Geography & Anthropology (Graduate Program)

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For information regarding the UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAM, click here.  

Program Overview

This department offers a variety of research and instructional programs leading to the MA in Anthropology, the MS in Geography, and PhD in Geography and Anthropology. Graduate students may specialize in human geography, physical geography, mapping sciences, archaeology, biological anthropology, linguistics, cultural anthropology, or forensic anthropology. Regional foci include: Latin America, American South, East and Southeast Asia, and Africa. Graduate students often include courses in both Geography and Anthropology in their program of study. For example, archaeologists often include GIS and remote sensing. Human geographers often include courses in cultural anthropology. Graduate students may apply for Departmental awards to assist with travel and other research, notably the Robert C. West, R. J. Russell, and Materials Awards (see www.ga.lsu). Students are encouraged to apply for external grants and there is an emphasis on field research.

Human geography includes cultural geography (cultural ecology, landscape, diffusion); economic geography (capitalist development, peasant response to market forces, agrarian innovation and economic growth, industrial impacts on society and environment); historical geography (ecological and spatial processes, innovation diffusion, settlement expansion, residential segregation, industrial restructuring, regional development); regional geography and urban geography (urban structure and city systems, state and corporate policy, rural-urban migration, class formation, gender and ethnic relations).

Physical geography offers opportunities for study in alluvial, coastal, and quaternary geomorphology (human-induced changes in river systems, quaternary landform evolution, coastal dune dynamics and management, coastal sediment transport, beach/nearshore sediment morphodynamics, coastal land loss); and climatology (synoptic climatology, hydroclimatology, regional impacts of global warming, water balance analyses, the role of climate in flood variability).

Mapping science encompasses traditional and contemporary mapping technologies, including cartography, computer cartography, aerial photography, remote sensing, spatial analysis, and GIS. Spatial interpolation, scale, the modifiable area unit problem, surface and line measurement using fractal algorithms, spatial autocorrelation, comparative assessments of remote sensing imagery, GIS applications in coastal Louisiana, cartographic presentation and spatial data handling, and modeling the spatial distributions of disease, population, and land use are addressed.

Archaeology offers opportunities for field and lab research in prehistoric archaeology in Andean, Maya, and Southeastern US areas. An archaeological field school is offered most summers. Research focus on coastal adaptations in the Americas include spectacular preservation at coastal sites in Peru, underwater Maya sites in Belize, and shell rings in the Southeastern US. Areas include the rise of complex societies, human-environmental interactions, climate change and sea-level rise, political and subsistence economies, architecture, and landscapes. GIS and remote sensing applications, 3D Digital Imaging and 3D printing, lab analyses (shell, loss-on ignition, waterlogged wood) and interdisciplinary collaborations are common.

Cultural Anthropology includes study of festivals and parades, the African Diaspora, ethnomusicology, environmental studies, social and technology studies, applied approaches, tropical forest and biodiversity. Linguistic Anthropology includes the complex interaction between culture and language, notably discourse analysis, conversation, and language and society. Geographic areas of focus include the US Southeast, Caribbean, Latin America, and Africa.

Biological anthropology includes paleoanthropology, skeletal biology, and modern human variation, with research in Africa and museum collections. Forensic anthropology includes applications of knowledge from skeletal biology, facial reconstruction, in conjunction with the FACES lab and forensic anthropology faculty.

Administration

Admission

Applications and supporting materials for all graduate study must be submitted through the online application site for the LSU Graduate School. Official transcripts, official test scores, and other materials that come from third-party sources must be mailed to: Graduate Student Services, 114 West David Boyd Hall, Baton Rouge, LA 70803. These paper documents are stored electronically and departments have access to all materials submitted by and/or on behalf of a student applying to graduate study.

The department looks with special favor on students who can bring another discipline to bear on geographical and anthropological problems. Students well prepared in such fields as geology, agronomy, botany, computer science, history, and economics and who are interested in geography or anthropology should inquire. Admission to the department and awarding of financial assistance is based on compatibility of interests, grade point average, letters of recommendation, and GRE scores. International students whose native language is not English must have a TOEFL score of at least 550 on the paper-based test, a 213 on the computer-based test, or a 79 on the Internet-based test, an IELTS score of 6.5, or PTE score of 59. A TOEFL score of 575, equivalent IELTS, or equivalent PTE score is required to be considered for an assistantship. The departmental deadline for the application to be considered for funding is January 25.

Financial Assistance

Doctoral applicants with excellent records are urged to apply for fellowships providing stipends of $14,000 to $18,000 per year plus exemption from tuition. Each award is for a maximum of four years. The fellowship application deadline is January 25. Departmental assistantships range from $12,000 to $16,000 for the academic year. Students receiving departmental assistantships are exempt from non-resident tuition. Applications for departmental assistantships must be received by January 25.

Research Facilities

The department’s Cartographic Information Center—housing more than one-half million maps and aerial photographs—is the nation’s largest university map library. The Computer Mapping Sciences Laboratory houses computers with and software for ArcGIS, CrimeStat, EndNote, Erdas Imagine, GeoDa, Geomedia, Google Earth Pro, Microsoft Office, QGIS, R, SketchUp, and the VMware View client for connecting to LSU’s Virtual Lab.The Remote Sensing Laboratory houses an array of color, infrared, and radar imagery and equipment for analysis.

Research in physical geography is supported by the H. J. Walker Geomorphology Laboratory. The department also houses the Southern Regional Climate Center and the Louisiana Office of State Climatology that monitor and analyze climatic records in the state and region. The Forensic Laboratory provides facilities for analysis of skeletal remains and dentition. The Archaeology Laboratory includes wet and dry labs, a fume hood, and facilities for analyses of a variety of artifacts, soils and sediment, shells, bones, and other materials. The DIVA Lab (Digital Imaging and Visualization in Archaeology) includes 3D scanners and computers for instruction, as well as a Dimension Elite 3D printer, a Projet 460 color 3D printer, a portable XRF, slide and binocular microscopes, fume hood, software for 3D and GIS analyses, and other 3D equipment for research. Archaeological labs and collections also are housed in the Museum of Natural Sciences directed by department archaeologist Rebecca Saunders.

Graduate Faculty

(check current listings by department by clicking this link)

Geography

Anthropology

Degree Programs

This department offers a variety of research and instructional programs leading to the MA in Anthropology, the MS in Geography, and PhD in Geography and Anthropology. Graduate students may specialize in — human geography, physical geography, mapping sciences, archaeology, biological anthropology, linguistics, cultural anthropology, or forensic anthropology. Regional foci include: Latin America, American South, East and Southeast Asia, and Africa.

Requirements for the M.S. degree in geography and M.A. in anthropology include a minimum of 30 credit hours, including six credits for a thesis. A master’s degree in either is typically attained within two years if students attend as full-time status.

Requirements for the Ph.D. in Geography and Anthropology include a minimum of 60 credit hours beyond the bachelor’s degree or 30 hours beyond the master’s degree, 10 hours of which are core courses, two or more advanced seminars, and an external minor or nine credit hours in approved cognate fields (including one seminar). Students must write a dissertation constituting an original contribution to the discipline.

Programs

• Geography and Anthropology, Ph.D.

• Anthropology, M.A.

• Geography, M.S.

• Climatology and Climate Change
• Geographic Information Science

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