In Memoriam: Always Moving, Always Working with Students: A Tribute to Dr. Mike

Experienced geographer with expertise in all facets of cutting-edge geospatial technology teaching and research, including GIS, remote sensing, and GPS. Proven ability to collaborate with graduate and undergraduate students as well as colleagues. Significant experience developing student-oriented geography and environmental studies programs. Proven ability to teach in a variety of classroom environments, including the use of online and hybrid technologies.**

As some of you know, Dr. John Michael (Mike) Harrison passed away just before Thanksgiving 2015 at the age of 55. Despite heavy hearts about his passing, we are resisting the temptation to begin this tribute with the traditional “It is with great sadness. …” in favor of a more celebratory approach. Why not shine a light on Mike’s life, revealing the positive ways in which he touched those around him?

First, a few details. Mike’s family moved often when he was young (in the past, some might have called him a military brat because his father spent a career in the U.S. Air Force), but Mike spent his formative years growing up in Texas: entirely befitting his six foot four inch frame and deep baritone voice with just a touch of Texas twang. Moving around must have been in his DNA because as an adult, Mike never remained in one place for long. After high school, he left the southwest for upstate New York to study computer and systems engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). Although he considered himself a Texan, like many teenagers, he wanted to go to a school far from home. Mike paid for college by participating in RPI’s Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) and then joined the Air Force as a commissioned officer. After six years in the service, stationed in Los Angeles where he was part of a team developing a global positioning system, Mike went to the University of Georgia to pursue a master’s degree in geography. Using his math and engineering background, he finished his master’s thesis in 1992 under C.P. Lo entitled The use of the Discrete Fourier Transform in the analysis of karst terrains.

Mike then moved back out west to the University of California, Davis, to pursue a doctorate, but that did not work out, so he drove big trucks hauling California’s produce to earn the money needed to move back east—to the University of Florida. During his four years in Gainesville, Mike worked under the direction of Dr. Peter Waylen (with significant input from Professor Cesar Caviedes), using mathematical modelling to study climatology, especially the impact of the El Nino/Southern Oscillation on precipitation. He ultimately investigated the relationship between ENSO and wildfires. His dissertation work (completed in 1998) led him to visit Costa Rica. Upon his return, we remember him telling us all about his Central American visit—complete with stories about washing his laundry in the hotel sink and letting it dry in the open air. Mike appreciated the world outside the United States (eventually leading several study abroad trips to Chile and the Easter Island), but he was clearly a developed world guy.

Mike soon landed a tenure line job at the University of Southern Mississippi, where he cut his teeth as a college professor, effectively mentoring several graduate and undergraduate students. He also met the love of his life, Kathy—a hard working New Yorker living in the Deep South—whom he married in 2002. The Harrisons moved to Virginia in 2001, when Mike took on a tenure line job at the University of Richmond, working with and encouraging many undergraduate students, and helping build the school’s Environmental Studies Program. Yet Mike being Mike, he eventually developed a yearning to return to Texas in order to be closer to family, ultimately taking a tenure line job at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Within a few years, just when we thought he and Kathy would settle down, Mike abandoned a promising academic career and moved again—back to Richmond, where Kathy’s job prospects turned out to...