Opportunities

University at Buffalo, the State University of New York (UB or SUNY Buffalo) is a leading public research university in the United States and across the globe. It is a flagship university in the SUNY university system, and the best public university in New York State. UB is a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities (AAU) that consists of 69 most research intensive universities in the United States and 2 top universities in Canada. UB is the home of five Nobel Laureates, two Pulitzer Prize winters, and many other award-winning scholars. The university has also trained many distinguished alumni, such as Robin Yanhong Li (the founder and CEO of Baidu.com), Wolf Blitzer (Emmy Award-winning journalist for CNN), and C. L. Max Nikias (President of the University of Southern California). UB is a leading university of AI research in the United States. It is one of the only 25 universities in the United States that received $20 million NSF grant to establish a National AI Institute. UB is also the recipient of the Empire AI Initiative, a $400 million investment from New York State. More about the research impacts of UB can be seen here.

The Department of Geography at UB offers a top-10 GIS program in the United States. It is also ranked as a top-10 Geography Department in terms of PhD graduate placement (see Table 3 of the linked paper). The department is well-known internationally for its significant strength in GIS, geospatial analysis and modeling, geocomputation, and more recently GeoAI. The Department was one of the three National Centers for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA) funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). The department has been home to many distinguished GIS pioneers, such as Drs. David Mark, Pete Rogerson, and Hugh Calkins, and has trained a large number of outstanding GIS scholars, such as Drs. Hui Lin, May Yuan, Ming-Hsiang Tsou, Eric Delmelle, Elizabeth Delmelle, Michael Widener, Seth Spielman, Chunyuan Diao, Peter Kedron, Amy Frazier, and many others. UB Geography is also the alma mater of Barry Glick, a founder of MapQuest that was a popular online map before the existence of Google Maps. The department has a strong alumni network: if you work in the field of GIS, you will run into UB Geography alumni from time to time for sure. The department is also well connected to many other institutes across UB campus, including the UB AI and Data Science Institute and the UB Research and Education Center in eNergy, Environment and Water Institute. The PhD program of UB Geography is a STEM Program. International students graduating from our programs will have a 36-month OPT to seek job opportunities in the U.S.

UB is located in the Buffalo-Niagara region, which is a major metropolitan area with over 1 million population. It is 30-min drive to the world-famous Niagara Falls, 2-hour drive to the largest city of Canada, Toronto, and 6-hour drive to the largest city of the U.S., New York City (NYC). The region is known for its beautiful park system designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and water fronts to the Great Lakes. If you like snow and winter sports, Buffalo is the perfect place for you. Not a fan of snow? Well, we have three other beautiful seasons. The campus of UB is highly inclusive and international. You can find many delicious food on campus. You can also watch the campus tour video to get a sense of the UB campus.