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Main Departmental Office
Environmental Education, Science and Technology Building, Room 210

Mailing address:
1155 Union Circle #305279
Denton, TX 76203-5017
940-565-2091

Web site: www.geog.unt.edu

Paul Hudak, Chair

Faculty 

Students in the Department of Geography successfully prepare for active careers in diverse employment settings in business, government, research and teaching. The Master of Science degree with a major in applied geography allows students to develop their education and training in both physical and human geography, through a broad curriculum, research and teaching experience, and also through numerous internship opportunities with local corporations, water and land use agencies, and health care systems, as well as city, state and federal governments and agencies. The MS degree prepares graduates for mid-upper level entry positions as well as for pursuit of a doctoral degree in geography or an allied discipline. Formal interactions with the research and teaching faculties of environmental sciences and the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine promote substantial crossover between disciplines for students in both programs. The master’s degree is also earned by many students who teach or plan to teach at the primary or secondary level. Inclusion of UNT’s archaeology curriculum in this department enables students to gain interdisciplinary training, with emphasis on geoarchaeology, zooarchaeology, spatial and quantitative analysis, and various techniques for dating or materials characterization.

Research

Faculty in the Department of Geography are engaged in research activities that cover a broad range of topics in physical and human geography, as well as archaeology. This diversity of research reflects the composition of our faculty. The department collaborates fully with the Institute of Applied Sciences, the Department of Mathematics, the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and the Department of Physics, among others, in interdisciplinary projects.

Research areas include medical geography and health care delivery systems, groundwater monitoring and remediation, solid waste disposal, water resources management, locational conflicts, urban/economic geography, geographic information systems, remote sensing and digital image processing, meteorology, environmental modeling, ecosystems management, coastal and fluvial geomorphology, soils geomorphology, climate modeling, Quaternary geology and paleoenvironments, geoarchaeology, environmental archaeology, island biogeography, zooarchaeology, spatial modeling and spatial/environmental aspects of recreation, cultural resources management and natural hazard assessment. In addition to research activities in the southern mid-continent region, students have recently participated in our faculty’s research in South America, the Caribbean, New Zealand, Thailand, Portugal, Spain, Mexico, Ghana and the Republic of Georgia.

Recent support for research includes grants from the National Science Foundation, the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Texas Natural Resources Information Service, the Texas Air Quality Control Board, the National Geographic Society and the Leakey Foundation.

The Center for Spatial Analysis and Mapping (CSAM) is housed in the Environmental Education, Science and Technology Building (EESAT). This center provides instructional and research support in the areas of geographic information systems (GIS), computer cartography, spatial analysis and environmental modeling. The facility serves undergraduate and graduate students majoring in geography and in environmental science. Beyond its immediate instructional and research mission, CSAM is envisioned as the facility to provide GIS support for institutional planning and facilities management at UNT. The department also collaborates with environmental sciences in the operation of the Center for Remote Sensing and Land Use Analysis for instruction and research.

The Center for Environmental Archaeology maintains fully equipped laboratories in archaeology, geoarchaeology and zooarchaeology. These facilities include instrumentation for analysis of sediments, soils, petrographic thin sections, lithic and ceramic artifacts. The zooarchaeology laboratory houses more than 700 curated skeletons of recent vertebrates as well as large collections of Holocene and Pleistocene archaeological faunas. Extensive research includes current projects of Upper and Middle Paleolithic sites in Portugal and Ukraine, the 1.8 million year-old site of Dmanisi in the Republic of Georgia and numerous sites in North America and New Zealand.

Degree Program

The department offers a graduate program leading to the following degree:

• Master of Science with a major in applied geography 

The department offers graduate academic certificates in geographic information systems (GIS)  and in economic geography .

Admission Requirements

Application for admission to the Toulouse Graduate School is made through the graduate school. Concurrently, a letter of intent should be sent directly to the Department of Geography’s graduate advisor. This letter should briefly summarize the applicant’s background, specific interests in the field of geography and future career plans. Three letters of recommendation also are required.

Applicants normally should have the equivalent of an undergraduate major in geography from an accredited university with an overall undergraduate grade point average (GPA) of at least 2.8 or a 3.0 GPA during the last 60 undergraduate semester hours. The undergraduate degree should include exposure to basic quantitative analysis techniques in geography. Students whose undergraduate major is not geography may be required to take undergraduate leveling courses. Total leveling course requirements will not exceed 9 semester credit hours. In addition, the student’s GRE score will be evaluated as part of the admission process. Contact the department or the Toulouse Graduate School for information concerning acceptable admission test scores.

Financial Assistance

The Department of Geography extends some form of financial assistance to the majority of our graduate students. Our substantial enrollments in undergraduate introductory classes in geography, geology and archaeology support several teaching assistants. In addition, we offer students research assistantships and departmental scholarships. Many of these forms of assistance qualify students for an out-of-state tuition waiver, significantly reducing the student’s education costs. The department also works closely with the office of student financial assistance and UNT-International to help students gain scholarships, student loans and other forms of assistance.

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