Harvey K. Flad is Emeritus Professor of Geography at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. He received his Ph.D. from Syracuse University in 1973, and from 1972 to 2004 at Vassar taught courses in Geography and Environmental, American, and Urban Studies. He served as Director of the latter two multidisciplinary programs and Chair of the Earth Science (Geology) and Geography Department for over a decade.
Dr. Flad’s scholarship has focused on cultural and historic landscapes and environmental and urban planning in America. He has published numerous articles on 19th C. landscape design theory and practice, including the influence of the Hudson River School of Art in environmental preservation, the role of Andrew Jackson Downing on domesticating the cultural landscape, and the evolution of mountain resorts in the Catskills and Mohonk Mountain House. His interest in landscape, art, and photography contributed to his essay for the Smithsonian Institution Click! Photography changes everything project. His film and video credits include being the interviewer for the film Hyde Park that won first prize at the National Trust for Historic Preservation film festival and shown on over 140 PBS television stations, and the writer and narrator of the 2006 DVD “A Digital Tour of Poughkeepsie.” Research for the latter led to the co-authored book Main Street to Mainframes: Landscape and Social Change in Poughkeepsie (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2009). In recognition of the publication, both authors received the 2010 Helen Wilkinson Reynolds Award from the Dutchess County Historical Society.
Dr. Flad has traveled widely and lectured throughout North America, Europe, Scandinavia, Africa, and Asia. He has been a consultant to the Ministry of Cultural Affairs and Tourism of the Commonwealth of Dominica, a USIA consultant to the University of Klaipeda, Lithuania, and in 1997 was a Fulbright Lecturer at the American University of Kyrgyzstan in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia. For his efforts in protecting the Hudson River Valley he received Manitoga’s Russel Wright Award for Environmental Preservation in 2003. In 2005 he was selected as a Senior Associate Fellow of the Association of American Geographers.
