UNM Department of Geography and Environmental Studies grants its first Ph.D.

The University of New Mexico Department of Geography and Environmental Studies granted its first doctoral degree at the end of the Summer 2024 semester.

Daniel Beene received his Ph.D. after completing his dissertation titled "Critical Geospatial Data Science: Principles for Curating, Analyzing, and Sharing Geospatial Data." The research centered on the broad field of geospatial data science and its recent push toward the use of massive geospatial datasets that come from sources like satellites and the Internet of Things.

While Beene agreed that the use of this information is necessary to answer complex questions about the world, he argued that the recent push towards massive datasets lacks critical theories to help inform how the data is interpreted. Spatial data is not uniform or equitable, and the potential harm caused by representing people in certain ways is not always immediately clear, Beene argued.

"I hold that no data are pure truth, but rather are representations of people's biases and intentions. With this in mind, I explore how critical geography can enrich our understanding of spatial data, the ways that we use spatial data to interpret the world, and data sharing and communication," Beene said.

During his graduate studies at UNM, Beene was involved with the work of many research groups on campus including the Community Environmental Health Program at the UNM Health Sciences Center, the METALS Superfund Research Program, the Center for Native Environmental Health Equity Research, NM Integrative Science Program Incorporated Research in Environmental Sciences center, the Navajo Birth Cohort Study, and the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) program.

Beene has since begun a postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health where he will work as part of the geospatial group for the NIH-funded ECHO Program. He will work to develop high spatial resolution models of social determinants of health in the built environment for the past ten years by examining issues like access to healthcare, healthy food, telecommunications, green spaces and other things.

"This is a crucial way to reframe rurality as a social determinant of health because being in a rural place isn't necessarily a detriment, despite decades of research treating it that way. I think that models like this will add a critical degree of nuance to health research and can inform more context-sensitive solutions for populations and communities in need of better healthcare services," Beene said.

The department welcomed the first cohort of the New Mexico Doctoral Program in Geography in 2020. The program, which is a collaboration between the geography departments at UNM and New Mexico State University, centers the study of Integrative Human-Environment Dynamics with a focus on the Southwest region, Mexico-U.S. borderlands, and Latin America.

As candidates finish their dissertations, faculty celebrate the work it took to get here. Yan Lin, associate professor of Geography and Environmental Studies and Beene's faculty advisor, reflected on Beene's graduation and the future of the Ph.D. program.

"The department's interdisciplinary focus has also provided Daniel with the unique opportunity to formulate questions and develop methods that not only contribute to Geography/GIScience but also have a meaningful impact on other fields, such as public health. Additionally, the master-to-Ph.D. pathway our department has created holds great promise for future success," Lin said.

Beene marks the first of five Ph.D. degrees the department expects to grant in the coming year, according to Marygold Walsh-Dilley, graduate programs director for Geography and Environmental Studies.

"We are really happy to see the fruit of all the work that was put into developing this unique doctoral program. Its success reflects the dynamism and growth of the GES department over the past few years as well as the strengths of our department," Walsh-Dilley said. "We encourage students who are interested in pursuing research and learning on human-environment interactions, using multiple methods and interdisciplinary approaches, in service to local communities and the state of New Mexico to check our graduate programs."

Learn more about the UNM Geography and Environmental Studies Ph.D. program on the department's website.

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