The Department of Geography and Earth Sciences is comprised of physical, natural and social scientists from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds. Our mission is to create, extend and disseminate applied and theoretical scientific knowledge of the Earth’s physical, natural and human systems and their interactions through scholarly research, teaching and service.  This is accomplished through the lens of five interdisciplinary themes:

• Global Change
• Sustainability
• Human Environmental Interaction
• Hazards
• Geospatial Perspective

While each of these thematic areas represents distinct faculty expertise, there are considerable opportunities for multidisciplinary learning and research.

The Department houses programs leading to undergraduate and graduate degrees in the following areas: Geography, Earth Sciences, Geology and Meteorology.  Additionally the department contributes to two interdisciplinary graduate programs; Infrastructure and Environmental Systems and Public Policy.

Recent News

• Congratulations to the newest PhD graduates of the Geography and Urban Regional Analysis Doctoral Program, Dr. Elizabeth Delmelle and Dr. Ryan James.  Dr. Delmelle's  advisor was Professor Jean-Claude Thill and Dr. James advisor was Associate Professor Harry Campbell.

• Dr Gang Chen has accepted the position of Assistant Professor in Environmental Remote Sensing

• Dr. Elizabeth Delmelle has accepted the position of lecturer in Geographic Information Science and Planning

• Jamie Strickland has been awarded this year's Full-time Lecturer Award for Teaching Excellence.

• Geography major Jacob Huffman, was recently selected for a Newman Civic Fellows Award.  Newman Civic Fellows are recommended by college and university presidents to acknowledge motivation and ability in public leadership. Newman Civic Fellows awards are made in memory of Frank Newman, who dedicated his life to creating systemic change through education reform.  Jacob was nominated and received this honor in recognition of his longstanding civic engagement and practical investigation in urban planning.  This distinction takes into account his contributions to Habitat for Humanity and Concerts & Causes, as well as his internship at the Frederick Blum Neighborhood Assistance Center in Chicago.

• Kate Grove (Meteorology student) was selected to be the commencement speaker this spring.  This is our second meteorology major to be given this honor in the short time the meteorology degree has been offered. (Tiffany Gardner was the speaker in 2010)

• Kunwar Singh has received The Urban Forestry Fellowship from The Garden Club of America. This $4,000 national award is given to a student scientist each year in an effort to support innovative research that advances our knowledge of forest health in urban areas and to increase the number of scientists in field of urban forestry.

• Sarah Haas won first place in the PhD Student Paper Competition of the Biogeography Specialty Group of the AAG for her paper "Forest species diversity reduces disease risk in a generalist pathogen invasion."

• Congratulations to Elizabeth Delmelle who won first place in the Student Paper Competition of the Spatial Analysis and Modeling Specialty Group of the AAG for her paper on “The Reciprocal Relationships of Neighborhood Quality of Life Dynamics: A Structural Equations Modeling Approach.”

• Dr. Jean-Claude Thill was awarded the Edward L. Ullman Award for outstanding contributions to the field of transportation geography. This award was presented by the TGSG.

• Kunwar K Singh, PhD student in Geography and Urban Regional Analysis, received the US-IALE scholarship ($500) sponsored by the University of Rhode Island's Coastal Institute. The award is intended to help students connect with leading researchers at the U.S. Annual Symposium of the International Association for Landscape Ecology. The award includes a special reception and travel funds for Krishna to present one of his dissertation research papers entitled “LiDAR-derived indices for detection and mapping of invasive understory plants in urbanizing forest landscapes" at the conference in Newport, Rhode Island in April.

• Professor speaks on NPR’s "Charlotte Talks" show: Dr. John Bender gave a talk on the "State of the Ocean" on Wednesday, February 1, 2012. Click the link to Charlotte Talks and search for John Bender.

• Congratulations to Monica Dorning for winning the NASA-MSU Professional Enhancement Award. The $700 prize will provide travel funds for Monica to present her NSF ULTRA-Ex dissertation research at the U.S. Annual Symposium of the International Association for Landscape Ecology in Newport, Rhode Island in April.

• Congratulations to Monica Dorning. She won a $1,000 travel scholarship from the Ecological Society of America to present her paper, “Simulating land change scenarios to explore urbanization-conservation conflicts at the edge of metropolis” at the ESA’s 2012 Emerging Issues Conference to be held at the National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, WV.