Kam-biu Liu
James J.
Parsons Distinguished Professor
Dr. Kam-biu Liu is the James J. Parsons Professor
in Geography in the Department of Geography and Anthropology at
Louisiana State University. His research
interests are in Quaternary paleoecology and biogeography, climatic
change and variability, paleoclimatic reconstruction, vegetation
dynamics, lake sediments, and medical geography.
He has been the principal investigator
of numerous research projects funded by the National Science Foundation
(NSF), NOAA, National Geographic Society (NGS), Louisiana's 8g Education
Quality Support Fund, and the Risk Prediction Initiative (RPI)
of the Bermuda Biological Station for Research. He has published on a wide range of topics
including the Quaternary environmental history of the boreal forest
of Canada, the tropical rainforest of the Amazon Basin, the Yangtze
River delta of China, the Tibetan Plateau, the pollen records of Peruvian
and Tibetan ice cores, and the hurricane history of the Gulf of Mexico
coast.
One of his currently funded research projects involves the use
of pollen and coastal lake and marsh sediments to develop proxy
records of Holocene hurricane landfalls along the Gulf of Mexico
coast. Other funded research includes a lake-coring project in the
Tibetan Plateau to produce high-resolution pollen records of the long-term
dynamics of the SW Indian monsoon since the Last Glacial Maximum, and
a pollen study of ice cores from the Dunde Ice Cap of western China.
Dr. Liu's paleotempestology research
is featured in the latest issue of Science News (vol. 157, no.
12, p. 333; May 20, 2000). The article - "Hunting prehistoric
hurricanes" - can also be viewed online at
http://www.sciencenews.org.
Dr. Liu was recently quoted in an article titled "Coral-killing
Cyclones" posted on ScienceNOW, the online site for Science Magazine. Click
here to see this article online.
Education
Ph.D. (Geography), University of Toronto,
1982.
M.S. (Geography), University of Toronto,
1978.
B.S.Sc. (Geography), The Chinese University
of Hong Kong, 1974 (with First Class Honors).
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Teaching and
Research Experience
1997 - James J. Parsons Distinguished
Professor, Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State
University.
1995-97 - Professor, Department of Geography
and Anthropology, Louisiana State University.
1989-95 Associate Professor, Department
of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University.
1991 Visiting Senior Lecturer, Department
of Geography and Geology, University of Hong Kong (fall semester, sabbatical
leave from LSU).
1984-89 Assistant Professor, Department
of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University.
1982-84 Postdoctoral Research Associate,
Department of Zoology and Institute of Polar Studies, Ohio State University.
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Major Professional
Activities and Honors
1998 - Organizer and Chair, Special sessions
on "Hurricanes I: Hurricane climatology and historical records",
and "Hurricanes II: Reconstruction of past hurricanes", Association
of American Geographers (AAG), Annual Meeting, Boston.
1997 - Organizer and Chair, Special sessions
on "Ecological and geomorphic impacts of hurricanes, I & II",
Association of American Geographers (AAG), Annual Meeting, Fort Worth.
1985-98 - Invited participant/Speaker:
"PAGES/NOAA/NSF Workshop: Calibration of historical data for reconstruction
of climate variations" (1998, Barcelona, Spain); "BIOME-6000
Workshop: Late Quaternary paleoenvironments of Pacific Asia" (1997,
Sweden); "Risk Prediction Initiative Workshop: Tropical cyclones and
climate variability" (1996, Bermuda Biological Station for Research);
"IGBP-PAGES Workshop: Multiproxy paleoenvironmental mapping" (1994,
San Francisco); "IGBP-PAGES Workshop: Towards a global paleovegetational
dataset" (1994, Sweden); "IGBP-PAGES Workshop: High resolution records
of past climate from Monsoon Asia: The last 2000 years and beyond"
(1993, Taipei); "NSF/NATO Workshop: Abrupt climatic change" (1985,
France).
1988-96 - Member (appointed by U.S. National
Academy of Sciences), U. S. National Committee for the International
Union for Quaternary Research (USNC/INQUA).
1995 - Co-director (elected), Chinese
Pollen Database Working Group.
1995 - Co-convener and Co-chair, International
workshop on "Towards establishing a Quaternary pollen database
for China", funded by NOAA, Beijing, China.
1994 - Listed in Who's Who in America.
1993 - Convener and Chair, Symposium
on "Palynology and Climate", American Association of Stratigraphic
Palynologists (AASP), Annual Meeting, Baton Rouge.
1991-93 - Member (elected), Board of
Directors, Biogeography Specialty Group, Association of American Geographers
(AAG).
1988-93 - Editor, Geoscience and Man
Monograph Series, Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana
State University.
1992 - Listed in Who's Who in Science
and Engineering, Who's Who in American Education, Who's
Who Among Young American Professionals, and in Who's Who in
the South and Southwest.
1991 - Convener and Chair, Symposium
on "Quaternary vegetational history of the monsoonal regions of China",
13th INQUA Congress, Beijing, China.
1983 - Warren Nystrom Award, Association
of American Geographers.
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