized communities living across the district. The deceptive flattening of space is a fundamental flaw of not only geographically drawn districts, but also cartography and borders more broadly. Looking at the evolution of congressional districts can help us to better understand both the possibilities for equitable political representation and the limits of borders for fixing politics in place.

Download Printable Poster

Watch Presentation

[video:https://vimeo.com/816284642]

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AAG Geography Gathering

Anonymous — Tue, 17 Apr 2018 18:54:27 +0000

AAG Geography Gathering Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 04/17/2018 - 12:54

The Geography gathering during this year's American Association of Geographers conference in New Orleans was a big success. Siddharth Menon was the primary organizer with help from others including Gabriella Smith (Gaby) and major support from Darla Shatto. Approximately 40 people stopped by for the 3-hour evening event.

Current GEOG Faculty: including Fernando Riosmena, Seth Spielman, Jen Fluri, and Mike Dwyer. Also, Anu Sablok (visiting Fulbright Scholar), Andrew Grant (visiting scholar), and Dylan Connor (IBS post-doc).
Current GEOG Students: Around 12-15 including Sarah Posner, Joe Tucillo, Siddharth Menon, Gabriella Smith, and Angela Cunningham
GEOG alumni + friends of Department: Approximately 20

A number of alumni attended with some who had graduated dating back to 2001. The venue garnered positive comments from everyone attending and the food was excellent. Next year, we'll have a signature book so can people can sign in from year to year.

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Adam Kolff Memorial Research Award for MA Students Spring 2017

Anonymous — Wed, 10 May 2017 19:23:15 +0000

Adam Kolff Memorial Research Award for MA Students Spring 2017 Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 05/10/2017 - 13:23 Siddharth Menon , Faran Naderi , Gabriella Subia Smith

The Department of Geography is pleased to announce that Siddharth Menon, Faran Naderi, and Gabriella Subia Smith have received the Adam Kolff Memorial Research Award for MA students for Spring 2017. This award assists Masters students with funding for summer research projects.

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Gabriella Subia Smith receives Tinker Grant

Anonymous — Wed, 03 May 2017 19:17:49 +0000

Gabriella Subia Smith receives Tinker Grant Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 05/03/2017 - 13:17 Gabriella Subia Smith

Congratulations to Gabriella Subia Smith! The Latin American Studies Center (LASC) has awarded Gabriella a grant in Tinker Foundation Funds in support of her research. Donna Goldestein, Director of the Latin American Studies Center wrote, "The Board felt your project was very strong and we hope this early funding will give a jump start to your eventual doctoral dissertation research".

The goal of Tinker Foundation funds is to offer students an opportunity to acquire a comprehensive knowledge of language, terrain and culture; to familiarize them with information sources relevant to their studies; to conduct pilot studies and preliminary investigations that will inform their dissertation proposals; and to develop contacts with scholars and institutions in their fields of study.

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