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DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY
• Dr. James-Williamson was appointed Head of the Department of Geography and Geology; Deputy Chair of the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) for The University of the West Indies Disaster Risk Reduction Centre (DRRC); reappointed as Chair for the Campus Committee on Examination; re-elected Editor for the Caribbean Journal of Earth Sciences for the academic year; and continues to serve the Jamaica National Heritage Trust Declarations Committee; and Caribbean Examinations Council as Assistant Chief Examiner. • Dr Donovan Campbell was promoted to the rank of Professor. He is now Professor of Environmental Geography. • Dr Sarah Buckland was engaged on a temporary 1-year contract to replace Professor Donovan Campbell who was on 1-year no-pay leave. • Mr Kevin Tankoo was appointed Research Fellow at the Earthquake Unit. • Mr. Rajne Reynolds and Mr Matthew Rahamut graduate students in the Depart- ment were engaged as adjuncts to replace Dr Michael Burn who resigned in September 2022. • Dr Patrice Pinder joined the department on September 1, 2022 as Honorary Researcher for a period of 1 year. Special Projects • The Earthquake Unit continues to be a valuable asset to the people of Jamaica. They have increased capacity through funding and through collaboration has increased and maintained visibility within various Government agencies. Their event reporting capacity has increased significantly. • The Department continues its research consultancy opportunity on the Connecting Communities for Climate Change and Disaster Preparedness in Dominica Project (CCC-DRIP) funded by IDRC Canada through the Institute for Sustainable Development (ISD). A new agreement was signed since the project was extended from the original January 31, 2023 end date due to the delays encountered during the period of the Covid-19 pandemic. The project has been extended until June 2024. The extension is only a time extension, the initial funding of JMD$19 million remains with 40% already spent on the earlier stages of the project. The Project received the Principal’s Research Awards for the project attracting the most research funding for 2021. This second phase of the project began in August 2022 with the planning and designing of the vulnerability of assessment. • The Department was invited as a strategic partner for the Mona School of Business and Management (MSBM)-Caribbean School of Data (CSOD) Open Cities project. The team members participating in this initiative are Dr. Sherene James-Williamson, Dr Jason Tambie, Dr Robert Kinlocke and Dr Thera Edwards.
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