Emeritus and Adjunct Faculty Directory

Dr. KATIE ALGEO  is a cultural geographer who joined the faculty of Western Kentucky University in the fall of 2001 to teach a variety of human geography and GIS classes. Her research interests include tourism, rural development, agricultural geography (particularly recent change in the Burley Tobacco Belt), interfaces between folk and popular culture, the role that media plays in the representation and formation of cultural identities, and Appalachian development. Her current project explores the historical geography of tourism to Mammoth Cave and looks both at economic development accompanying tourism and ways in which Mammoth Cave was "symbolically constructed" to appeal to tourists. She received her Ph.D. in 1998 from Louisiana State University, where her dissertation focused on the historical development and political economy of tobacco farming in western North Carolina. She is treasurer of the Southeastern Division of the Association of American Geographers (SEDAAG), and her work has appeared in Journal of Geography, Southern Cultures, Southeastern Geographer, and Names. Before coming to WKU, Dr. Algeo taught at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, where she enjoyed leading field trips to explore aspects of Wisconsin culture such as vernacular shrines and grottos, polka masses, concrete art, dairy barns, and ginseng farms. For more information about her teaching and research interests, contact Dr. Algeo via email at katie.algeo@wku.edu.