10 Facts About Joseph Velikonja

Joseph Velikonja met his future wife, Matilde Rus, a few years later in Trieste, where she was working as an English teacher.

Joseph Velikonja emigrated to the United States in 1955, where he briefly worked as a manual laborer before continuing his academic career.

Joseph Velikonja's brother Tine Velikonja was a surgeon and president of the New Slovene Covenant non-Partisan veterans' organization for many years.

Joseph Velikonja died in Nova Gorica, Slovenia on May 23,2015.

Joseph Velikonja was laid to rest at Zale Central Cemetery in Ljubljana on May 27,2015.

Joseph Velikonja taught at the Slovene normal school and classical high school in Trieste from 1947 to 1955, where he wrote and published several Slovene textbooks.

Joseph Velikonja edited a number of geographical works during this period.

Joseph Velikonja then continued his studies in Chicago, and taught geography at the University of Chicago in 1958, at Elmhurst College, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and then at the University of Washington from 1964 onwards, where he was appointed a full professor in 1979.

Joseph Velikonja's research took him to Canada and Europe several times, and he presented his work at various academic congresses from 1961 onward.

Joseph Velikonja especially studied Slovene immigration to the United States, and he promoted cooperation between researchers in Slovenia and the United States as well as faculty and researcher exchanges.