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Ph.D. in Geography
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Our Ph.D. degree program in Geography serves as the umbrella degree for advanced research over the entire field of physical geography and related geographic methods. Our research includes climate (climate dynamics, atmospheric response modeling, climatic data analysis), cryosphere studies (sea ice, permafrost, glaciers, snowcover), land- surfac e processes (beach dynamics, fluvial sediment changes, vegetation change, biogeochemical changes in forests), geographic methods applied to physical geography and resource problems (especially GIS), and a growing interest in effects of climate and land surface change on human activities. The department is flexible, focusing on individual interests and encouraging interdisciplinary work. Students in the Ph.D. program specialize in one of two
concentrations: Climatology or Land-Surface Processes. |
Field research and measurement provide a major tool of research in this department. A large ongoing project is the participation of UD geographers in the Circumpolar Active-Layer Monitoring  (CALM) project which brings several of them annually to the north slope of Alaska for permafrost and related periglacial environmental monitoring. The Delaware Environmental Observing System (DEOS) project established and maintains two dozen automated weather stations in Delaware and nearby, providing real-time weather information for regional environmental research as well as for a wide variety of outside users. Recent microclimatic and biogeographic measurements have been carried on along the Appalachian ridgeline, in Michigan, and nearby at a forest reserve in Maryland. Geomorphic and periglacial studies have been carried out across the continent in the Cascades, but also on Delaware beaches, Virginia streams, and other nearby piedmont and coastal zone areas. |
PhD students at Delaware have also been heavily engaged in computationally intensive research, including both mesoscale and global atmospheric modeling, sea-ice and glacier modeling, analysis of high-resolution remotely sensed images, climatic data set development, and data-exploratory studies, often involving GIS. |
Admission to either concentration of the PhD program requires a thesis-based masters degree and quantitative preparation that includes calculus through differential equations and demonstrated mastery of high-level programming skills. A comprehensive description of the requirements for the degree is included in our graduate guidelines page. Applicants must specify a concentration at time of application, but changing between Land-Surface Processes and Climatology to follow developing interests is possible up until the comprehensive exams.
Click on the headings in the "Graduate Program Policy" outline to the right for more details. |
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