researchers in the Department of Geography studied how the Northern California landscape responded to extreme wildfire, and study how prior fires influenced chances of forest recovery.
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Fourth-year environmental systems engineering major Sofia Hoffman spent a month in Ecuador’s Amazon Basin researching contamination linked to off-the-grid oil extraction as part of Assistant Professor of Geography Belén Noroña’s research in the Yasuní National Park.
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Shannon Speed, Paula Gunn Allen Chair and professor of American Indian studies, gender studies and anthropology at UCLA, will deliver the Penn State Department of Geography’s annual E. Willard and Ruby S. Miller Endowed Lecture at noon on Friday, March 27.
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Sustainability, Society, and Environmental Geography examines the urgent challenges facing our world: climate change, resource scarcity, environmental justice, and building a livable future. If you've wondered whether green initiatives work, why some communities bear more environmental burdens than others, or how we balance economic development with environmental protection, and human rights, this major gives you tools to find answers.
This program explores the entanglement of environmental issues with economics and social justice—recognizing that "sustainable" solutions affect different communities in different ways. You'll learn to ask critical questions: Sustainable for whom? At what cost? Are we measuring the right things?
Drawing on geographic perspectives, you'll understand how these challenges vary across space—from neighborhoods to global systems. Unlike technical approaches to sustainability, this program grounds you in critical thinking, teaching you to interrogate underlying assumptions, question power structures, and understand how culture, history, and values shape possibilities for change.
You Might Like This Program If...
- You're concerned about climate change but skeptical of simple "green" solutions.
- You want to understand why sustainability efforts succeed or fail, and for whom.
- You're drawn to big questions about fairness, power, and the future rather than just technical fixes.
- You care about making real change but want to think critically about what "better" actually means.
- You're interested in careers where you can evaluate and improve sustainability work, not just accept it at face value.
For More Information
he Penn State Department of Geography will host Pavithra Vasudevan for a talk titled “Rewriting Capitalism’s Horror Story” at 3:30 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 6, in 112 Walker Building on the University Park campus.
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Four doctoral graduate students in Penn State’s Department of Geography will deliver research talks as part of the department’s Graduate Student Coffee Hour series.
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Penn State’s Department of Geography is launching a new major in sustainability, society and environmental geography.
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Ann Ehrlich is currently pursuing an Integrated Undergraduate-Graduate (IUG) degree and will graduate from Penn State with her bachelor's degree in geography, a master's degree in spatial data science and a graduate certificate in remote sensing and Earth observation.
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Gregory Jenkins, professor of meteorology and atmospheric sciences, will give the talks "West Africa poised for late 21st century climate injustice: Modeling increasing anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs) and changes in Saharan mineral dust."
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Fifteen faculty members have joined IEE. Together, they bring expertise that connects energy systems, environmental processes and human dimensions, opening new pathways for collaboration and shared research efforts.
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