The drone of cicadas has always been one of the sounds of summer in Iowa. Annual cicada populations are holding their own, but periodical cicadas — a species that emerges every 13 to 17 years — are in trouble. On this episode, we talk with University of Iowa biologist Andrew Forbes about a study that uses GIS technology to show how habitat loss has impacted cicada populations. We also hear from GIS experts Susan Meerdink and Adam Skibbe and discuss what the future holds for these cicadas.

Sam Taylor, Riley Pacer, and Dr. Meerdink headed to the 2026 Cartography and Geographic Information Society (CaGIS) conference in St. Louis, where the theme was "Cartographer in the Loop: Balancing technological innovation with human expertise". We presented our posters and enjoyed the Geo-Resolution conference.

Sam Taylor brings home 1st place and $1000 for this poster titled "The Water is Getting Warmer: Spatiotemporal Water Quality Trends from the Multi-decadal Cooperative Lakes Area Monitoring Project (CLAMP)" for the 2026 Geo-Resolution's Student Poster Competition. Hosted at Saint Louis University, the 2026 Geo-Resolution conference had the theme “Securing the Future with Geospatial.”

Check out our the new publication that was developed in collaboration with friends in Biology where we used old air photos to determine areas that retained or lost forest over the century and presence of cicadas: https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecy.70487

Check out our new article on detecting Brazilian peppertree, an invasive shrub, in Biological Invasions!

Congratulations to Jalissa for successfully defending her thesis titled "Quantifying Early-Season Miscanthus × giganteus Spatiotemporal Patterns Using High-Resolution UAS LIDAR". We have truly appreciated her time and expertise while she was here. We wish her the best of luck back in New York State!

Sam Taylor published his master's work in Landslides titled, "Assessing wildfire spatial variability and hyperspectral data in debris-flow modeling". This work uses AVIRIS imagery from the Thomas Fire and Montecito Debris Flows to examine the USGS M1 debris-flow likelihood models. Congratulations, Sam!

11 students from across the nation came to Van Allen Hall from June 3 to 19 to build an instrument for a balloon or drone, collect data with that instrument, conduct data analysis, and then present their work. Adventures were had, and missions were successfully completed!

Congratulations to A H M Mainul Islam, who successfully defended his thesis titled, "ESTIMATING PHOTOSYNTHETIC CAPACITY IN BLIGHTED BUR OAKS USING LEAF HYPERSPECTRAL REFLECTANCE AND MACHINE LEARNING MODELS: MODEL GENERALIZABILITY".

Riley was selected for the School of Earth, Environment, and Sustainability's Harold H. McCarty Award, which is awarded to an outstanding Geography Master’s student. This award is an honor recognizing the high quality of her work and her contribution to the SEES program.