Community Engaged Work

Dr. Jordan Blekking
• Assistant Professor • Geography and Environmental Studies Undergraduate Coordinator
Food accessibility, food security, food environments, food systems, human-environmental interactions, spatial analysis, geographic information science

Teaching GEOG 3120 Fundamentals of GIS GEOG 4000/5000 Community Data, Development and Vitality DTSC 2301 / 2302 Society and Modeling A and B I serve as the department’s Undergraduate Program Coordinator for Geography and Environmental Studies. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions related to those majors. I really love using and […]

Dr. Colleen Hammelman
• Associate Professor • PhD Geography Graduate Program Director • CHARP Director
Urban Geography, Food Justice, Immigration

Click here to read more about Dr. Hammelman

Dr. Fushcia-Ann Hoover
• Assistant Professor • Sustainability Minor Coordinator
Green Infrastructure, Environmental Justice, Urban Planning, Socio-ecological Systems

Biography Dr. Fushcia-Ann Hoover is an interdisciplinary researcher specializing in social-ecological urban systems. She employs a range of approaches and perspectives from the fields of planning, engineering, social and environmental sciences. Her research centers environmental justice, green infrastructure planning, and relationships between people, place and the environment. Dr. Hoover joined the department in 2021 as […]

Dr. Heather Smith
• Levine Scholars Program Director • Professor
Urban Social Geography, Community Engaged Scholarship

Teaching and Research Interests Urban & Social Geography Immigrant Settlement & Adjustment Globalizing Cities & New Gateways Urban Revitalization & Gentrification Socio-spatial Polarization Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) Click here to read more about Dr. Smith

Dr. Deborah S.K. Thomas
Associate Vice Chancellor for Research • Professor
Disasters, Environmental Health, Global Health, Human-environment Interaction
McEniry 312 (Research Office)

Deborah S.K. Thomas, PhD is the Associate Vice Chancellor of Research and Professor of Geography at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. In this role, she oversees operations and special initiatives for research and innovation across the university. Her research focuses on disasters and environmental health with more than 25 years of experience in the […]

Dr. Michelle Zuñiga
• Assistant Professor • Urban Studies Minor Coordinator
Neighborhood change, Latinx communities, Community Planning, Environmental Justice
McEniry 308

Michelle E. Zuñiga, AICP (she/her/ella) holds a PhD in Urban and Environmental Planning and Policy from the University of California, Irvine. Since 2012, Michelle has focused her research on Latinx communities particularly, low-income, immigrant communities and how they experience and respond to environmental injustice and threats of displacement. Michelle explores their perspectives and experiences in […]