GSU Geosciences

Last week our Geoscience family celebrated graduations of our amazing undergraduate and MS students across multiple graduation ceremonies! Congratulations to our graduates- we are so proud of you!

Congratulations to GSU Geosciences graduate student Ben Trost on being awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP) award! Ben was one of SIX awardees in geography this year!

A huge congrats goes out to water sciences M.S. student Jake Ferus, who recently won the American Geophysical Union (AGU)’s Michael H. Freilich Student Visualization Competition for his presentation “Identify isolated wetlands and assess priority conservation for community protection”, completed as part of two NASA DEVELOP internships earlier this year. Jake won free registration and travel to the AGU’s fall meeting next week in New Orleans, where will be presenting his work on the NASA hyperwall for attendees!

A big congratulations goes out to geology M.S. student Lauren Hartley for successfully defending her M.S. thesis yesterday, entitled “The Investigation of Using Field Portable X-Ray Fluorescence to Measure Uranium and Thorium to Accurately Predict Radon Concentrations in Crystalline Rocks in DeKalb County, Georgia”! 🎉🙌🎓

GSU Geosciences showed up and showed out at SEDAAG 2026 in Lexington, Kentucky! 😎 Almost 20 GEOS faculty, students and alumni participated in the conference, with many presenting excellent papers and posters on a variety of subjects. Summer 2025 CSAW REU student Benen Chancey even took home the Best Undergraduate Poster Award for his work on mapping absentee landlordism in Atlanta's Peoplestown community! 🏆🎉 A big kudos to all the GEOS crew who participated in this year's SEDAAG!

Please join us this Thursday, November 13th for our final GEOS colloquium of the semester! We'll be joined by Dr. Jennifer Bowen, who recently joined Georgia Tech Earth And Atmospheric Sciences as an assistant professor specializing in biogeochemistry... hope to see you all there for one final talk this fall!

Kudos to GEOS professor Dajun Dai and friends of the department Dr. Na’Taki Osborne Jelks and Gwen Smith on the publication of their new paper in the Journal of Environmental Radioactivity! The paper reports on their RWJFoundation-funded research into radon testing in Atlanta’s westside communities. Check out the link below for more!

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0265931X25002292

Join us this Thursday, October 30th to hear from GEOS visiting lecturer Dr. Evan Cass as he shares his research into coastal hazard preparation and recovery!

We are also excited to share that Dr. Daniel Gebregiorgis will be teaching the GEOL4003/GEOS6003 Principles and Applications of Environmental Geochemistry course for the very first time! It has been 2+ years since this course was last offered, and will be the last chance to take the class before it shifts to being an 8000-level class in the next academic year! Join Dr. G on Wednesday afternoons in the spring to learn more about how the chemistry of air, water and soil can be used to solve real world environmental problem-solving!

Course registration for Spring 2026 starts next week and the Department of Geosciences excited to be offering a brand new course: GEOG4776/GEOS6776 Geographies of Food and Eating! Join Dr. Carrie Freshour on Wednesdays from 11am-1:30pm this spring to explore where our food comes from, how it gets produced, distributed and consumed, and with what effects, and ultimately how we might transform our food system to be more just and equitable.