Geography resources for graduate students

July 19, 2006 6:58 AM

Where can I learn about graduate opportunities (funded) in geography

I've just finished a Master's in biology and am thinking about changing my field to geography for my PhD. I'm looking for listservs or websites where graduate positions in geography are advertised. Biology related examples of what I'm looking for are EvolDir and ECOLOG

My interests are in arid-lands, land degredation, and sustainable development so I'minterested more in physical geography rather than cultural.

posted by a22lamia to education (4 comments total)

Birkbeck in London is supposed to have a great geography program. I'd advise you not to do a PhD there though, as there is very little funding for PhDs in the UK. Rather, get a MSc there in one year and then start a PhD in the States.
posted by k8t at 7:54 AM on July 19, 2006

If you're looking for conservation-related geography programs, the Society for Conservation GIS has a listserv that sometimes has positions posted. Further, somebody recently asked a similar question on that very listserv and received the following response: "First, check the Association of American Geographer's Guide to Geography Programs in the Americas:

http://www.aag.org/Publications/Guide.html

If you don't want to purchase this book, you should be able to get it on interlibrary loan through a university or even a public library.

Second, ESRI maintains an up to date searchable database of institutions that offer GIS courses, on:

http://www.esri.com/industries/university/education/onlinedb.html
"

It also depends on if you want to do spatially-explicit (i.e. GIS-based) geography, or social science type studies. For computer-based stuff, UC-Santa Barbara and Clark University are generally considered the best within the U.S. Don't know much about non-spatially explicit programs.
posted by one_bean at 9:52 AM on July 19, 2006

Earthworks posts positions in a variety of fields, including geography, environmental science, landscape architecture etc. Funded Ph.D. opportunities are commonly posted.

Geological Society of America posts student opportunities in the geosciences. Physical geography and geomorphology Ph.D. opportunities show up there. The American Geophysical Union publishes student opportunities in their journal EOS, but they require membership and log-in to peruse these.

Mostly, though, just write to people who you think are doing cool work. Most productive professors need graduate students and will fund them. Strong departments, whose web pages you can browse include University of Washington, UC Berkeley, Arizona State University, Princeton (Prof. Rodriguez-Iturbe does cool stuff modelling ecology and landscape evolution in arid and semi-arid lands), MIT (Dept. of Civil Engineering; the Earth Sciences there has taken a big hit, with many professors having just left). There are undoubtedly many, many others, these are just the places that come to mind.

Good luck.
posted by bumpkin at 9:56 AM on July 19, 2006

Geography programs aren't always in the famous institutions one might otherwise seek, but here is a list of current doctoral programs in geography (compiled by a friend of mine). Often programs will feature opportunities on their webpages, but I see many come across AAG specialty-group listservs. If your location's correct, I'm not so far away, and would be glad to discuss via email.
posted by zachxman at 9:01 AM on February 20, 2007