Research Concentrations

Explore our list of faculty specialties

Human Geography

Political
Urban
Economic
Migration
Mexico
Central America

students

Geographic Education

K-12, Geospatial Thinking, Teacher Education, Curriculum, Instruction & Assessment, Career Development, Online Education, Teaching and Education

Environment, Climate, Hazards, Physical Geography, Geology

  • R. Denise Blanchard, Ph.D., Colorado at Boulder, 1992, Professor — natural and environmental hazards, economic geography, environmental studies, research methods, historical geography
  • Rebecca Davio, Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin, 2001, Associate Professor of Practice and Internship Coordinator — applied research in data-driven decision making across a variety of topics, policy analysis, and recycling and sustainability
  • Richard W. Dixon, Ph.D., Texas A&M, 1996, Professor — climatology, meteorology, oceanography, hazards, quantitative methods, environmental
  • Ronald Hagelman, III, Ph.D., Texas State, 2001, Professor and Graduate Program Coordinator — environmental, hazards and disaster, historical, land management and conservation, urban environment/agriculture
  • Jason Julian, Ph.D., North Carolina, 2007, Professor — water resources, parks & protected places, land use change, ecosystem services
  • Samantha Krause, Ph.D., Geography, University of Texas at Austin, 2018, Assistant Professor — soil and water geochemistry, tropical wetlands, long term paleoenvironmental change
  • Yanan (Nancy) Li, Ph.D., The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 2015, Assistant Professor — glacial geomorphology, paleoenvironment reconstruction, natural processes in climate change
  • Robert Mace, Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin, 1998, Professor of Practice — water policy and science, water resources and conservation, groundwater sustainability and modeling, climate change and water
  • Kimberly Meitzen, Ph.D., South Carolina, 2011, Associate Professor — fluvial processes, geomorphology, river basin management, biogeography
  • Benjamin Prince, Ph.D., Environmental Geography, Texas State University, 2016, Senior Lecturer — community and regional planning, environmental geography, agriculture-ecological systems
  • Thomas Ptak, Ph.D., Geography, University of Oregon, 2016, Assistant Professor — energy transitions & society, climate change & sustainability, water resources & hydropower, borders
  • John P. Tiefenbacher, Ph.D., Rutgers, 1992, Professor — global warming, climate change, spatial change, environmental problems, geography of wine, air quality, dissonance, circus clowns
  • Christi Townsend, Ph.D., Texas State, 2012, Senior Lecturer — environmental geography, geomorphology, natural hazards, the geography of agriculture and viticulture, research methods

GIScience

  • Edwin Chow, Ph.D., South Carolina, 2005, Associate Professor — GIScience, internet GIS, GIS based-modeling, GIScience programming
  • Nathan Currit, Ph.D., Pennsylvania State, 2003, Associate Professor — remote sensing and land cover change, GIScience, uncertainty and change in human-environment systems 
  • Alberto Giordano, Ph.D., Syracuse, 1999, Professor and Chair — cartography, historical GIS, Holocaust and genocide, spatial applications of forensic anthropology
  • Jennifer Jensen, Ph.D., Idaho, 2009, Associate Professor — Lidar, remote sensing, biogeography, land use/land cover change
  • Yongmei Lu, Ph.D., SUNY at Buffalo, 2001, Professor — GIScience, urban and regional studies, crime, health, China and East Asia
  • Yihong Yuan, Ph.D., California at Santa Barbara, 2013, Assistant Professor — GIScience, spatio-temporal data mining, GIScience programing
  • F. Benjamin Zhan, Ph.D., SUNY at Buffalo, 1994, Professor — GIScience, health and the environment, transportation and network science

Geographic Education

  • Richard G. Boehm, Ph.D., Texas at Austin, 1975, Professor and Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Chair of Geographic Education
  • Injeong Jo, Ph.D., Texas A&M, 2011, Assistant Professor — geographic education, geospatial technologies for education, assessment in geography
  • Osvaldo Muñiz Solari, Ph.D., Tennessee, 1991, Professor — geographic education, Latin America, online learning methods, global collaboration, international flows
  • Michael Solem, Ph.D., Colorado at Boulder, 1999, Research Professor — geographic education

Human Geography

  • Sarah Blue, Ph.D. UCLA, 2004, Associate Professor — migration, gender, political geography, development studies
  • Brian Cooper, Ph.D., Texas State, 2012, Senior Lecturer — world regional, U.S. and Canada, economic
  • Jennifer Devine, Ph.D., California at Berkeley, 2013, Assistant Professor — political, Latin America, nature and heritage tourism, qualitative methods
  • Yongmei Lu, Ph.D., SUNY at Buffalo, 2001, Professor — GIScience, urban and regional studies, crime, health, China and East Asia
  • Rosalie Ray, Ph.D., Urban Planning, Columbia University, 2020, Assistant Professor - urban and regional planning, economic, transportation
  • Eric Sarmiento, Ph.D., Rutgers. 2015. Assistant Professor — nature/society analysis, urban, cultural