Jeff Hamerlinck

Jeff Hamerlinck graduated from Lincoln High School in 1984, where he was a three-year letter-winner in football, co-captain of the basketball team, a member of the Concert Choir and participated in several high school musical productions.  

Jeff graduated from the University of North Dakota with a Bachelor of Science Degree in geography, magna cum laude, in 1988.  He received his Masters Degree in urban and regional planning at the University of Wyoming in 1992 and was hired as a Research Scientist at that time.   Jeff currently serves as the Director of the Wyoming Geographic Information Science Center, a research institute under the Provost’s Office at the University of Wyoming where he supervises a staff of twenty-five people in his department and oversees more than forty-five projects on an annual basis.  He is a member of the University of Wyoming Dean and Directors Council and also teaches geographic information science and technology in the Department of Geography.  Through his immense experience Jeff continues to build a superior team of Geographers and Planners at the University of Wyoming who contribute in a variety of areas including community planning, wildlife management, watershed analysis and land management. In addition to working throughout the Western U.S., Jeff has lectured and conducted research in Australia, Italy, Russia and Trinidad. Jeff will complete his PhD in geography at the University of Colorado, Boulder in May 2010.

Outside of work, Jeff enjoys reading, hiking, biking, cross-country skiing, fly fishing and tries to play basketball two or three times a week.  He started an intramural broomball league on campus because of his love of the game from back in the “Old Arena” days.  Jeff’s depth of character and completeness as an individual are evident not only at work but also in his family life. Jeff is married to Julie Koppenhaver and they have two daughters, Moira, 17, and Claire, 10.  Besides being a husband and father Jeff has also been a coach contributing to the athletic development of not only his daughters but many of their friends as well.