Faculty research interests align with three areas of excellence:
- Geospatial Analysis and Modeling. Theory and applications of geospatial technologies such as remote sensing, geographic information systems (GIS), and data visualization, and their ethical implications.
- Earth System Science. How biogeographic, physical, ecological, chemical, and human spheres interact within the Earth System and how these connected components are dynamically changing in time and space.
- Global Change Risk and Resilience. How environmental processes such as climate change influence human risk and vulnerability, and how social processes such as resource consumption or geopolitical conflict affect justice, equity, and the environment.
(* indicates faculty who are currently advising graduate students)
Larry Becker*
Interests: rural livelihoods, food security, and agricultural policy in the global South, with a focus on Africa
Erica Fleishman*
Interests: biogeography, conservation, ecological responses to climate and land-use change
Hannah Gosnell*
Interests: rural land use change; water resource policy; climate change adaptation
Demian Hommel
Interests: human dimensions of global change; environmental security and resource conflicts
Julia Jones*
Interests: spatio-temporal statistics, land use, climate change and disturbance effects on hydrology, geomorphology, water quality
Robert Kennedy*
Interests: geospatial analysis, remote sensing, modeling, landscape ecology, disturbance dynamics, computational methods
Park Muhonda
Interests: rural livelihoods, adaptation to climate change, and political ecology
Laura Peters*
Interests: disasters, conflict resolution and peacebuilding, community health, social justice and inclusion, humanitarian and conflict-affected context
Mark Raleigh*
Interests: remote sensing, digital image processing, snow processes in mountain environments, hydroclimatology, cryosphere-climate interactions
Jim Thatcher*
Interests: critical GIS, critical cartography, political ecology, and geocomputation
Jamon Van Den Hoek*
Interests: geospatial intelligence, remote sensing, spatial programming, digital image processing, conflict ecology, land use/land cover change
James Watson*
Interests: complex adaptive systems, environmental science, social-ecological systems and quantitative analyses, seascape ecology, marine spatial planning, coastal vulnerability
David Wrathall*
Interests: climate hazards, social vulnerability, migration, and political ecology