Dale Lightfoot

Professor and Head

Welcome to the virtual view of our Geography Department at Oklahoma State University.  We are an active group of faculty and staff supporting one of the finest geography programs available.  Department specialties emphasize resource management, cultural and historical geography, and urban and transportation geography.  Faculty expertise in resource management centers on agriculture, atmospheric/surface modeling, outdoor recreation, soils, water, and the economics and policy of resource allocation and use.  The department has a longstanding tradition of research in cultural geography, including the geography of sport, language, traditional technology, and Native Americans. Our faculty are involved in research projects related to historic preservation, geoarchaeology, and cultural and political ecology.  Expertise in urban and transportation issues involves transportation corridors, urban studies, and network analysis.  Many of our faculty and students also specialize in spatial analytical skills, and we offer an exceptionally strong GIScience program (GIS, GPS, remote sensing, spatial analysis) and a Certificate in Geographic Information Systems.  We offer B.S., B.A., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Geography, and work with an interdisciplinary graduate program on campus to offer the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Environmental Science.

Student interest in Geography programs remains strong and almost 100 bachelors, masters, and doctoral students make Geography their home department.  Our Certificate in Geographic Information Systems has become the most popular certificated program at OSU.  Our faculty has matured into a productive and stable core group and new faculty growth has made the department larger than it has ever been in its 68 year history.  Commensurate with our program growth has been a steady increase in grants and contracts generated by our faculty.  Funded research activity has tripled over the past six years and all of our faculty members are active in research and publication. 

Research and travel by our faculty have built expertise in several geographic regions, especially Central Asia, Australia, Latin America, and the Middle East.  Two international journals are edited by faculty in the department: the Journal of Cultural Geography, and the Journal of Central Asian Studies.  The department provides space for faculty and graduate offices, a physical geography laboratory, two-NSF-sponsored computer facilities, and a library/seminar room.  We also have the only palynology/paleoecology teaching and research laboratory in the state and surrounding region.  This new Geoarchaeology and Quaternary Palynology Laboratory allows examination of fossil pollen to conduct research on climate change and ancient environmental conditions.  Two campus research support centers are managed by the department: the OSU Cartography Service, a full-service production cartography facility, and the Center for Applications of Remote Sensing.  We also manage the OCGI (Oklahoma Center for Geospatial Information), OSU’s FGDC spatial data site, serving web-based spatial data products to a data-hungry world. 

Several of our students and faculty have recently earned competitive awards.  Ph.D. student Ramin Zamanian was awarded a Masters Student Paper Award at the 2007 AAG meeting for his paper titled “A Material/Conceptual Landscape Analysis of the Virgin of Guadalupe Pilgrimage Site in Mexico City, Mexico.” Dale Lightfoot was recently awarded the Oklahoma State University International Faculty Excellence Award for his contributions to international education, research, and outreach, and Steve Stadler continues to serve a governor’s appointment to the position of State Geographer.  We are very pleased that our first Geography Ph.D. graduates completed requirements in 2007 and, along with a new Environmental Science Ph.D. from our department, have found tenure track and visiting faculty positions at the University of Central Oklahoma, Bowling Green State University, Northeastern OSU, and George Washington University.

I trust that you will find what you are searching for on these web pages.  If you have questions, please contact us at the addresses given on our faculty pages.  We look forward to hearing from you, and would be happy to visit with you when you find yourself passing near Stillwater.

All the best,

Dale Lightfoot

Professor and Head