University of Alabama

Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA

The University of Alabama has the oldest department of geography (founded in 1903) in the traditional Deep South. This department provides MS and PhD degree programs in GIS. Research contents of graduate students are divided into four major directions, namely earth system sciences, environment and resources, environment and society, and geographic information science. The research directions within geographic information science include spatial modeling, GIS system, and computer-based cartography.

Professors:

Hongxing Liu: remote sensing, LiDAR, hydrology, limnology, cryosphere;
Luoheng Han: remote sensing, spatial modeling, nutrients, water quality;
David J. Keellings: spatial analysis, quantitative methods, climate;
Sagy Cohen: GIS, numerical modeling, geomorphology;
Seth Appiah-Opoku: spatial analysis, urban planning, transportation, ecology, environment;
Nicholas Magliocca: computational geography, agent-based models, human-environment interaction, food and energy;
Kevin M. Curtin: GIS, urban science, location science, transportation, geodatabase design.
Bennett Bearden: water policy and law, public policy analysis, mediation, watershed management, international environmental law.
Lisa Davis: fluvial geomorphology, erosional and depositional geomorphology of rivers, paleoflood hydrology and flood science
Emily Elliott: coastal geology, geochronology
Justin Hart: applied forest ecology, silviculture, natural resources management, phytogeography
Matthew LaFevor: human-environment interactions, conservation & agriculture, water & soil management, mountain regions, Mexico, Caribbean, & Latin America
Jared Margulies: political ecology, environmental inequalities, human-nature relationships, social justice
Jason Senkbeil: atmospheric hazards, applied climatology
Wanyun Shao: human dimensional climate change and natural hazards, community vulnerability and resiliencce, social response to hydrological hazards
Douglas J. Sherman: geomorphology
Michael Steinberg: cultural ecology, biogeography, endangered species, remote sensing and forest cover changes
Matthew Therrell: paleoclimate, dendrochronology, hydroclimatology, water resources, drought, flooding
Joe Weber: transport geography, national parks, urban geography, American West, historical GIS

University of Georgia

Athens, Georgia, USA

Unit: Department of Geography

The University of Georgia is the first public university established in the United States. Its geography department has a long history. It is a main research center on the earth landscape and human-environment relations. There are three research directions in this department, including 1) Earth, Environment, and Climate, 2) Geographic Information Science, and 3) People, Place, and Identity. The department offers master’s programs (MS/MA) in Geography as well as doctoral programs (PhD) in Geography and Integrative Conservation. GIS courses include geospatial analysis, GIS programming, transportation modeling, etc. While enrolled, graduate students can also take courses for graduate certificates in atmospheric sciences and urban & metropolitan studies.

Professors:

Xiaobai Yao: GIScience, urban and transportation systems, network science, location-based social media data, public health;
Lan Mu: GIScience for health and the environment, location-based social media data, cartography, computational geometry;
Jerry Shannon: urban development and inequality, geographic information systems, political geography, and place effects on health;
Marguerite Madden: GIScience and landscape ecology, including remote sensing, geographic information systems (GIS), spatio-temporal analysis, geovisualization and geographic object-based image analysis, as applied to landscape-scale biological/physical processes and human-impacts on the environment;
Deepak Mishra: combining field-based remote sensing (spectroscopy) with the traditional satellite remote sensing to model and map various water quality and vegetation biophysical characteristics of the coastal environments;
Andrew Grundstein: applied climatology, climate and human health, hydroclimatology.

Georgia Institute of Technology

Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Unit: School of City & Regional Planning

Georgia Tech does not host a geography department, but some GIS-related programs can be found in the School of City & Regional Planning. These programs are best for students who want to advance their GIS skills and land their careers in the industry. It is also possible to obtain both a master’s degree in GIS and a master’s degree in urban planning within 2 to 3 years. Students who have completed the master’s program can potentially stay for the PhD program which takes 4 years to complete. Courses in GIS offered here include intro GIS, transportation & GIS, socioeconomic GIS, and GIS programming, etc. Most projects in this school involve quantitative modeling and data analytical methods.

University of Florida

Gainesville, Florida, USA

Unit: Department of Geography

University of Florida (UFL) is a top-tier public university in the United States and is known as a Public Ivy. The geography department at UFL is reputable and has four research directions including GIS, health geography, physical geography, and human geography.

Professors:

Jane Southworth: human-environment interactions, land change science, remote sensing;
Michael Binford: human-environment interactions, land-cover/land-use change, remote sensing;
Corene Matyas: hurricanes, spatial analysis;
Jason Blackburn: spatio-temporal modeling, zoonotic diseases;
Liang Mao: agent-based modeling, GIS and health, network analysis;
Yujie Hu: transportation, human mobility, spatial accessibility, spatial networks.

Florida State University

Tallahassee, Florida, USA

Unit: Department of Geography

The research focus of FSU’s Department of Geography includes social geography, spatial analysis, and natural environment. Graduate programs offered by this department include MS/MA, MGIS and PhD. Among them, MS/MA has two options, namely course-based and research-based. Either option takes two years to graduate. The course-based option requires 30 credits of designated courses focusing on the training of geographical theory, methodology, and geographic thinking. The research-based option requires completing a research thesis under the guidance of a committee of professors. MGIS is another course-based master’s program with more course works on GIS and its applications, and it only takes one year to complete. The PhD program generally needs 4 to 5 years to complete.

University of South Florida

Tampa, Florida, USA

Unit: Department of Geoscience

Founded in 1956, the University of South Florida (USF) is a public research university located in Florida. The geoscience department hosts programs in geography, geodesy, geochemistry, geophysics and hydrology. GIS-related graduate programs mainly include M.A. Geography, PhD in Geography, Environmental Science and Policy, and a 15-credit master certificate program (GIS Graduate Certificate). Students can choose courses including geographic information science, spatial data science, public health geographic information system and other fields to complete their degree.

Professors:

Ruiliang Pu: soil mapping, ecology, spatial analysis, environment modeling;
Joni Firat: GIScience, wildlife ecology, public health and safety;
Steven Reader: GIScience and spatial statistics;
Ran Tao: GIScience, spatial interactions (OD flows), spatial statistics, spatial data mining, geovisualization, transportation, migration, crime, civic conflicts;
Yi Qiang: GIScience, spatial data science, disaster resilience, visual analytics, geocomputation.

University of Oklahoma

Norman (southern suburb of OKC), Oklahoma, USA

Unit: Department of Geography and Environmental Sustainability

This department at University of Oklahoma (OU) offers master’s (MA and MS) and doctorate degrees in geography, of which the master of science (MS) and the doctorate degrees have a Geospatial Technologies Track. The main teaching and research content of this direction includes GIS application, visual analytics, geostatistics, etc. The department is characterized by its close integration with the petroleum geology industry, and its main application directions include the use of GIS technology for oilfield planning, reservoir evaluation, land surveying in oil-producing areas, and environmental risk assessment.

Professors:

Jennifer A. M. Koch: GIS application in land use, environmental informatics;
Rebecca W. Loraamm: time geography, spatiotemporal data analysis, spatial optimization;
Mike Wimberly: environmental informatics, remote sensing;
Hernan Moreno: hydrological remote sensing, environmental remote sensing, hydrological modeling;
Jeff Widener: GIS in human geography, cartography and visual analytics.

Oklahoma State University

Stillwater, Oklahoma, USA

Unit: Department of Geography

The Department of Geography at Oklahoma State offers Masters of Science and PhD programs, including the direction of Geospatial Technologies. The GIS program at Oklahoma State is known for its integration with transportation and natural resource management. This university is a powerhouse in transportation engineering, and the geography department also collaborates with the industrial engineering and management programs. The Oklahoma State University is a partner with the Southwest Jiaotong University in Sichuan, China for exchange programs.

Professors:

Hongbo Yu: GIS, time geography, transportation;
Yuting Zhou: GIS, remote sensing, climate, land use;
Brad A. Bays: GIS for Native American landscape, historical GIS;
Jonathan C. Comer: transportation, geostatistics, location analysis, spatial analysis in wireless network;
Thomas A. Wikle: spatial analysis, wireless communication, land use;
G. Allen Finchum: sports GIS, urban studies, population;
Hamed Gholizadeh: remote sensing, image processing, GIS, machine learning, GeoAI.

University of South Carolina

Columbia, South Carolina, USA

Unit: Department of Geography

The geography department at the University of South Carolina is strong in research. Research fields of faculty members cover human geography, natural disasters, social perception, and deep learning, etc. John R. Jensen, a well-knwon educator and best-selling author in geography, and David J. Cowen, a celebrated expert in GIS education, application and outreaching, have worked here. The department operates masters and doctoral programs in GIS. Doctoral students need to have a master’s degree (thesis-based) for entrance. The GIS courses offered by the department mainly include spatial analysis, meteorology and hydrology, disaster management, spatial big data, and network GIS, etc.

Professors:

Jessica Barnes: Environment, resource politics, water, development, Middle East;
Gregory Carbone: Weather and climate;
Susan Cutter: Environmental hazards and risks, environmental policy, natural resources;
Carl Dahlman: Political geography, critical geopolitics, migration, southeast Europe, Middle East;
Meredith Deboom: Political geography, resource politics, human rights, Sub-Saharan Africa;
Kirstin Dow: Human dimensions of environmental change, environmental hazards, environment and development;
Jean Taylor Ellis: Aeolian and coastal geomorphology, coastal management and hazards, sediment transport;
Dean Hardy: Political ecology, hazards geography, environmental justice studies, and critical race theory;
Conor Harrison: Economic geography, political economy, energy, environmental sustainability;
April Hiscox: Boundary layer meteorology, land-air interactions, forest meteorology, aerosol dispersion;
Michael Hodgson: Geographic Information Systems, remote sensing, hazards;
David Kneas: Political ecology, historical ethnography, Latin America;
John Kupfer: Biogeography, landscape ecology, public land and water management, spatial analysis;
Zhenlong Li: GIScience, geospatial big data, spatial computing, social media analytics, GeoAI, cyberGIS;
Jerry Mitchell: Environmental hazards, geography education, Latin America;
Cary Mock: Synoptic climatology, climate change, historical and quaternary environments;
Caroline Nagel: Migration, multiculturalism, citizenship, religion, Lebanon;
Catherine Studemeyer: Political geography, youth identity, Eastern Europe;
Cuizhen (Susan) Wang: Remote sensing, satellite time-series analysis, bio-environmental change.
Yuhao Kang: GIScience, geospatial data science, place-based GIS, GeoAI, cartography, urban computing, social sensing;
Sicheng Wang: Planning, public policy, transportation technologies;

Auburn University

Auburn, Alabama, USA

Unit: Department of Geosciences and College of Forestry, Wildlife and Environment

The Department of Geociences at Auburn University operates many fields such as structural geology, sedimentation and paleontology, geophysics, planetary science, environmental geography, human geography, and GIS, etc. The GIS direction here has a main application domain in geomorphology and climatology, and other fields like oil exploration. The department offers MS and PhD degree options, among which the PhD degree is in the direction of earth system science, which is an interdisciplinary field between various branches of earth science. It will use many quantitative methods including GIS and spatial analysis in the study of the earth system. The MS degree has the direction in geography, and it has both course-based and research-based options. The College of Forestry, Wildlife and Environment also operates a program in Geospatial and Environmental Informatics.

Professors:

Luke Marzen: GIS, remote sensing, climate, water, biogeography;
Chandana Mitra: GIS, remote sensing, climate, urban study, sustainability;
Philip Chaney: remote sensing, water resource, coastal geography;
Stephanie Shepherd: GIS application to geomorphology, landscape evolution;
Ming-Kuo Lee: spatial modeling, hydrogeology modeling, microbiology, hydrological seismicity, petroleum exploration.

Texas A&M University

College Station, Texas, USA

Unit: Department of Geography and Department of Landscape Architecture & Urban Planning

The geography department at Texas A&M (TAMU) has a comprehensive set of disciplines. It is especially reputable in urban GIS, social big data, and geographic decision support. Graduate programs offered by the department include master of geography, master of geographic information science and technology (online program), and PhD in geography. The master’s program requires 36 credits, with an average duration of 2-3 years; the doctoral program requires 64 credits, with an average duration of 4-5 years. 96 credits are required for students in the joint masters/PhD track. The core courses in GIS include: quantitative methods in geography, WebGIS, GIS-based spatial analysis & modeling, and frontiers in GIScience.

The Department of Landscape Architecture & Urban Planning at Texas A&M operates five key directions for its doctoral programs in urban and regional science, including environmental disasters, sustainability, housing and community development, health and well-being, and smart cities/urban transportation. A large number of projects are related to GeoDesign, virtual reality, augmented reality, and space-time simulation of the built environment. There are research clusters in this department, inclueding the disaster reduction and recovery center, housing and urban development center, health system and design center, data science institute, transportation research institute, and high-performance research computation center. The requirements for the PhD program include 64 credits and a dissertation.

Professors:

Daniel Goldberg: geocoding, 3D mapping, GIS health;
Xinyue Ye: geoinformation visualization, urban informatics and spatial social network analysis, emerging (big and open) data analytics;
Lei Zou: social media data mining, disaster resilience, sustainability;
Zhe Zhang: spatial uncertainty, big data and CyberGIS, fuzzy assessment for decision science;
George Allen: remote sensing, impacts of climate and land-use change on river systems;
Anthony FIlippi: hyperspectral remote sensing, floodplain and coastal marine monitoring.

Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi

Corpus Christi, Texas, USA

Unit: Department of Computing Sciences

There are geospatial graduate programs at Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi (TAMUCC). These degree programs provide students with the knowledge, skills, and opportunities required by today’s highly competitive and highly paid geospatial job market.

Professors:

Hongzhi Song: geospatial systems;
Tianxing Chu: environmental remote sensing, machine learning applied to geospatial applications, ubiquitous navigation and positioning, coastal dynamic modeling, indoor simultaneous localization and mapping;
William Edwards: riparian boundary issues with international, interstate, and private borders;
Lucy Huang: geospatial semantic web, WebGIS, GIS in public health;
Antonio Medrano: spatial optimization, high-performance computing, geospatial algorithm engineering;
Michael Starek: merging of geomatics, remote sensing, and geospatial computing for science and engineering problems, LiDAR, remote sensing, machine learning.

University of Texas at Austin

Austin, Texas, USA

Unit: Department of Geography and Environment

The geography and environment department at UT Austin has a rich histsory and is reputable in digital earth, environmental and surface process, and economic geography. It is especially strong in geography research related to food science and agriculture. There are 2 tracks for the masters program. The course-based program requires 36 credits. The research-based program requires 30 credits and a research thesis. A qualification exam is required within 3 years for doctoral students. After the qualification, students need to enroll in for at least 2 more semesters to complete the dissertation. The GIS center in this department offers multiple GIS-related courses, including the spatial data & analysis, GIS applications in social/environmental science，advanced GIS，and geoprocessing.

Professors:

Eugenio Arima: human-environment interactions, land change science, GIS/science, applied quantitative methods, Latin America;
Kelley A. Crews: Muddy Boots remote sensing, Land change science, & healthy socio-ecological systems in developing states;
Jennifer A. Miller: GIScience, movement pattern analysis, spatial statistics, biogeography;
Tony Grubesic: GIS, urban informatics, sustainability, hazards;
Paul C. Adams: Geographical Communications, Place Images in the Media, Disentangling from Digital Media, Geopolitical Discourses, Formation of Subjectivity;
Timothy Beach: Geoarchaeology, Soils, Climate History, Geomorphology, and Paleoenvironments of the Maya World and Mediterranean;
Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach: Geoarchaeology; Hydrology and Water Quality; Geomorphology; Spatial Statistics; Gender, Science, and Human Rights; Mesoamerica; Mediterranean and Near East; Peru; Iceland.;
Rebecca M. Torres: (Im)migration, Children/Youth Geographies, Gender, Feminist Geography, Activist/Engaged Scholarship, Mexico, Latin America;
Mark Budolfson: Ethics, Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE), Public Policy, Health, Environment;
Caroline Faria: Feminist political and economic geographies; feminist methodologies; Africa and the African diaspora;
Carlos E. Ramos Scharrón: Hydro-geomorphology; terrestrial carbon and sediment budgets; watershed analyses; land use change;
Brenda Boonabaana: Sustainable Development; Conservation and Development; Sustainable Tourism; Environmental Justice and Equity; Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience; Gender, Climate Change and Agriculture/Food Security; Women and Girls’ Empowerment; Feminist Geography; Development Geography; Cultural Geography; Globalisation; Urban Development & Transformations; Africa;
Thomas Garrison: Maya archaeology; remote sensing; lidar; GIS; Mesoamerica;
Laurel Mei-Singh: Environmental justice, carceral geographies and abolition, militarization, racial capitalism, Asian American Studies, and the Indigenous Pacific;
Amy Thompson: Human-environment interactions, social inequality, processes of low-density urban development, settlement patterns, household archaeology, community-based archaeology, neighborhood analyses, GIS, lidar, remote sensing, Classic Maya, Mesoamerica.

University of Texas at Dallas

Richardson (north of Dallas), Texas, USA

Unit: School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences

The GIS program at UT Dallas has been a traditional powerhouse. Its GIScience/computation and spatial analysis/statistics are ranked as number 1 in the USA. It is one of the 17 top researcj centers of designated by the US Geospatial Intelligence Agency and the US Geological Survey. The GIS-related MS and PhD programs are jointly provided by the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences, the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, and the School of Engineering and Computer Science. Research topics involved include geography, computer science, engineering, geology, and various social, policy and applied sciences. This reflects the interdisciplinary application of GIS. The MS program has 2 options, namely the course-based and research-based options. The course-based option requires courseworks and a final report of a research project. The research-based program requires a master’s thesis under the supervision of an advisor. The PhD program requires 75 credits and a defendable dissertation.

Professors:

May Yuan: temporal GIS, geographic dynamics, GIS data models and analysis in environmental, ecological, and social problems, space-time query, analytics and knowledge discovery;
Daniel Griffith: spatial statistics, quantitative/urban/economic geography, applied statistics & statistical consulting, research proposal design;
Brian Berry: spatial analysis of urban economic systems, geography and urban research, economy, society and polity;
Denis Dean: spatial optimization, the application of machine learning techniques and ideas to spatial analysis, and accuracy assessment of spatial analysis techniques;
Fang Qiu: remote sensing digital image processing, LiDAR and hyperspectral remote sensing, neural network and fuzzy logic, spatial analysis and modeling, GIS application software development, web-based mapping and information processing;
Yongwan Chun: GIS, spatial statistics, urban.

Texas State University

San Marcos, Texas, USA

Unit: Department of Geography

The geography department at Texas State is a fast-developing department. It is one of the largest geography departments in America. Research topics at Texas State include environmental geography, human geography, GIS, geography education, and interdisciplinary research. Graduate programs include Master in GIS, Master in Geographic Sciences, Applied Masters in Geography Education, Masters in Resource and Environment, and 3 options in the PhD progrm (GIS, Geography, and Geography Education). Major topics coverd in the GIS research include public health, geovisualization, land use/land cover change, geospatial data mining, spatial data analytics, and geocomputation.

Professors:

T. Edwin Chow: geocomputation, hazards, environmental modeling, human dynamics;
Yongmei Lu: urban & regional studies, crime, health, China & East Asia;
Nate Currit: remote sensing, land cover change, human-environment systems;
Alexander (Sasha) Savelyev: geovisualization, geovisual analytics, cartography;
Alberto Giordano: spatial humanities, cartography, historical GIS, spatial forensic anthropology;
Jennifer Jensen: LiDAR, remote sensing, biogeography, land use/land cover change;
Yihong Yuan: GIScience, spatio-temporal data mining, big geo-data analytics, human mobility modeling, urban computing;
Alberto Giordano: historical GIS, holocaust and genocide geography, policy applications of GIScience, spatial applications of forensic anthropology;
F. Benjamin Zhan: health/medical geography, GIScience, spatial data science, transportation, hazards reduction, China.

University of Tennessee

Knoxville, Tennessee, USA

Unit: Department of Geography

The Department of Geography at the University of Tennessee has strong scientific research capabilities in fields like spatiotemporal analysis, traffic optimization, environmental modeling, and population analysis. The school is adjacent to Oak Ridge National Laboratory and there are many cooperation and exchange opportunities for the GIS students. The University of Tennessee is close to the famous Great Smoky Mountains National Park which is less than an hour’s drive away.

Professors:

Shih-Lung Shaw: transportation, GIS, space-time analysis and visualization, time Geography;
Qiusheng Wu: GIScience, remote sensing, LiDAR, wetland hydrology, geospatial data science, Google Earth Engine;
Yingkui Li: geomorphometry and terrain analysis, LiDAR and UAS, remote sensing of earth surface processes, GIS modeling;
Hyun Kim: transportation, location modeling, health geography, spatial optimization;
Nicholas Nagle: population dynamics, data fusion, quantitative modeling, Bayesian statistics, image processing;
Liem Tran: GIS for environmental modeling, system dynamics modeling, fuzzy sets and systems, geospatial analysis;
Hannah Herrero: remote sensing, human-environment interactions, conservation, savanna science.

Tennessee State University

Nashville, Tennessee, USA

Unit: Dept. of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences

The TSU offers a Professional Science Master’s (PSM) program in Applied GIS. It has online and in-person options. TSU also offers a postgraduate certificate in GIS.

Louisiana State University

Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA

Unit: Department of Geography & Anthropology

The LSU Graduate School has Master of Geography (MS) and PhD programs. A master’s degree requires 30 credits and a thesis; a doctoral degree requires 60 credits and a dissertation, and also a minor in another field. Because this department is shared with anthropology, the research projects of LSU geography include some cooperative projects with anthropology, such as historical maps and ancient maps, spatial data of ancient documents, and quantitative spatial analysis of ancient civilization sites, etc. The main scientific research directions of GIS include the applications in land use, physical geography, and urban geography.

Professors:

Lei Wang: GIS, remote sensing, natural hazards, hydrology;
Fahui Wang: spatial analysis, regional planning, social geography;
Xuelian Meng: remote sensing, image processing;
Michael Leitner: GIS, spatial analysis, spatial crime modeling;
Alex Haberlie: remote sensing, machine learning, climate changes;
Nina Lam (Department of Environmental Sciences): GIS, remote sensing, spatial analysis, environmental health, disaster resilience, sustainability.

University of Arkansas

Fayetteville, Arkansas, USA

Unit: Department of Geosciences

The University of Arkansas is the flagship campus of Arkansas. This university is famous for the research in physical geography. Its geoscience department operates degree programs in geography and geology. Degrees granted are master’s and PhD. GIS-related courses offered there include digital earth, cartography, spatial analysis, gGeographic data mining, and natural disasters.

Professors:

Xiao Huang: GeoAI, geovisualization, deep learning, natural hazards, human-environment interaction, remote sensing;
Jason A. Tullis: GIScience, drones, remote sensing;
Jackson D. Cothren: digital photogrammetry, computer vision, surface generation, enterprise GIS.

Sam Houston State University

Huntsville, Texas, USA

Unit: Department of Environmental and Geoscience

Sam Houston State University (SHSU) is located in Huntsville, a small town in western Texas. It is a public research university and a member of the Texas State University system. Its predecessor was Sam Houston Normal Institute established in 1879, and it was also one of the earliest normal universities in the western United States. Its name comes from the famous general in Texas history, General Sam Houston, who was buried in the town where the school is located. The university offers the Master of Science in Geographic Information Systems degree program, which is a course-based master’s degree with entrance times in both spring and fall semesters. The content of the lectures includes advanced courses and lab practices in GIS, remote sensing, web mapping, modeling, programming, and spatial analysis. This degree program aims to improve students’ skills in geographic information science and technology. In addition, because the school is close to the oil-producing area of Texas, the program also focuses on the instruction related to the application of GIS in the oil and gas industry.

Stephen F. Austin State University

Houston, Texas, USA

Unit: College of Forestry and Agriculture

The Austin State University has a Master of Science in Forestry with geospatial science concentration program, which is a thesis-based program.

Professors:

Sara Phillips: forestry and geospatial science
Daniel R. Unger: spatial analysis, remote sensing, GPS, quantitative research
Brandy Bishop: forestry and geospatial science
Yanli Zhang: GIS, remote sensing, environmental modeling, geospatial analysis and application
David Kulhavy: forest entomology and pest management
I-Kuai Hung: GIS, remote sensing

Texas Christian University

Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas, USA

Unit: Department of Geology

The geology department at TCU has Master of Science degree programs with one of the concentration options being the Environmental GIS. This department also offers a Certificate in GIS graduate training program.