Research and TeachingGeography
Faculty Scholarship
Geographers study the world’s environments and peoples. We draw on multiple ways of knowing and use both natural and social sciences to study places, landscape processes, and the relationship between society and our environment.
Professor Jeff La Frenierre studies climate change, glacier retreat, hydrology, and water vulnerability in tropical glaciated regions like the Andes Mountains of Ecuador. He employs GIS and remote sensing techniques, among others, in his work.
Professor Joaquín Villanueva is interested in the contested terrain of cities. He studies urban protest, riots, access to resources, and the responses of criminal justice systems in places like Paris and Minneapolis.
Professor Anna Versluis is an environmental geographer who studies the political ecology of land use, land change, and agriculture in Haiti and southern Minnesota.
Professor Tiffany Grobelski studies the social and geographical aspects of administrative law in the policy realms of energy and migration. She has done extensive field research in the European Union, especially Poland, on how environmental advocates use law to protect both ecosystems and human rights.
Teaching
We all love to teach and enjoy working with students. Here you will find a sampling of our course syllabi to give you a sense of our curriculum.