• 2022-12-06 - The department gratefully acknowledges Dr. Gary (PhD, ’79) and Mary Molyneaux for establishing an endowment fund to support geography and GIS doctoral students. Molyneaux studied geography, urban planning, and landscape architecture with Professor John Jakle and went on to a distinguished career in the public and private sectors and higher education. He continues...
  • 2022-12-06 - Wayne Koonce (BA, ’71) returned to campus on Friday, November 4th to accept his 2022 GGIS Distinguished Alumni Award, at a ceremony hosted by Department Head Prof. Shaowen Wang in the Russell Seminar Room. After receiving the award, Wayne shared his Illinois experience and career journey and took questions from faculty and students on topics including sustainable buildings and urban development....
  • 2022-11-30 - Geography & GIS office administrator Matt Cohn (BA, creative writing and psychology, '03) has received a College of Liberal Arts & Sciences 2022-23 Staff Award and will be honored with six other college-level award recipients at a ceremony in March.
  • 2022-10-26 - A group of GGIS faculty and graduate students attended the West Lakes Regional Division AAG Annual Meeting at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville this past weekend and all three students won awards in the Student Paper Competition.
  • 2022-10-26 - A team of scientists including professor Bruce Rhoads was awarded a grant from the Illinois Nutrient Research and Education Council (NREC) to quantify streambank erosion across the state and its contributions to phosphorus (P) loading of surface waters. Phosphorus (P) enrichment to streams, lakes, and estuaries is increasing throughout...
  • 2022-10-25 - By Amber Rose, Grainger College of Engineering University of Illinois researchers Leonardo Chamorro and Jim Best used clear mud in order to study the structure of turbulence in water flows. You might be thinking, "mud isn’t clear!" If so, you would be wrong. Most work done by researchers in the Earth surface community has looked at the dynamics of water flows in the absence of...
  • 2022-10-19 - A $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation will create the Taylor Geospatial Institute Regional AI Learning System. Launched in April 2022 and led by Saint Louis University, the Taylor Geospatial Institute brings together eight Midwestern universities and research centers to harness innovation in geospatial science. The three-year grant, “...
  • 2022-09-19 - A research team led by DePaul University geography faculty, in collaboration with the UIUC Department of Geography & GIS, was recently awarded a $250,000 NASA grant to collaborate with a Chicago community on an expanded online dashboard that uses satellite data to bring disparities in tree canopy coverage, plant diversity and air quality into focus. The goal is to give community leaders...
  • 2022-09-07 - Dr. Nikolai Alvarado received funding to establish the Latin American and Caribbean Cities Collective at the University of Illinois, in collaboration with Dr. Magdalena Novoa, Assistant Professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning. The LAC Cities Collective will serve as a collaborative space for faculty, students,...
  • 2022-08-08 - How did you decide to become a geographer? Two early factors influenced my choice to become a geographer. First, I competed in extemporaneous speaking competitions during high school that required me  to stay abreast of world politics, where topics often had a geopolitical focus. After high school, I lived in the Netherlands for a year and a half and got to travel...
  • 2022-08-06 - How did you decide to become a geographer? I began my undergraduate studies here at UIUC with an interest in environmental sciences but switched to geology after taking several of their field courses. I first  learned about GIS on the job as a student research assistant with the Illinois Geological Survey on campus, and really enjoyed the challenges of analyzing...
  • 2022-07-27 - PhD student Yilun Zhao (advisor: Dr. Chunyuan Diao) has been awarded a Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST) fellowship for her project "Evaluating the Influence of Biocontrol Program on the Colorado River Biodiversity with Multi-Source Time Series Imagery." From Yilun's...
  • 2022-06-28 - Geography PhD student Becky Vandewalle was selected as a Frontera Computational Sciences Fellow for the 2022-23 academic year. As a fellow, Becky will have access to the University of Texas at Austin's Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) as she gathers and analyzes data for her dissertation.
  • 2022-06-27 - By GGIS majors Julia Cogan, Katie Niermann, and Zimo Xiao (BS, ‘22) As members of the Epsilon chapter of the Gamma Theta Upsilon (GTU) Geographical Honors Society, we had the privilege of organizing the Spring 2022 Alumni Career Conversations series. It was a great opportunity to meet alumni (virtually) and learn about their experiences as we...
  • 2022-06-08 - GGIS major and University Laboratory High School Library graduate Zona Hrnjak is on her first ride this summer with the Illini 4000, a cycling team that raises awareness and funds for cancer research and patient services.