October 2, 2025
Congratulations to Sydney Clements for successfully defending her dissertation, which is titled: Distributing Equity: An Analysis of Existing Food Hub Distribution Models in Connecticut.
September 29, 2025
Assistant Professor-in-Residence Dan Wanyama and a group of his closest friends and colleagues have collaborated to share their expertise with sustainability and conservation scholars and specialists in Africa. They developed a free advanced Geographic Information System (GIS) training program that is attracting interest from around the globe.
The full story can be found here: today.uconn.edu/2025/09/snapshot-a-unique-collaboration-helps-boost-conservation-with-gis-training
September 17, 2025
Prof. Debs Ghosh is invited to give a colloquium talk at the Department of Earth, Geographic, and Climate Sciences, UMass Amherst, on Friday, Sept 19th.
The title of her talk is “Listening to Communities, Measuring Inequities: A New Index of Structural Racism and Discrimination”
August 21, 2025
Google Street View images are digital snapshots of real streets, widely used for navigation and urban planning. Congcong Miao, a PhD student in GSCU, recently published a study in Journal of Transport Geography analyzing how people’s perceptions of street design affect transport safety. The study suggests emotional reactions to streetscapes can lead to non-motorist crashes and could help cities predict danger zones and design safer roads.
The study has been covered by several media outlets, including State Smart Transportation Initiative (SSTI) and Streetsblog USA.
April 9, 2025
Congratulations to 
Peter Chen for receiving the UConn College of Liberal Arts & Sciences (CLAS) 2025 Climate, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Strategic Goals Award. Peter’s work leading DEI programs funded by CLAS have been examples for efforts he is now leading at the Graduate School.
This award is well deserved. We thank you for your leadership.
April 2, 2025
GSCU faculty and students were very active at the 2025 AAG conference in Detroit. Below are some notable items from UConn geographers.
Awards and Competitions
Specialty Group Election Outcomes
March 25, 2025
Congratulations to GIS major Katherine Patrick and UCS minor Rafe Kimball for each receiving a 2025 Summer Undergraduate Research Fund (SURF) Award.
Katherine will work with faculty mentor Dr. Dan Wanyama on a project titled: Proposing Spatially Explicit Land Suitability Models for Orphan Crops to Support Food Security Initiatives in East Africa.
Rafe Kimball will work with faculty mentor Dr. Phil Birge-Liberman on a project titled: Examining The Perceived Nutritional Environment in the North End of Hartford.
The SURF program is jointly sponsored by the Office of Undergraduate Research, the Provost’s Office, the Office of the Vice President for Research, the Honors Program, donors to the university, and the Deans of the Schools and Colleges.
February 15, 2025
Congratulations to Shahriyar Parvez for earning a 2025 AAG Marble Fund Award for Innovative Master’s Research in Quantitative Geography.
This award recognizes excellence in academic performance for the best research in quantitative geography leading to the Master’s degree.
Read more about the Marble Fund Award on the AAG website.
January 30, 2025
The Graduate School has developed the Network for Enriched Mentorship (NEM) program to provide individualized mentorship for graduate students. GSCU faculty member Dr. Peter Chen is now directing the program. The story is featured on UConn Today.
Thanks to the GSCU graduate student Elaina Hancock for writing the story.
January 7, 2025
Peter Chen, a UConn associate professor in the Department of Geography, Sustainability, Community, and Urban Studies, and his collaborator Rachel Smith Hale, assistant director of Research on Resilient Cities, Racism, and Equity (RRCRE) at UConn Hartford, demonstrated how web GIS can be used to communicate project outcomes and community services through two case studies that leveraged GIS at the the 2nd annual Moving Beyond Implications: Research into Policy conference on December 12, 2024.
Hale spoke about the Love Your Block Story Map, which documented a city-wide effort to provide mini grants to support urban beautification and renewal projects in Hartford. Chen discussed how the Windham Life project enhanced information sharing about food pantries, meal programs, transportation resources, and other food resources for Windham County residents.
“Not only are GIS maps a fantastic tool for evaluation and analysis for policymakers and planners, but they are also intuitive tools for communicating with the public,” said Hale. “We suggest collaborating with universities to leverage GIS in identifying patterns within socioeconomic, infrastructure, and environmental data, and providing funding to GIS-based community projects.”