Erin Bunting

Born in Florida and raised a die-hard Gator fan, Dr. Erin Bunting came into the geographic discipline by a happy accident, having been required to take an Extreme Weather course as an undergraduate at the University of Florida. After seeing how the field of geography brought together her interests in travel, climate, ecology, and environmental science Dr. Bunting was changed her major and never looked back. Throughout her career, she has diversified her roles and employment to develop a broad research network, gain multi-faceted teaching experience, manage and mentor both academic staff and students, and conduct interdisciplinary research. As such she has worked in academia, government organizations, and private companies using advanced spatial analysis, particularly big data remote sensing and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), to answer applied interdisciplinary questions on global environmental change, climate change, landscape resilience, and coupled natural human systems. As such she commonly refers to herself as a physical geographer, but one with an extensive background in ecology, natural resource management, climatology, and the geospatial sciences. Her work spans from the local to global scales and includes active projects in tropical, temperate, and arctic landscapes; that said, Dr. Bunting specializes in remote sensing of arid to hyper arid regions around the world but particularly in Southern Africa. Dr. Erin Bunting joined the MSU Geography Department in August 2017 after finishing her postdoctoral fellowship at the United States Geological Survey with the Southwest Biological Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona. Outside of work, Erin is an avid photographer, sports fan, reader, movie buff, and big into water sports (especially diving!).