News

McKenzie Skiles has received the AGU Cryosphere section’s Early Career Award! The award recognizes “significant early career contributions to cryospheric sciences and technology.” Congrats, McKenzie!

Geography and ENVST faculty Jessica DiCarlo named a Wilson China Fellow

U of U Geography Professor Tom Cova was interviewed for an article in Wired Magazine

Dr. Neng Wan leads new NIH-funded project on physical activities among Pacific Islanders in the US

Stella Mosher was awarded the 2023 PhD Scholarship from the International Association of Wildland Fire.

Professor McKenzie Skiles' Research Featured in UNews

Congratulations to Talula Pontuti on her first place win in the Wilkes Climate Summit poster competition.

Congratulations to Ava Lessing and Kevin Ramos for winning the Utah Geographic Information Council (UGIC) student poster competition last week with their Capstone in GIS poster titled “Beetle Kill Data and StoryMap.”

Geography Department Professor Kathleen Nicoll was interviewed by local news sources regarding the recent house slides in Draper.

McKenzie Skiles featured in @theU

Dr. Jewell Lund, recent PhD graduate from the University of Utah, Geography Department published a research paper in Water Resources Research in March, 2023

Dr. Jesse Morris talks how growing up around forests led to his passion to study conifers, forest conditions

Geography Associate Professor Rich Medina was interviewed for an article on ksl.com

Research Assistant Professor Mickey Campbell and Professor Phil Dennison have developed a new tool for improving wildland firefighter safety.

@theU announced this morning that two teams with Geographers were awarded One Utah Data Science Hub seed grants.

Dust on Snow - McKenzie Skiles' research featured on fox13now

U of U Geography Grad Student, Rebecca Richards-Steed's Research Was Featured in @theU

Corridors between national parks would boost mammals’ persistence time

McKenzie Skiles' Research Featured on ksl.com

Stella Mosher's research featured in Nature

Jesse Morris contributed to an article that was featured on KSL and in the St. George News

The U’s American West Center will highlight 30 Native place names during November.

See what Adam Dastrup, UGeography Alum helped create in partnership with various collaborators on the Great Salt Lake. Great job Adam!

Congratulations to our U Geography alumni Josh Goreneveld, Julia Surkis, and Emma McFee!

Rebecca Richards-Steed's Paper, titled Evidence of transgenerational effects on autism spectrum disorder using multigenerational space‑time cluster detection was published in the International Journal of Health Geographics.

Geography professor Tom Cova was recently interviewed regarding evacuation planning for both an article in the Salt Lake Tribune and one in the Atlantic.

A new paper led by Alex Hohl was featured in @TheU

Congratulations to Geography Grad Students Julia Surkis (MSGIS) and Jessie Eastburn (MS)

Geography PhD student Susana Velasquez-Franco was selected to receive an AASP-TPS Student Research Grant for her dissertation project

McKenzie Skiles talk about the future of Utah’s water on RadioWest

On Monday, April 18, Geography professor Tom Cova took part in a discussion panel during the College of Social and Behavioral Science's 50th anniversary event featuring Dr. Katharine Hayhoe

University of Utah professors to develop more accurate methods of measuring and analyzing mountain snowpack.

Summer Rupper and Morgan McDonnel were part of the team awarded the GK Gilbert Award for Excellence in Geomorphological Research by the AAG.

Congratulations to our students and faculty

McKenzie Skiles' Research featured in the Salt Lake Tribune

Chelsea Ackroyd's Paper Trends in Snow Cover Duration Across River Basins in High Mountain Asia From Daily Gap-Filled MODIS Fractional Snow Covered Area was published in the journal Frontiers in Earth Science

Geography Assistant Professor McKenzie Skiles was interviewed for a KSL article regarding the future of snow in the Western United States

Dr. Chung-Myun Lee, Professor Emeritus of Geography passed away on November 8, 2021 at the age of 96.

Geography PhD student Susana Velasquez-Franco was featured in @TheU

The AAG Redistricting Panel Series has an upcoming virtual panel in Utah on Wednesday, September 22nd at 7pm MT, organized by Rebecca Steed of the University of Utah.

Geography Professors Summer Rupper and McKenzie Skiles were among the U professors to weigh in on the sixth IPCC climate report.

Andre Coleman, Geography Ph.D. student, featured in the news about using satellites, drones and artificial intelligence and how emerging technology is changing the way firefighting agencies and governments battle the ever-increasing threat of wildfires as hundreds of thousands of acres burn across the western United States.

Geography grad student Morgan McDonnell coauthored a paper which investigates the cause, scope and impact of the Uttarakhand flood and landslide.

Simon Brewer's research featured in the Washington Post

Tom Cova's research featured in @theU

Aaron Flores Wins 2021 CSBS Student Research Day Award

Mitch Power Joins "Understanding the Science" Lecture

May 21, 2021

U researchers found that 1,000 years ago, the Fremont used cultural burning to reduce the risk for large-scale wildfire activity in mountain environments.

Our very own Dr. McKenzie Skiles is participating in SnowEx NASA research. A number of geography graduate students are helping with SnowEx observations this season: Matt Olson, Joachim Meyer, Dillon Ragar, and Ted Zerivitz.

Two undergraduate students affiliated with the U’s Center for Natural & Technological Hazards (CNTH) received support through National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates awards in order to conduct research on hazards and disasters.

Geography Research Assistant Professor Jenn Shah's research shows new ways to look at stream health

Utah scientists get dirty to save threatened cactus

Seismic monitoring may improve early warnings for glacial lake outburst floods

GIS Major and student garden steward featured in @TheU

Spy Satellite Reveals Accelerated Pace of Himalayan Glacier Melt

U researchers hope to raise awareness of gender-based violence in Utah and beyond.

New research on COVID-19 by Geography faculty Dr. Alexander Hohl.

The Department of Geography stands against systemic racial injustice and the social and economic inequities that afflict people of color. We acknowledge that as part of a historically, predominantly white institution, department, and discipline, we have not done enough in the past to address racism and injustice. We are saddened and angered by pervasive racism in our society, and we recognize that it is our responsibility to learn and involve ourselves in issues of race and bias, so that we can better instruct our students in the context of today’s social environment and our diversifying world.

Utah’s air pollution varies over the year, and at times it is the worst in the United States. The geography traps winter inversions and summertime smog throughout the Salt Lake Valley, but underserved neighborhoods—and their schools—experience the highest concentrations. Previous research has shown pollution disparities using annual averages of PM 2.5 levels, the tiny breathable particles that can damage lungs just hours after exposure. Children are especially at risk and experience more than just health effects; exposure to PM 2.5 affects school attendance and academic success.

The Geography Department is excited to announce two new seed grants awarded to faculty in their research efforts aimed at understanding the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic: Professor Alex Hohl's grant, “A Geospatial Big Data Platform for Understanding Population Sentiment Toward the Spread of COVID-19 in the United States” is being aided by fellow geography department faculty Rich Medina and Neng Wan, along with Sociology Department professor Ming Wen.

Scientists from around the world have assessed the planet’s 78 mountain glacier–based water systems and, for the first time, ranked them in order of their importance to adjacent lowland communities, as well as their vulnerability to future environmental and socioeconomic changes.

At the Geography Club’s second Mapping Party, volunteers made hundreds of edits to OpenStreetMap. Our efforts contribute to the larger Missing Maps campaign, which is supported by organizations such as the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders. Missing Maps’ main objective is to “map the most vulnerable places in the developing world, in order that international and local NGOs and individuals can use the maps and data to better respond to crises affecting the areas.”

I am an atmospheric scientist with three degrees in meteorology. However my tenured home at the University of Georgia is the Department of Geography. Like many of you reading this, I had a rather narrow understanding of geography when I left NASA to join the faculty at the university. Over the years, I have certainly heard people describe geography as maps, capitals, rivers, and so forth. While these things are definitely a part of the discipline, there is far more complexity and rigor than memorization of facts or your recollections of the elementary Geography Bee.