Research & Collaboration

The faculty and students in the Department of Geographical & Sustainability Sciences are actively working on projects that explore the multiple dimensions of DEI. Work includes, for instance, disparities in birth outcomes and access to healthcare in the US, social vulnerability and resilience to natural hazards, and gender inequity in agricultural production.

In addition, the Department of Geographical & Sustainability Sciences is actively engaged in the Advancing Environmental Justice (AEJ) Initiative, which provides curriculum and speakers and research on environmental justice topics.

The University of Iowa’s College of Liberal Arts & Sciences has a postdoctoral fellowship program designed to recruit and retain, as tenure-track faculty, highly promising applicants from underrepresented backgrounds.

Multiple opportunities for undergraduate research are intended to increase the interests and skills of traditionally excluded students in geographic research. These include participation in the Summer Research Opportunities Program (SROP), the National Science Foundation-funded research experiences for undergraduate programs that geographers at Iowa offer (on watershed science or evolutionary science) and the University of Iowa’s Iowa Center for Research by Undergraduates (ICRU).

Off-campus resources to support scholars from historically marginalized groups:

For graduate students:

• Ford Foundation Fellowship Programs
• Pruitt Minority Fellowship
• NSF Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement (DDRI) Awards
• Bill Anderson Fund

For undergraduate students:

• Ron Brown Scholar Program

Both graduate and undergraduate students:

• Thurgood Marshall College Fund
• Louis Stokes Program