thebilesfiles
teaching
My primary role as a teacher and mentor is to promote the student's personal and professional development. I believe in incorporating my research into my teaching and providing students with opportunities for research in support of learning. I also take seriously the notion of "multiple intelligences" and attempt to accommodate differences in learning styles and preferences by employing a variety of teaching strategies and forms of assessment. At the undergraduate level, I emphasize critical thinking, writing skills and engagement between the theoretical and empirical. At the graduate level, I work with students to familiarize them with the research process and improve their ability to conduct independent research. In addition, I challenge graduate students to reconsider their notions of Geography as a discipline, the role of geographers as scholars and educators, and role of the scholar in the production and dissemination of knowledge within the fields of Geography, Sustainability and Policy Studies.
Fall 2023
Urban Development
Cities and Sustainability
The Nature of
Scientific Research
Analysis of Federal Disaster Recovery Funding and the Trade-offs between Rebuilding, Buyouts, and Land Acquisition
2022-23 Capstone Project City College of New York
Federal disaster recovery funding, channeled through state and local governments, is primarily allocated for home repairs (rebuilding). Only a small percentage of funding goes towards mitigation and resilience efforts, such as buyouts of high-risk properties and land acquisition. This project will compare federal disaster recovery spending allocations for Hurricanes Katrina, Sandy and Harvey to assess patterns in spending for rebuilding versus mitigation. State and city-level geographic data for government funded repairs/rebuilds, land buyouts, and acquisitions also will be analyzed to identify the number of properties and residents that have successfully been relocated from flood-prone areas and the number of homes that have been repaired and rebuilt. This study will reveal whether there is a clear and consistent logic to rebuilding, buyout and property acquisition decisions in the aftermath of natural disasters. The relationship between the location of rebuilds, buyouts and acquisitions and relevant demographic information for selected neighborhoods and/or municipalities will also be analyzed to identify any possible bias in how rebuilding, buyouts, and land acquisition decisions are implemented.
