There is one or more PhD student opening to join the Department of Geographical Sciences at the University of Maryland, College Park for Fall 2025 and come work with Dr. Taylor Oshan in the Spatial Multiscale Analytical Science Hub (SMASH). The Department of Geographical Sciences is composed of internationally renowned faculty and College Park is uniquely positioned in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area for unparalleled opportunity to interact with federal agencies, non-profits, local government, and industrial partners. Doctoral students in the department receive full health benefits, tuition waivers, and stipends through a mix of teaching and research assistantships and fellowships, as well the opportunity to earn additional income through summer teaching, research, and internships.

The new doctoral recruits(s) will work with the SMASH team to develop and apply Spatial Data Science techniques and will also be a member of the Center for Geospatial Information Science. Active research areas of the team include multiscale spatial statistics, modeling human mobility, and open source tool development, with applications and collaborations in health, demography, transportation, and urban analytics. As a SMASH team member, there will be opportunities to contribute towards externally funded research, such as an ongoing National Science (NSF) project to develop an open source spatial data science ecosystem with collaborators at SDSU, U Chicago, and UC, Riverside.

Strong applicants will have a background in Geography, Geographic Information Science, Computational Social Science, Computer Science, Information Science, Smart Cities & Urban Science, or another related field with experience in programming (e.g., Python, R, Matlab) and a solid foundation in statistical methods. Other useful skills include web application development, geovisualization, machine learning, geoAI, and the ability to collect and manage large heterogeneous datasets. Candidates with experience or interest in spatial interaction modeling, regionalization algorithms, local modeling methods (e.g., geographically weighted regression, or multiscale concepts, sysytems, and models are particularly encouraged to apply, as are those from under-represented groups and those with disabilities (please specify to become eligible for additional funding opportunities).

The application deadline is December 12th 2024 and more information about how to apply can be found here. For the described position(s), the GRE is not a requirement. Please direct inquiries to Dr. Taylor Oshan (toshan@umd.edu) and include a resume/cv with expressions of interest.