Course Requirements 

The geoinformatics Ph.D. will require completion of a minimum of 72 s.h. beyond the bachelor's degree. Twenty-one semester hours must satisfy the Informatics/Geoinformatics requirements. The remaining 51 s.h. will be documented in an approved plan of study. Ph.D. students may take up to 6 hours of thesis hours.

The geoinformatics subprogram is part of the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Informatics (IGPI). All students within an IGPI program are required to take 9 s.h. of core courses.  Required and elective courses meeting this requirement are listed below; those identified with an “*” are considered particularly appropriate for geoinformatics students.

Core Informatics Courses (9 s.h.):

Introductory informatics (3 s.h.)

  • IGPI/CS:5110 Introduction to Informatics (Fall)

(or equivalent coursework approved by the subprogram coordinating committee)

Programming coursework (3 s.h.) Selected from:

  • CS:3210 Programming Languages and Tools: Programming with C++ (Fall and Spring)
  • CS:3210 Programming Languages and Tools: Programming with Java  (Fall and Spring)
  • GEOG:3050 Introduction to Geospatial Programming (Spring)

(or equivalent coursework approved by the subprogram coordinating committee)

Data handling coursework (3 s.h.) Selected from:

  • IGPI/MSCI:4480 Knowledge Discovery (Fall)
  • IGPI/MSCI:4220 Advanced Database Management & Big Data (Spring)
  • CS:4400 Database Systems (Fall and Spring)
  • IGPI/SLIS:6100 Data Management (Spring)
  • IGPI/BIOS:5120 Regression & ANOVA in Health Sciences (Spring)
  • IGPI/STAT:3200 Applied Linear Regression (Fall and Spring)
  • IGPI/STAT:5199 Applied Statistics I (Fall)
  • IGPI/STAT:5400 Computing in Statistics (Fall)
  • IGPI/GEOG:4581 Introduction to Geographic Databases (Fall)

Note: these are proposed additions to the core IGPI data handling courses

Core Geoinformatics Courses

A minimum 12sh of geoinformatics courses are required.

Introduction to geoinformatics (3sh):

  • GEOG:3010 Geographic Information Systems and Science (Spring)

(or equivalent coursework approved by the subprogram coordinating committee)

Geoinformatics electives (minimum of 9sh):

To insure breadth, courses must be taken from 2 or more departments. Select from (3 s.h. each):

The Department of Geographical and Sustainability Sciences:

  • GEOG:3500 Introduction to Environmental Remote Sensing
  • GEOG:3520 GIS for Environmental Studies
  • IGPI/GEOG:3540 Introduction to Geographic Visualization
  • IGPI/GEOG:4150 Health and Environment: GIS Applications
  • IGPI/GEOG:4500 Applications in Environmental Remote Sensing
  • GEOG:4520 GIS for Environmental Studies: Applications
  • IGPI/GEOG:4581 Introduction to Geographic Databases

The Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering:

  • CBE:3415 Statistical and Computational Analysis of Weather and Climate Data
  • CBE:5412 Atmospheric Modeling
  • CBE:5415 Satellite Image Processing and Remote Sensing of Atmosphere
  • CBE:5417 Physical Meteorology and Atmospheric Radiative Transfer
  • CBE:6415 Advanced Satellite Remote Sensing
  • CBE:6435 Advanced Atmospheric Radiative Transfer

The Department of Computer Science:

  • CS:4400 Database Systems
  • CS:4420 Artificial Intelligence
  • CS:4700 High Performance and Parallel Computing
  • CS:4720 Optimization Techniques

The Department of Management Sciences:

  • IGPI/MSCI:4480 Knowledge Discovery
  • IGPI/MSCI:6600 Linear Programming
  • IGPI/MSCI:7000 Management Sciences Topics (when topic applies)

The Department of Statistics and Actuarial Sciences:

  • IGPI/STAT:5400 Computing in Statistics
  • IGPI/STAT:6530 Environmental and Spatial Statistics
  • STAT:7290 Seminar Applied Statistics (when topic applies)
  • IGPI/STAT:7400 Computer Intensive Statistics

The Department of Biostatistics:

  • IGPI/BIOS:5710 Biostatistical Methods I
  • IGPI/BIOS:5720 Biostatistical Methods II
  • IGPI/BIOS:5730 Biostatistical Methods in Categorical Data
  • IGPI/BIOS:6310 Introductory Longitudinal Data Analysis
  • IGPI/BIOS:7600 Advanced Biostatistics Seminar (when topic applies)

The Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences:

  • EES:3100 Introduction to Applied Remote Sensing
  • EES:4870 Applied Geostatistics

School of Library and Information Science:

  • IGPI/SLIS:6155 Information Visualization