EUGENE–University of Oregon geography graduate students swept the awards at the 65th annual Association of Pacific Coast Geographers (APCG) meeting with wins in the top two categories.

Each winner received a cash award of $100, a certificate of achievement and a book titled "Carl O. Sauer: A Tribute."

Jacqueline Shinker of Eugene received the President’s Award for Outstanding Paper by a Doctorate Student. Her project includes a website of map animations showing the changes in the Earth’s climate system over time.

To see the animations, visit Shinker’s global climate website at http://geography.uoregon.edu/envchange/clim_animations.

"This is a new tool that provides an easy, central location for people to access information about global climates," Shinker says. "Students and researchers can use it as an educational resource."

Peter Killoran of Rockport, Maine, received the President’s Award for Outstanding Paper by a Master’s Student. His research focuses on modern climate patterns–how the climate system works, how and why it changed through time, and what we can expect from it in the future.

"Analysis of modern climate patterns is useful for understanding climates of the past," he says. "This information helps to make predictions about future climate variability."

Killoran is incorporating his paper topic into his master’s thesis which he hopes to complete by summer term 2000. The research is supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

Shinker is working toward a doctorate in geography at the university having completed her master’s thesis here in winter term 1999. She is a graduate teaching fellow for the geography department.

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