AAG

American and Caribbean, South Asia and Middle Eastern, Russian,
East European and Eurasian).
Professional Science Master’s in GIS program—The PSM combines
scientific and professional training in GIS and Business to prepare
students for careers with businesses that use and develop geospatial
technologies. Students build a flexible, cross-disciplinary expertise
around a strong Geographic Information Science core, while acquiring
business knowledge and professional skills. The business curriculum
includes technology management, marketing, entrepreneurship,
project and/or project management and finance. PSM students
typically complete the program in sixteen-months, consisting of three
full-time semesters and a summer internship.. Students in this program
may not hold assistantships or other tuition and fee waiver-generating
appointments.
Departmental facilities include an instructional GIS laboratory with
state-of-the-art hardware and a variety of software including ArcGIS,
ERDAS, ENVI, and spatial statistical software. The department also
has an Earth materials laboratory for soil and fluvial analysis. The
department is home to several specialized research centers:1) the
Regional Economics Applications Laboratory, a cooperative venture
between the University of Illinois and the Federal Reserve Bank in
Chicago, focusing on the development and use of analytical models
for urban and regional forecasting and economic problem solving; 2)
the CyberGIS Center for Advanced Digital and Spatial Studies, which
was established as a partnership among several units on campus, and
focuses on computationally intensive spatial analysis and modeling,
high-performance and collaborative GIS, and cyberinfrastructurebased
geospatial problem-solving environments and applications; 3)
the Social Dimensions of Environmental Policy Initiative which aims
to improve management of the earth’s environmental through research
on social and policy dimensions of sustainability; 4) the Global
Environmental Analysis and Remote Sensing (GEARS) Laboratory
that addresses the impacts of climate change and land use/land cover
change on vegetated ecosystems using remote sensing. Other research
facilities on campus include the largest publicly supported university
library in the United States. The Map and Geography Library contains
an excellent collection of monographs and journals and one of the
largest map collections in the country. There is also access to the
National Center for Super Computing Applications, and the
department has close research and teaching ties to the Illinois State
Geological, Natural History, and Water Surveys and their analytical
facilities.
ACADEMIC PLAN, ADMISSION REQUIREMENTS, AND
FINANCIAL AID: Semester systems. Minimum standard for
admission to the Masters program is a B average, higher for the Ph.D.
program. Scores from the Graduate Record Examination must be
submitted, along with three letters of recommendation. Teaching
assistantships, research assistantships and several Graduate College
and departmental fellowships are available. Currently, one-half time
nine-month appointments for assistants carry a minimum stipend of
about $16281plus remission of tuition. Nearly all resident graduate
students, other than PSM students, are supported by fellowships,
scholarships, and assistantships.
FACULTY:
Thomas J. Bassett, Ph.D., California-Berkeley, 1984, Professor —
African agrarian systems, political ecology, agriculture
development and socio-cultural change, history of cartography
James Best, Ph.D., London, 1985, Professor — process
sedimentology, flow-sediment interactions
Trevor Birkenholtz, Ph.D., The Ohio State University, 2007, Associate
Professor — political ecology, development, social theory,
nature-society relations, vulnerability, South Asia, water
resources
Julie Cidell, Ph.D., Minnesota, 2003, Associate Professor —
transportation, GIS, economic geography, urban political
ecology, urban sustainability
Piotr Cienciala, Ph.D., University of British Columbia, 2015,
Assistant Professor — Ecogeomorphology and echohydraulics,
impact of land use and climate change on streams, river and
watershed conservation
Jonathan Greenberg, Ph.D., California-Davis, 2004, Assistant
Professor — remote sensing, landscape ecology, vegetationclimate
interactions
Brian J. Jefferson, Ph.D., New School for Social Research, 2013,
Assistant Professor — urban geography, carceral geography and
critical social theory
Shakil Kashem, Ph.D., University of Illinois, 2015, Teaching Assistant
Professor — GIS, environmental policy and planning, disaster
risk management, urban growth modeling
Ezekiel Kalipeni, Ph.D., North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1986, Professor
— environmental and resource issues, population, migration,
health care, Africa
Mei-Po Kwan, Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara, 1994,
Professor — environmental health, mobility, urban/transport
geography, GIScience, ICT
Sara L. McLafferty, Ph.D., Iowa, 1979, Professor and Head —
geography of health, spatial analysis, urban geography, GIS
Bruce L. Rhoads, Ph.D., Arizona State, 1986, Professor — fluvial
geomorphology, environmental management, stream restoration,
philosophy of geomorphology
Jesse Ribot, Ph.D., California-Berkeley, 1989, Professor —
environmental policy, local government, rural representation,
distributional equity, social vulnerability
Murugesu Sivapalan, Ph.D., Princeton, 1986, Professor — watershed
hydrology, runoff processes, chemical and biological processes
in water quality
Shaowen Wang, Ph.D., Iowa, 2004, Professor and Director,
CyberInfrastructure and Geospatial Information Laboratory,
Senior Research Scientist-NCSA — cyberinfrastructure,
geographic information science, large-scale geospatial problem
solving
David Wilson, Ph.D., Rutgers, 1985, Professor — urban, social
theory, political, neighborhood dynamics
EMERITI FACULTY:
Bruce M. Hannon, Ph.D., Illinois, 1970, Professor Emeritus — energy
use and conservation, environmental planning, ecological
modeling
Geoffrey J.D. Hewings, Ph.D., Washington, 1969, Professor Emeritus
and Director, Regional Economics Applications Laboratory —
regional science, methods of urban and regional analysis,
regional economic models and forecasting
John A. Jakle, Ph.D., Indiana, 1967, Professor Emeritus — historical,
cultural, urban social geography, American landscape
John Thompson, Ph.D., Stanford, 1958, Professor Emeritus —
cultural, historical, Latin America, wetlands drainage history
Colin E. Thorn, Ph.D., Colorado, 1974, Professor Emeritus — alpine
and periglacial geomorphology, philosophy and theory of
geomorphology
DEPARTMENTAL AFFILIATES:
Paul F. Diehl, Ph.D., U. Michigan, 1983, Professor, Political Science
— war and peace, international organizations, ethnic conflict
Brian Dill, Ph.D., U. of Minnesota, 2007, Associate Professor —
development, political sociology, globalization, sustainability,
renewable energy
Zsusza Gille, Ph.D., California-Santa Cruz, 1999, Associate
Professor, Sociology — environmental sociology, sociology of
knowledge, globalization
Jenny M. Johnson, M.S., Illinois, 1985, Map and Geography
Librarian and Associate Professor of Library Administration —
maps, journals, and other library/geography issues
Faranak Miraftab, Ph.D., Berkeley, 1995, Professor, Urban and
Regional Planning — social aspects of urban development
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