Dr. Joseph Messina is the Associate Dean for Research in the College of Social Science and a Professor in the Department of Geography, Environment and Spatial Sciences at Michigan State University. He is also the Associate Editor of Plant Ecology and on the editorial board for the International Journal of Applied Geospatial Research. He has co-edited special issues in Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, Environment and Planning A, and Environment and Planning B. His involvement spreads across university programs, academic journals, research boards and professional organizations.
Research Interests
- Population-environment interactions
- Medical Geography
- Geographic Information Science
- Remote Sensing
- Land Change Science
Current Projects
Dr. Messina has active (2016) research projects funded by USAID, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, NASA, and DOD. Most of these projects focus on GIScience applications around people and the environment particularly syntheses of population-climate change-disease-agriculture. The exception is that two projects from DOD and both National University Research Initiative awards have been pure GIScience focusing on error and uncertainty. Dr. Messina’s research is evolving from pure remote sensing and GIS into telecoupling, social science, and land change science.