About Geography at FSU
Welcome to the Department of Geography at FSU!
We are a resourceful and dynamic group of 9 faculty, 2 emeritus professors, 2 teaching instructors, 2 staff, 61 graduate students pursuing master’s and doctoral programs, and around 160 undergraduate majors in geography and environmental studies.
Founded in 1925, the discipline of geography at FSU to us is the understanding and measuring of the spatial representation of people, cities, the landscape and the atmosphere for explaining our rapidly changing world and developing public policy.
FSU geographers’ interests span the range of the discipline and beyond, advancing conceptual perspectives and methodological techniques while addressing problems of significant societal importance. The department has particular strength in human-environmental interactions and GIScience. FSU geography faculty and their students identify with one or more of four thematic clusters: Cities and Mobilities, Hurricanes and Climate Change, Urban Remote Sensing, and Space-Time and Visualization. Common to each of these clusters is a cross-cutting concern for the sustainability of the environment which blends knowledge in ecology, society, and economy while using a wide array of analytical methodologies.
Cities and Mobilities (Horner,Kobayashi, Mesev, Pierce, Steinberg, Yang)
FSU geographers focus on better understanding the processes that shape the growth and development of cities, at scales ranging from the individual to the region, with a particular emphasis on human movement and interactions across space and time. Themes of accessibility, social justice, and broader sustainability concerns are explored in recent faculty research on topics such as urban land-use change, the jobs-housing balance, intra- and inter-metropolitan transportation and communications networks, the role of the city in fostering cultural identities, and the integration of environmental issues into urban geographic education.
We routinely collaborate with other on-campus departments and units, including FSU’s Department of Urban and Regional Planning and the DeVoe Moore Center for the Study of Government which increases opportunities for graduate student involvement in cutting-edge interdisciplinary research. Our faculty has secured research funding from sponsors such as the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, the National Park Service, and the Audubon Society.
Hurricanes and Climate Change (Baker, Elsner, Horner, Steinberg, Zhao)
FSU geographers are at the forefront of efforts to understand the processes that shape the development of hurricanes and complex weather systems, as well as the risks these phenomena pose to human settlements, local economies, and society as a whole. Our foci thus range from expertise in hurricane prediction to the social policies that enable management and mitigation, particularly with respect to issues such as evacuation, risk prediction, and relief service provision. We are also interested in broader questions of climate change, especially regarding energy consumption and carbon emissions. On-campus partners for research in this area include FSU’s Departments of Earth, Ocean, & Atmospheric Sciences, Statistics, and Computational Science, as well as initiatives in energy research (FSU’s Institute for Energy Systems, Economics, and Sustainability) and risk management (FSU’s Catastrophic Storm Risk Management Center). Geographers participating in this cluster have been funded by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the Risk Prediction Initiative of the Bermuda Institute for Ocean Science (BIOS).
Urban Remote Sensing (Mesev, Yang, Zhao)
The FSU geography department has one of the largest groups of faculty members in the U.S. who are interested in the development of remote sensing theories and technologies with respect to the study of the urban environment. By leveraging highly detailed aerospace sensor data, cutting-edge image processing techniques, and geographic information systems (GIS) software, FSU faculty and their graduate students use their expertise to understand the structure and evolution of cities. FSU geographers are also experts in environmental remote sensing as evidenced by their recent local and international work in landscape change, natural hazard assessment, and environmental sustainability. FSU geographers working in this cluster maintain productive links with other campus units, including the Departments of Urban and Regional Planning, Earth, Ocean, & Atmospheric Sciences, Civil Engineering, and Biology, as well as research centers such as the FSU Coastal and Marine Laboratory. Recent urban and environmental work by FSU geographers has been funded by agencies such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the National Science Foundation.
Space-Time and Visualization (Elsner, Horner, Kobayashi, Mesev, Pierce, Steinberg, Yang, Zhao)
FSU geography has substantial expertise in geographic information science (GIScience), especially with respect to themes of space, time, and visualization. FSU geographers are interested in traditional maps for representing spatial information as well as digital geospatial technologies and social media that enable new forms of visualization. FSU geographers are experts in the development and application of new techniques for exploring spatio-temporal phenomena. These efforts range from modeling the movement of mobile objects (e.g. pedestrians, vehicles, animals) to emerging qualitative GIS analytics. FSU geography faculty and students aligned with this cluster often work with colleagues in departments such as Statistics, Computational Science, Art, Criminology, and Communications. Recent funded projects have been sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.