Bryan Wee

Digital Humanities Fellowship | National Library Board, Singapore | 2022-23

Post-doctoral Fellowship | Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden | 2014-15

PhD Science Education | Purdue University, West Lafayette, USA | 2007

MS Conservation Biology | Purdue University, West Lafayette, USA | 2001

BA Economics | University of Washington, Seattle, USA | 1996

As an immigrant in the U.S., and a child of Chinese diaspora in Singapore, I am perpetually in and out of place. What does it mean to belong? How do we meaningfully represent emotions, nostalgia, and other felt connections to places? These are some of the questions that inform my scholarship.

As a cultural geographer, I use visual narratives to understand and represent place attachments. In particular, photo essays and story maps can sensitize us to people’s sense of belonging, identity formation, etc. that are critical to how societies interpret and respond to change. Elevating the importance of place attachments in areas such as urban planning and heritage preservation promotes Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), deepens our appreciation of different (even opposing) worldviews, and nurtures empathy in the research process.

To teach is to understand self in relation to others, to teach is to cultivate humility and compassion, to teach is to learn. I embrace these focal points of a humanistic pedagogy in my classes, always striving to be wholly present in mind, body, and spirit. Teaching is informed by learning theories, but its practice involves a passion and perspective that is deeply personal. As Walt Whitman so aptly described in Leaves of Grass, "wisdom is not finally tested in schools, wisdom cannot be pass’d from one having it to another not having it, wisdom is of the soul."

Martz, C, Powell, R. & Wee, B. (2023) Exploring relationality among children’s place attachments in their experiences of a new place. Geographical Review, 113 (3), 318-336.

Rees, A., Harwood, M., Praley, M., Wee, B. & Duster, T. (2022) Validating the spaces of our lives in geography education [special issue]. The Geography Teacher, 19 (3), 87-92.

Martz, C, Powell, R. & Wee, B. (2022) The impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on young people’s relationships with nature: A socio-spatial perspective. Children, Youth and Environments, 32 (1), 128-151.

Page B., Wee B., Chen, Y.C. & Schmit, A. (2021) Sustainability along the Yangtze: A study abroad collaboration between geography and environmental science. The Geography Teacher, 18, 150-157.

Steger, A., Evans, E. & Wee, B. (2021) Emotional cartography as a window into children’s wellbeing: Visualizing the felt geographies of place. Emotion, Space and Society, 39, 1-10

Wee, B. (2020) The nature of childhood in childhood nature. In A. Cutter-Mackenzie, K. Malone, E. Barratt Hacking (Eds.), International Research Handbook on Childhood Nature (pp. 1025-1042). Springer International Handbooks of Education.

Simon, G., Wee, B., Chatti, D. & Anderson, E. (2020). Drawing on knowledge: Visual narrative analysis for critical environment and development research. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 4, 1-25.

Martz, C., Powell, R. & Wee, B. (2020) Engaging children to voice their sense of place through location-based story making with photo-story maps. Children’s Geographies, 18 (2), 148-161.

Wee, B. (2019). Not Enough. Aquifer: The Florida Review online, University of Central Florida. https://floridareview.cah.ucf.edu/article/not-enough/

Wee, B. & Mason, H. (2017) Children’s language about the environment. In Kopnina, H. & Shoreman-Ouimet, E. (Eds.), Handbook of Environmental Anthropology (1st ed.), pp. 401-411. Routledge

ENVS 1342 Environment Society & Sustainability

ENVS 6002 Research Topics in Environmental Science

GEOG 1302 Intro to Human Geography

GEOG 4301 Population Culture & Resources

GEOG 5150 Place Landscape & Meaning