At The University of Iowa we conduct research of social and biophysical systems and the events that shape the world in which we live. Our focus is on understanding these dynamic systems with a special emphasis on human-environment interaction and the science and technologies that are needed to analyze, model, and visualize geographic processes.

Ongoing research by faculty and students includes projects on environmental health (disease spread and resistance), land use/land cover (decision modeling; applications of remote sensing; policy), natural hazards, urban ecosystems, environmental policy (energy; environmental conservation, economics, and justice), and spatiotemporal modeling (agents; network analytics; visualization; cyberinfrastructure). 

Departmental facilities include a GIS laboratory and a spatial analysis and research laboratory equipped with the latest in GIS and programming software. This includes handheld navigation devices, tablet PCs for field computing, and various other equipment.  Additional facilities include a lab with tree-ring bench, oven, furnace, balances, and microscopes; field meteorological stations, datalogger and micrometeorological instruments for environmental health monitoring; and a variety of other field equipment.