Rate My Professor Mark Fonstad

Mark Fonstad is an Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Oregon, serving in the Department of Geography and the Climate Studies program. He earned a B.S. in Geography from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an M.A. in Geography from Ohio University in Athens, OH, and a Ph.D. in Geography from Arizona State University in Tempe, AZ, in 2000. Following his doctoral studies, Fonstad held a postdoctoral fellowship at Montana State University from 2000 to 2001. He subsequently taught at Texas State University from 2001 to 2011 before joining the faculty at the University of Oregon in 2011, where he continues as associate professor.

Fonstad's research centers on biophysical geography and geographic information science, with a focus on riverscapes and mountain environments in the western United States and beyond. He investigates human-environment interactions through the lenses of geomorphology, hydrology, remote sensing, management, restoration, hazards, sustainability, water law, engineering, and habitat. Fonstad coordinates the University of Oregon River Research Group and has pioneered remote sensing techniques, including Structure from Motion photogrammetry using pole-mounted, aerial, and other platforms, as well as algorithms for NASA's SWOT satellite mission. His projects encompass river remote sensing across scales—from millimeter to global—applied to sites like the Willamette River and Middle Fork John Day River in Oregon, Yellowstone National Park, Scott Creek in Oregon, River Tromie in Scotland, and rivers in Texas and New Mexico. He has also examined the natural and human structuring of riverscapes and large river channel dynamics. Fonstad has edited key special volumes, including Remote Sensing of Rivers (Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 2010, with W.A. Marcus), Geographies of Water (Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 2013), and The Natural and Human Structuring of Rivers and other Geomorphic Systems (Geomorphology, 2015, with B.L. Rhoads). Prominent publications include Topographic structure from motion: a new development in photogrammetric measurement (Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 2013; 1,558 citations), Optical remote mapping of rivers at sub-meter resolutions and watershed extents (Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 2008; 361 citations), and Rapid formation of a modern bedrock canyon by a single flood event (Nature Geoscience, 2010, with M.P. Lamb; 188 citations). His scholarship has amassed over 4,700 citations on Google Scholar, advancing methodologies in river science and geomorphic analysis.