Department Leadership
Chair
Tatiana Loboda
Dr. Loboda is a Professor in the Department of Geographical Sciences at the University of Maryland, College Park. She received her B.A. degree in 1995 from the Moscow Pedagogical State University (Moscow, Russia), and her M.A. (2004) and Ph.D. (2008) degrees from the University of Maryland, College Park.
Tatiana’s research interests include wildland fire, biodiversity, climate change, public health and their interactions with other human and physical factors on the landscape.
Associate Chair
Sergii Skakun
Dr. Skakun is an Associate Professor with a joint appointment at the Department of Geographical Sciences and the College of Information Studies (iSchool). He joined UMD in October 2015. From 2013 to 2015, he was a Senior Engineer at Samsung SDI (South Korea), where he was responsible for developing industrial vision inspection systems. From 2006 to 2013, he has held multiple positions (latest Senior Scientist) at the Space Research Institute (Ukraine), where he was performing research in remote sensing. He received PhD in Computer Science from National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in 2005.
Graduate Director
Leila De Floriani
Dr. De Floriani is a full professor at the University of Maryland with a joint appointment with the Department of Geographical Sciences and the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS). She is also affiliated with the Department of Computer Science, with the Center for Geospatial Information Science, and with the UMIACS Center for Automation Research.
Since Fall 2021, she is the Director of Graduate Studies in Geographical Sciences.
Research Director
Meredith Gore
Dr. Gore's research centers on the human dimensions of global environmental change. She works in partnership with diverse communities, nongovernmental organizations, civil society groups and government agencies. Her scholarship primarily focuses on risk principles and their application to addressing the negative impacts of global environmental change, with a particular emphasis on "nature crimes" such as wildlife trafficking, illegal fishing and illegal logging.
Director of MSGIS Program
Jack (Jianguo) Ma
Dr. Ma is the Director of the Master of Science in Geospatial Information Sciences (MSGIS) Program since 2008. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University.
His teaching covers spatial analysis; spatial statistics; GIS modeling; Web GIS; and spatial databases. He has also been involved in research on the applications of GIS in the areas of public health, renewable energy, and sustainable development.
Director of MSGEOINT Programs
Ruibo Han
Dr. Ruibo Han serves as the Director of the MS GEOINT and GC GEOINT Programs at the Center for Geospatial Information Science. With over two decades of experience in the geospatial domain, he previously held positions at the University of Toronto and the University of Ottawa before joining the University of Maryland.
Apart from overseeing the GEOINT programs, he also teaches courses in these programs and remains engaged in advacingin funding and publishing. His research and teaching focus spans urban dynamics, machine learning, big data analytics, web and mobile GIS, and public participatory geospatial systems.
Undergraduate Director
Keith Yearwood
Dr. Yearwood is a lecturer at the Department of Geographical Sciences, having taught classes such as Geography of Environmental Systems and Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Floods, and Fires.
His main area of interest is fluvial geomorphology.