Welcome to the Department of Geography

Welcome to the Department of Geography's web page. Our department offers B.A., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in geography, and our faculty and students, including undergraduate students, conduct research in Tennessee and across the globe.

What do we study? For starters: how spatially explicit data (such as from cell-phones) can be analyzed to provide new knowledge of the movement of people over time and space; how cities grow and develop; how and where climate has changed; how human activities and environmental changes have affected headwater streams, water resources, and the distribution of species; what factors affect the distribution of people and goods; and how culture contributes to the distinctiveness of different places (see Specialties for further information). We operate a Cartographic Services Laboratory (we make maps!) and host laboratories of Paleoenvironmental Research, Tree-Ring Science, Environmental Dynamics, and Cosmogenic Isotope Research, as well as the University of Tennessee's Initiative for Quaternary Paleoclimate Research and the Tennessee Geographic Alliance.

We are a lively, talented, and congenial group of faculty, students, and staff who occupy the Burchfiel Geography Building, built for us in 2000. If we have piqued your interest, contact us for further information.