Geography & Environment
Chart your course through the Geography and Environment major
Geography is where the physical sciences, social sciences, and humanities map onto each other to better understand how people and environments shape one another across space and time. In this track, you’ll chart your course through the Geography and Environment major, exploring how place matters in patterns of climate, ecosystems, labor, culture, health, resources, and more, in a single neighborhood or across the globe. You’ll learn how to analyze spatial patterns, interpret data, and build the critical thinking skills that Geography and Environment majors use to navigate careers in environmental management, urban and regional planning, data science, Geographic Information Systems, public policy, and law. In this track, you’ll collect spatial data across campus, create maps using hands-on tools and techniques, dive into faculty research, and visit on-site research facilities. An experience sure to put you on the map!
Instructors
- Amanda Delvecchia
Instructor: Julia Cardwell
Dr. Julia Cardwell is a Teaching Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography & Environment at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As a teaching-centered faculty member, she is particularly interested in the science of teaching and learning and in the material and social dimensions of the classroom, including how physical spaces shape the ways we learn together. She teaches courses in Spatial Data Science, including GIS, spatial-first methods in data science, remote sensing, big spatial data, and the history of cartography.
Dr. Cardwell earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in Geography from UNC–Chapel Hill. Her research explores computationally efficient methods for analyzing transportation networks, including the effects of weather-related road closures on connectivity and the reliability of public transit systems.
Outside the classroom, she enjoys birding, reading modern horror novels, and refereeing arguments between her two cats and dog.