The GES Department Welcomes New Hires for Fall '25
Please join us in welcoming some new colleagues to the department. We are very excited to have these talented individuals on our team.
Logan Gall holds a bachelor of science in data science and a master's in geographic information science (GIS), combining a strong technical foundation with a passion for geography and GIS. His academic research has focused on spatial data solutions, such as indoor location tracking, computational hardware development, and applied machine learning.
Before joining the faculty, Logan was involved in student organizations, serving as president of both the Drone Club and GIS Student Organization (GISSO). His leadership in these groups helped him develop a deep interest for applied technologies and provided opportunities to mentor fellow students.
Logan is excited to contribute to the department and looks forward to helping students navigate the evolving field of spatial data science. Outside of work, he enjoys exploring Minneapolis, doing outdoor activities with friends, and going on internet deep dives learning about eclectic topics.
Rebecca is an urban political ecologist whose work focuses on geographies of race and nature. Her research investigates how environmental injustices are produced, maintained, and unmade through policy and grassroots activism. She studies how uneven power relations shape and are shaped through urban(izing) natures. Her work considers historic and contemporary politics of urban green spaces, including topics such green gentrification, green infrastructure, parks and racial equity, planning history, and climate justice.
She is a community-based researcher and draws on models of co-production and collaboration with community partners, and my most frequent collaborators are environmental justice and housing justice grassroots community organizers. Her research is place-based, focusing primarily on Minneapolis and the surrounding Twin Cities metro area.
Rebecca received her PhD in urban and regional planning from the University of Minnesota in 2023. She also holds a master’s degree in ecology from the University of California, Davis, and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia in environmental sciences and anthropology. Prior to joining the geography department at UMN, she served as an assistant professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign from 2023-2025.
Talia Anderson is a geographer and climate scientist specialized in research on climate variability and change and its impacts on ecosystems and communities. She uses a variety of data types—from models to satellite imagery—to explore climate impacts in both localized areas and large, multi-country regions. Talia is motivated to build collaborations with potential users of climate information, so that her research can more broadly inform decision-making and action surrounding climate change. Her current project is focused on improving seasonal forecasts of precipitation across Central America through combined modeling and statistical methods. Before joining UMN, Talia was a postdoctoral fellow with the NOAA Climate & Global Change Program and based at the University of California - Los Angeles with the McKinnon Group. She holds PhD and master’s degrees in geography from the University of Arizona and a dual-degree in geography and Spanish studies from the University of Minnesota.
Dr. Anant Maringanti works at the intersection of urban, political, and development geographies, with a focus on spatial justice, infrastructure, and the politics of knowledge production in the Global South. His research is grounded in place-based inquiries and translocal conversations, often drawing on collaborations across disciplines and communities.
At the University of Minnesota, he serves as director of the Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change (ICGC), where he supports interdisciplinary graduate education and research on global social justice. He also founded and continues to guide Hyderabad Urban Lab, a practice-based research collective that explores urban ecologies, civic data, and public pedagogy in Indian cities.
Across these settings, Maringanti is committed to connecting critical scholarship with public engagement and institutional transformation. As an alumnus of GES (PhD '07), it is such a pleasure to return to his second home!
