Scott Ball, a master's student in the geography/geographic information systems program earned top honors in the master's level paper competition at the East Lake Division of the Association of American Geographers meeting on October 15.
Ball's presentation - a quantitiative spatial description of Iraq violence, entitled "Spatial Patterns of Combat Fatalities in Iraq, 2004-2009," seeks to provide a better picture of where the worst of the fighting was happening, how it changed over time, and to serve as a foundation for cultural impact studies of modern Iraq. Ball served in the US Army Corps of Engineers for eight years, including four months in Iraq.