Tish is a graduate student in the Department of Geography at the Univeristy of Washington. She is currently attending as a GO-MAP Fellow specializing in Medical Geography.

"I have no answer to the question 'where are you from?'". Tish was raised in Germany and Holland with family in Ireland, Spain, Germany, California, and Montana, but no real "home".

This ecclectic background has lead her to the interest in global issues and the importance of cultural considerations of space and place. Tish has worked in the community and migrant healthcare field for six years which helped further her interest in issues of Geography and global health.

Tish completed her undergraduate degree in the Compartive History of Ideas at the University of Washington with a minor in Geography in Spring 2007.

The University of Washington's Geography Department is one of North America's leading centers for graduate education in urban geography, migration studies, and in GIS (geographic information science and systems) research.

We also offer advanced training in several core areas of geographical knowledge, including economic geography, social and cultural geography, critical development geography, legal geography, and political geography. It has formed strong liaisons with other units on campus and actively encourage our students to form committees and make substantive connections with other departments and programs.

The medical geography emphasis, for example, has important ties with UW units such as epidemiology, anthropology and women’s studies. The geography department offers over 40 courses at the advanced level for both MA and Ph.D. candidates. The masters degree commonly takes two to three years to complete, and the doctorate, three to five additional years. Graduate education is highly individualized, and most graduate students are supported through teaching and research assistantships on a competitive basis. Students have access to state-of-the-art computer facilities and resources.