UNR Department of Geography

08/14/2026

Study geography => live longer!
tldr: navigation and wayfinding tasks (i.e. stuff that geographers, and other professions such as cab driving do!) appear to prevent/delay cognitive decline with age.

Working with and living in spatially complex environments may help delay cognitive decline, though more research is needed.

03/18/2026

Hello San Francisco!

11/21/2025

Putting grad students, faculty, and working professionals in their place, it was this all-undergrad team that was crowned 2025 UNR Geograpgy awareness week trivia CHAMPIONS! 🌎 🏆
Congrats Tyler & Heidi

06/25/2025

Check out this feature from the Latino Insights podcast that features our very own Dr. Jessie Clark!
She shares some insights on housing issues facing local communities.
👏🏽 ¡Brava Jessie! 👏🏼
Latino Research Center at UNR

05/28/2025

Check out this great feature on Nevada State Climatologist and UNR Geography professor, Dr. Baker Perry and his work on some of the highest peaks in the world, including Mt. Everest! https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/26/climate/video/weather-top-of-the-world-digvid?fbclid=IwY2xjawKkZnxleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFGeGhsSnBldFh2aWRUcGp5AR5ng-uYSdAqRSVUSii6UF4OzA4vGKy6JPINWULV4hm4cCAELEuxtLuCap-Qgw_aem_a0ZbUlsFH-hh6AKNPX3nRw

Dr. Baker Perry leads a team of scientists as they set up weather stations on Everest and other extreme environments. CNN’s Derek Van Dam details their mission to study climate change impacts on glaciers and water resources that impact nearly a quarter of the worlds population.

01/14/2025

Work by our Nevada State Climate Office is in the news with the release of Reno-Sparks Heat Mapping Project campaign results. The project documented large spatial and temporal variations in temperatures across the Truckee Meadows that are important for understanding and mitigating risks from excessive heat, Nevada's most deadly type of weather. Supported by NOAA, the project is the result of collaboration across UNR and DRI, more than a dozen agencies, governments, and community groups and included over 100 volunteer participants. 👀

The University of Nevada, Reno says that heat is Nevada's most deadly weather pattern. They say Nevada record nearly 500 heat-related deaths last year.

12/01/2024

Check out Geography professor and Nevada State Climatologist Dr Baker Perry’s profile in The Nevada Independent
☀️⛈️🌨️

Baker Perry has a long history of studying the effects of climate change on the world’s water supply. Now, he’s looking to expand understanding of weather and climate across Nevada.

11/25/2024

Check out Geography graduate student Richie Bednarski featured in this piece about biking 🚲 in Reno-Sparks!

11/22/2024

Happy !
We love hearing from our alums about the many different ways they are applying their geography degrees all over the world.

Here's a neat example from mid 2010s graduates Devin Jacobs and Nicole Shaw, who both independently ended up on the Conservation Science Team at the Jane Goodall Institute. They overlapped in the department while working in Dr. Tom Albright's Lab for Conservation Biogeography and report being very excited to be working together after all these years. Nicole was thrilled to meet Dr. Goodall on her first week on the job!

11/22/2024

Happy ! We're featuring some of the diverse work of UNR geographers this week. Here we "dug something up" from Dr. Julie Loisel's UNR Peat Lab.
Digging to the bottom of it: a UNR team of Geographers has been looking for peatlands across Costa Rica. In this country famous for its conservation efforts, it may surprise some to know that these carbon-rich ecosystems have yet to be mapped. Everywhere the team went, from coastal back barriers to river floodplains and cloud forests, they found thick peat deposits (>2m), suggesting that tropical peatlands in Central America are worthy of further investigation. This is especially the case to help understand the past, present, and future contributions of these ecosystems to CO2 and CH4 cycling. This work provides much needed 'bottom-up' field-based observations to the Costa Rican government, who is looking towards implementing 'Payments for Ecosystem Services' policies that can help preserve intact ecosystems.