Mahsa Bahrami, a doctoral student in Penn State’s Department of Geography, has been awarded a NASA Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST) grant to fund her research on meltwater lakes at the surface of the Antarctic ice sheet.
Christopher Ramos, a U.S. Air Force veteran who is a Penn State World Campus student, has received the University's 2024 Lieutenant Michael P. Murphy Award, which recognizes outstanding contributions to the geospatial intelligence community.
As the use of location-based data becomes more pervasive and complicated, we need experts who can leverage spatial data to develop insights and improve decision-making. The Penn State Master of Science in Spatial Data Science (SDS) can prepare you to work at the forefront of the geospatial industry, where Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and spatial analysis intersect with the principles of data science, visualization, and programming.
As a student in this completely online program, you can learn to:
Graduates of this program can pursuing a senior-level career in business, public health, emergency management,natural resources, transportation, energy, or urban development. The following roles are often held by people with this type of degree:
Global environmental systems students characterize and analyze Earth's physical environment across time and space through the study of physical geography. This 12-credit certificate helps to prepare students for a variety of careers in resource management, ecological restoration, and climate change mitigation where an understanding of geographic patterns and physical processes associated with water, landforms, soils, vegetation, and climate are critical for the survival of life on planet Earth. Learning Objectives: Identify, describe, and analyze the processes that lead to spatial variation on Earth's surface, and the current and historical, physical and biotic processes that shape specific landscapes.
Physical geographers seek to understand Earth’s environmental systems and processes and their interactions with human activities across spatial and temporal scales. Geographers in this concentration conduct field and laboratory work and use geospatial technologies to explore and model environmental phenomena such as vegetation and wildlife, wetlands ecology and management, landscape dynamics, climate systems, and global environmental change. Some topics of study include the burning of fossil fuels and emissions of greenhouse gasses and particulates into the atmosphere, natural gas fracking and earthquakes, river diversion and dam construction, groundwater withdrawal and land subsidence, urbanization and the “heat island” effect, land clearance and deforestation, irrigated agriculture, wildland fire, the introduction of invasive species, and coastal overdevelopment.
Students earning the certificate in Global Environmental Systems are well-positioned to find employment with diverse organizations spanning business, government, and nonprofit sectors.
Erica Smithwick, distinguished professor of geography, has been named director of the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute at Penn State, effective Jan. 1.
The latest episode of the "Growing Impact" podcast features a project focused on air quality and health concerns in western Pennsylvania
Changes in Earth’s orbit that favored hotter conditions may have helped trigger a rapid global warming event 56 million years ago that is considered an analogue for modern climate change, according to an international team of scientists.
At a large school like Penn State, it can sometimes be hard to find your niche — however, the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences Academy for Global Experience, or EMSAGE, encouraged senior Mufaddal Gheewala to discover his place on campus.
Antonia Hadjimichael, assistant professor of geosciences at Penn State, will discuss the research vision of the MSD Community of Practice as well as planned activities and ways for researchers to interact with the community at a talk at 3:30 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 16.
