Meet Dr. Charles Lafon

"I'm a geographer because I love being outdoors and am fascinated with the landscape. My area of specialty is biogeography which lets me study vegetation patterns and how the physical environment impacts them."

"Like a lot of students, I started college not knowing just what I wanted to do. I didn't really know anything about geography as a major until I took a physical geography course my freshman year to fulfill a requirement. It attracted me because of my interest in the outdoors. I grew up in the mountains of Virginia and was attracted to any kind of major that promised to let me get outside and understand the landscape. Geography was especially appealing to me because it deals with the land surface. I originally wanted to get a job that would let me tromp around the mountains. I ended up getting a B.A., M.S. and Ph.D. in geography and now spend a lot of time sitting in an office. But my research gets me out in the field a lot, and I love what I do."

"Our Geography Department has a lot to offer students since it is strong in physical and human geography, as well as techniques such as GIS and remote sensing. We are one of the few departments in the country to have this many physical geographers working in such a variety of areas. If we could just figure out a way to put some mountains around College Station, I’d be in heaven!"

Dr. Lafon video

PHOTO: One of Dr. Lafon's research interests is vegetation dynamics, particularly the history and spatial pattern of disturbances such as major freezing rain events, fires, and insect outbreaks. He collects and studies tree cores and cross-sections to assess the influences of these events on vegetation. He is shown here with cross-sections of fire-scarred pine trees used to date past fire events in the Appalachian Mountains and coring a Scotch pine in northern Sweden for a study of moth outbreaks.