About the Program

Berkeley Geography offers the highest quality graduate training for future scholars and teachers at the collegiate level, as well as for those going into professional careers in government, NGOs and consulting. The program is divided into three major areas: Development & Environment, Local & Global Relations, and Global Environmental Change. Within these domains a wide range of faculty interests are represented, such as political ecology, economic geography, cultural geography, modernity studies, urban studies, geography of race and gender, climatology, biogeography, and geomorphology. Faculty come with a broad spectrum of regional specialties as well, including Africa, Southeast Asia, Europe, the Arctic, the Pacific Basin, California, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America. The faculty has been expanded in recent years to include a number of affiliates in other departments with expertise in such fields as GIS, natural resources, fluvial geomorphology, archeology, cognition, paleo-environments, and urban architecture.

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Admissions

Admission to the University

Uniform minimum requirements for admission

The following minimum requirements apply to all programs and will be verified by the Graduate Division:

1. A bachelor’s degree or recognized equivalent from an accredited institution;
2. A minimum grade-point average of B or better (3.0);
3. If the applicant comes from a country or political entity (e.g. Quebec) where English is not the official language, adequate proficiency in English to do graduate work, as evidenced by a TOEFL score of at least 570 on the paper-and-pencil test, 230 on the computer-based test, 90 on the iBT test, or an IELTS Band score of at least 7 (note that individual programs may set higher levels for any of these); and
4. Enough undergraduate training to do graduate work in the given field.

Applicants who already hold a graduate degree

The Graduate Council views academic degrees as evidence of broad research training, not as vocational training certificates; therefore, applicants who already have academic graduate degrees should be able to take up new subject matter on a serious level without undertaking a graduate program, unless the fields are completely dissimilar.

Programs may consider students for an additional academic master’s or professional master’s degree if the additional degree is in a distinctly different field.

Applicants admitted to a doctoral program that requires a master’s degree to be earned at Berkeley as a prerequisite (even though the applicant already has a master’s degree from another institution in the same or a closely allied field of study) will be permitted to undertake the second master’s degree, despite the overlap in field.

The Graduate Division will admit students for a second doctoral degree only if they meet the following guidelines:

1. Applicants with doctoral degrees may be admitted for an additional doctoral degree only if that degree program is in a general area of knowledge distinctly different from the field in which they earned their original degree. For example, a physics PhD could be admitted to a doctoral degree program in music or history; however, a student with a doctoral degree in mathematics would not be permitted to add a PhD in statistics.
2. Applicants who hold the PhD degree may be admitted to a professional doctorate or professional master’s degree program if there is no duplication of training involved.

Applicants may only apply to one single degree program or one concurrent degree program per admission cycle.

Any applicant who was previously registered at Berkeley as a graduate student, no matter how briefly, must apply for readmission, not admission, even if the new application is to a different program.

Required documents for admissions applications

1. Transcripts:  Upload unofficial transcripts with the application for the departmental initial review. Official transcripts of all college-level work will be required if admitted. Official transcripts must be in sealed envelopes as issued by the school(s) you have attended. Request a current transcript from every post-secondary school that you have attended, including community colleges, summer sessions, and extension programs.
   If you have attended Berkeley, upload unofficial transcript with the application for the departmental initial review. Official transcript with evidence of degree conferral will not be required if admitted.
2. Letters of recommendation: Applicants can request online letters of recommendation through the online application system. Hard copies of recommendation letters must be sent directly to the program, not the Graduate Division.
3. Evidence of English language proficiency: All applicants from countries in which the official language is not English are required to submit official evidence of English language proficiency. This requirement applies to applicants from Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Latin America, the Middle East, the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, and most European countries. However, applicants who, at the time of application, have already completed at least one year of full-time academic course work with grades of B or better at a U.S. university may submit an official transcript from the U.S. university to fulfill this requirement. The following courses will not fulfill this requirement: 1) courses in English as a Second Language, 2) courses conducted in a language other than English, 3) courses that will be completed after the application is submitted, and 4) courses of a non-academic nature. If applicants have previously been denied admission to Berkeley on the basis of their English language proficiency, they must submit new test scores that meet the current minimum from one of the standardized tests.

Doctoral Degree Requirements

Curriculum

All students take GEOG 200A/B in their first year. This course is designed to help each student to see, think, and write geographically; to learn how to make and to judge arguments; and to prepare a thesis proposal. All students in the doctoral program must take at least 12 units every semester (primarily in the form of appropriate graduate seminars) before taking the Qualifying Exam and advancing to candidacy. In addition, students must enroll in the Geography Colloquium (GEOG 295). This is a weekly colloquium (known as the "Tea Talk") which features invited speakers.

By the end of the third year, students entering with a B.A. or B.S. only must hand in a paper that would be suitable—in length and in quality—for submission to an academic or scientific journal. The paper may be an investigation of an intellectual problem in the form of an original synthesis of secondary literature; it may advance a new idea, or question an existing theory or notion, by assembling information that already exists in the literature; or it may use original information gathered from archives or in the field. The student should have a proposal for the paper by the end of the first year, and must be in constant and close consultation with his or her main advisor. The advisor will determine the appropriate format and length of the paper. The paper must be handed in, and approved by the main advisor, no later than a month before the Qualifying Exam. A copy of the paper with the advisor's approval should be turned in to the Student Affairs Officer.

Prior to taking the Qualifying Exam, all students must prepare a preliminary dissertation prospectus of between five and ten pages for their exam committee.

The Qualifying Exam (the "orals") must be taken by the end of the third year, although it is recommended that students entering with a Master's degree take it by the end of their second year. The exam is based on a discussion of three broad geographic fields built around bibliographies produced in consultation with the examining committee.

Immediately after passing the orals, a student applies to the Graduate Division for "Advancement to Candidacy for the Ph.D." Advancing to candidacy by the end of the third year qualifies a student for the Dean's Normative Time Fellowship.

As part of their training, all students will be expected to serve as Graduate Student Instructors for at least one semester.

Before starting dissertation research, each student must have a Dissertation Prospectus Meeting—during which the student discusses a written research proposal—with at least two members of the Exam Committee. The Ph.D. dissertation is written under the supervision of a committee of three University faculty members, one of whom must be from outside the Geography Department and a member of the Berkeley Academic Senate. Upon final acceptance of the dissertation, the degree of Ph.D. is awarded. It is expected that the student will complete the Ph.D. by the end of the sixth year in the program.

All students are expected to give an "exit talk" the semester they are filing their dissertation.

All students must give the department a copy of their thesis before their Final Report to the Graduate Division will be signed.

Courses

Geography

Faculty

Professors

Kurt Cuffey, Professor. Continuum mechanics, climate, geomorphology, glaciers, glaciology, climate history, stable isotopes, geographical thought.
Research Profile

Paul Groth, Professor. Architecture, vernacular architecture, urban geography, suburban America, cultural landscape studies, housing (US).
Research Profile

Gillian P Hart, Professor.

You-Tien Hsing, Professor. China, geography, political economy of development in East Asia, the process of international economic restructuring, cultural and institutional configuration in the processes of Taiwanese direct investment, growth in Chinese cities, business networks.
Research Profile

Michael Johns, Professor. Latin America, development, geography, culture of cities.
Research Profile

Michael J Watts, Professor. Islam, development, Africa, social movements, political economy, political ecology, geography, South Asia, peasant societies, social and and cultural theory, U.S. agriculture, Marxian political economy.
Research Profile

Associate Professors

A. Roger Byrne, Associate Professor. Historical biogeography, vegetation change, prehistoric agriculture, pollen analysis, history of late-Pleistocene/Holocene environment, fossil pollen.
Research Profile

Jeffrey Q. Chambers, Associate Professor.

John C. Chiang, Associate Professor. Climate change, climate dynamics, ocean-atmosphere interactions, paleoclimate.
Research Profile

David O'Sullivan, Associate Professor.

Robert C. Rhew, PhD, Associate Professor. Geography, terrestrial-atmosphere exchange of trace gases, atmospheric chemistry and composition, halogen biogeochemistry, stratospheric ozone depletion issues, coastal salt marsh, chaparral, desert, tundra, boreal forest, grassland.
Research Profile

Nathan F. Sayre, Associate Professor. Climate change, endangered species, rangelands, political ecology, pastoralism, ranching, environmental history, suburbanization, human-environment interactions, environmental geography, range science and management, Southwestern US, scale, community-based conservation.
Research Profile

Assistant Professors

Jake Kosek, PhD, Assistant Professor.

Adjunct Faculty

Norman L. Miller, Dphil, Adjunct Faculty. Hydroclimate modeling and assimilation and analysis, climate change impacts to sociology-economic and ecological sectors.
Research Profile

David B. Wahl, Adjunct Faculty.