October 2009: Part of two conference panels. At the Western History Association Conference in Denver,  was a panelist on a session titled "Environment, Culture, and the Colorado Gold Rush’s Sesquicentennial: A Roundtable Discussion." At the inaugural Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences Meeting in Madison, served as chair and panelist on a session titled, "A Useable Past: A Roundtable Discussion on the Role of Historians in Environmental Studies Programs."

December 2008: Presented paper at the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston as part of the Boston Environmental History Seminar series. The title of George's paper was “‘Gold! Gold!! Gold!!!:’ Mining and Environmental Change in the 19th-Century Colorado Front Range.”

November 2008: Talk to the Environmental Studies Program at Macalester College in St. Paul on "Mining and Environmental Change in the 19th-Century Colorado Rockies." 

February 2008, QuIRK Curricular Grant: The QuIRK initiative is pleased to announce recipients of course creation and revision grants for summer 2008: Meherun Ahmed, Barbara Allen, Mike Flynn, Micheal Griffin, Dev Gupta, Diane Nemec Ignashev, Baird Jarman, Rich Keiser, Sun Hee Lee, Greg Marfleet, Al Montero, Tun Myint, Martha Paas, Nader Saiedi, Parna Sengupta, George Vrtis, and Jenny Wahl.