UNC Charlotte

Heather A. Smith’s students and colleagues have long praised her generosity and inclusivity. For the exceptional way she mentors others, the UNC Charlotte geographer has received the 2023 Susan Hardwick Excellence in Mentoring Award from the American Association of Geographers. Smith’s professional interests and mentoring strengths have guided a generation of geography students who have carried the impact into other spaces and places.

UNC Charlotte Knight Distinguished Professor of Public Policy Jean-Claude Thill is named an AAG Fellow by the American Association of Geographers for his immense contributions to geography through research, teaching and mentoring of students and other researchers. The data-driven, spatial and interdisciplinary approaches Thill takes help people better understand how social, environmental, economic, policymaking, and other processes are organized and related.

A significant proportion of Gaston County residents get their drinking water from private wells and other unregulated sources, particularly in the county’s northern and western rural communities. Yet, only a small fraction of residents test their water regularly. A UNC Charlotte team will work with residents and county health officials to boost the number of people doing tests regularly and improve the sharing of data, with new state funding to broaden the work.

A mentoring program co-led by UNC Charlotte researcher Sandra Clinton that aims to retain undergraduate women in the geosciences is on the shortlist for the international Nature Research Awards for Inspiring and Innovating Science. The program also has received almost $3 million in new NSF funding.

This year’s UNC Charlotte Constitution Day event features a talk by Tammy A. Sarver of Benedictine University, discussing women in America’s long struggle to gain the right to vote as a Constitutional right. While that quest culminated in 1920 with the passage of the 19th Amendment, issues of inequality remained and continue to linger today.

As pandemic restrictions begin to lift and cities start to bustle, we take a closer look at UNC Charlotte research into urban intensification and its impact on forest birds. This study by UNC Charlotte landscape ecologist Sara Gagné with two alumni and a colleague suggests ways to help forest birds in cities.

UNC Charlotte Associate Professor of history Christopher Cameron has been named a 2020 fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies, one of 81 fellows selected from nearly 1,200 applicants to receive support totaling $4.3 million.

UNC Charlotte’s Gerald G. Fox Master of Public Administration program and Clinical Health Psychology doctoral program in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences have earned high marks in the U.S. News & World Report’s 2021 rankings.

James Walsh, a core faculty member in the Public Policy program and professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration, is the 2020 recipient of the First Citizens Bank Scholars Medal, UNC Charlotte’s most prestigious faculty award in recognition of excellence in research.

Suzanne Leland, a core faculty member of the Public Policy Ph.D. program and professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration, is the 2020 recipient of the Harshini V. de Silva Graduate Mentor Award.