CURRENT OFFICERS
PRESIDENT:
Gary Booher
VICE-PRESIDENT:
Matt Ebiner
TREASURER:
Douglas Goode
SECRETARY:
Rebecca Donegan
COUNCILOR:
Zia Salim
COUNCILOR:
Kris Jones
COUNCILOR:
Julienne Gard
COUNCILOR:
Vienne Vu
COUNCILOR/WEBMASTER:
Christian Vasquez
COUNCILOR/WEBMASTER:
Cesar Espinosa
Adjunct Geography Instructor, El Camino College
Former Zoning Administrator, Los
Angeles City Planning (Retired 2008)
Academic background:
PhD study in Geography,
UCLA (not completed)
MS, Geography, Brigham Young University, 1974
BA, Geography,
California State University, Long Beach, 1970
Past officer in several other volunteer
non-profit organizations
Other interests include travel (to 33 countries on 5 continents)
& performing arts.
Matt Ebiner is a past-President of the LAGS and professor of geography at El Camino College in Torrance. Teaching since 1986, he was awarded "Geography Educator of the Year" by the California Geographical Society in 2002. He has traveled to 132 countries and his photos have been displayed in exhibitions, printed in the Los Angeles Times, and used by textbook publishers.
Douglas Goode has been a part-time teacher since 1989 and has recently retired from teaching various computer programs for the Computer Applications and Office Technologies Department at LACC. Mr. Goode received his A.A. degree at Los Angeles City College and his B.S. degree in Business Administration from California State University at Los Angeles. Previously, worked as a desktop publisher with a multidisciplinary team of engineers and statisticians at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to produce NASA/JPL publications, engineering journal and conference papers, and viewgraph packages for presentations and workshops. He is an active member of the American Guitar Society and the Los Angeles Geographical Society.
Rebecca Donegan received her AA from Glendale Community College in 2005, a B.A. in Geography from CSUN in 2007 and an M.A. in Geography from CSUN in 2009. Her master's thesis was on the plight of undocumented day laborers in the U.S. She is interested in cultural geography but also enjoys the study and use of GIS. She is attempting to write a series of geography books for children. Her goal is get children involved in the study of geography at an early age.
Zia Salim is a Geography graduate student at California State University, Fullerton. He received his BA degree in Geography with a minor in Anthropology from CSU Fullerton in 2005. An active LAGS member since 2004, Zia is currently researching the diverse cultural landscapes created by Los Angeles murals, and social aspects of downtown revitalization in Los Angeles.
Kris Jones is an Independent Geography Instructor who has been teaching at various colleges in the Orange County and Los Angeles area since 1993. He has traveled to all of the continents except Antarctica.
Julienne Gard joined the Los Angeles Geographical Society in January 2000 and has been an active member serving as a dinner organizer, a student member, the Secretary, and as Vice President. She received a BA degree in Geography from the University of Southern California , a MA from California State University , Long Beach , and is currently completing a PhD at USC. Her research centers on health and environment using mixed qualitative and GIS methods.
Cesar Espinosa is a Geography graduate student at California State University, Long Beach. He has an undergraduate degree in Anthropology and a certificate in Geographic Information Systems from Cal State, Los Angeles.
Espinosa has worked on archaeological projects on San Nicholas Island, California and in Maya cave archaeology in the Peten area of Guatemala. He participated for two years on an ethnographic project in Sinaloa, Mexico that documented the indigenous ballgame, Ulama.
Christian Vasquez joined the Los Angeles Geographical Society in September 2008. He received a BA degree in Geography and International Development Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles. He is currently working at the GIS department of the City of Beverly Hills.
CONTACT INFORMATION:
Los Angeles Geographical Society
855 N. Vermont Avenue Box # 1259
Los Angeles, CA 90029
E-mail: lageographicalsociety@yahoo.com
Facebook Group:
Vienne Vu is a graduate student and a graduate assistant for the Department of Geography at California State University, Fullerton. In 2006, she received her Bachelor's Degree in Geography from the same program.
Vienne plays an active role in the CSUF Geography Club where where she is serving her third term as the club's president. She is currently researching cultural change of Vietnamese Americans in Orange County.
