Rogerson Named 1999 Guggenheim Fellow

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Peter A. Rogerson, professor in the Department of Geography in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University at Buffalo, has been awarded a prestigious 1999 Guggenheim Fellowship Award.

The fellowship will provide support for Rogerson's research on statistical methods for the surveillance of geographic patterns. The methods that will be developed will be applied to early detection of changes in crime and disease patterns.

He is one of 179 scholars, artists and scientists selected from among 2,800 applicants. Guggenheim fellows are appointed on the basis of unusually distinguished achievement in the past and exceptional promise for future accomplishment.

Rogerson's research also involves the geographic distribution and redistribution of the population of the United States. Much of his work has focused on interstate migration -- how individual and family decisions to move, and where to move, are made, and how those decisions affect the demographic and economic character of the origin and destination. He is interested in the effect that the aging of the baby-boom generation will have on the magnitude and direction of migration, and where adult children live in relation to their parents.

Rogerson is part of a team of researchers awarded a $192,000 National Institute of Justice grant in 1998 to participate in a consortium to design and evaluate computerized crime-analysis tools for U.S. law enforcement agencies. The project's goal was to develop and test software based on geographic information systems to provide police departments with tools to optimize their resources, such as when and where to deploy officers.

A UB faculty member since 1986, Rogerson served as chair of the UB Department of Geography from 1991-94. He also has held a faculty post in the departments of Geography and Civil Engineering at Northwestern University.

A fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in 1992-93, he is the recipient of a Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation, the Warren J. Nystrom Award from the Association of American Geographers and the Dorothy S. Thomas Award from the Population Association of America.

Rogerson, who earned a doctorate from UB in 1982, received his bachelor's degree in geography and mathematics summa cum laude from the State University at Albany in 1976 and his master's degree in geography from the University of Toronto in 1977.

Rogerson lives in Snyder.