Labs and Facilities

The Department of Environmental, Earth and Geospatial Sciences at North Carolina Central University is pleased to provide the faculty, staff, and students with a state-of-the-art Geographic Information Systems (GIS) facility housed in the Mary Townes Science complex. The center houses several computers, GPS equipment, a large-format plotter, various GIS software packages, GIS data on North Carolina, and knowledgeable staff to provide assistance to the 'Eagles' who want to use GIS in their research or just want to learn about this fascinating tool.

In addition to equipment, software, and training, the department offers services such as project design and assistance with assimilating GIS, GPS, or remote sensing into ongoing projects. This interdisciplinary approach is the hallmark of cutting-edge research and the department aims to be an integral part of this approach and be your one-stop-shop for GIS software, training, and services.

GIS Software Licenses

As one of the sixteen UNC institutions, NCCU is party to the university-wide site license agreement with ESRI - a leading provider of GIS software. GIS users in the NCCU domain have access to several software packages including ESRI’s ArcGIS - one of the more popular in the market. The DEEGS acts as a facilitator by providing ESRI licenses to departments as per their requirements.

GIS Training

The GIS center boasts of competent instructors capable of delivering instruction in a classroom or professional setting.  DEEGS faculty have both classroom and professional GIS experience.  In addition to instructor lead courses in GIS/GPS/remote sensing, the center also acts as a conduit for online courses that are available at ESRI's Virtual Campus. The courses on the virtual campus range from beginning GIS courses to advanced application programming. Access to these courses is free for all faculty and students at NCCU.

Environmental Science Laboratories

The Environmental Science (ES) branch in the Department of Environmental, Earth, and Geospatial Science focuses on hands-on student trainings and conducting research on locally, regionally, and globally relevant environmental pollution problems and related human health issues.  With the new Environmental Health (EH) program accredited by Environmental Health Accreditation Council, ES with EH division focuses on students’ hands-on training that help prepare students for job markets as well as higher education.  Research focuses of the faculty in ES with EH division include pollution problems in the air, water, and soil in the context of environmental justice.  Community-based projects are typically prepared and used to understand and resolve the pollution issues.  Students in the program typically have opportunities of working on various interdisciplinary projects that facilitate complex issues typically encountered in real life situations.  Ongoing projects are related to the fields in environment, biomedicine, and geography.  Some of these projects include particulate matter (PM) exposure assessment, ultrafine and nano particulate matter or nanomaterial characterization, toxicology of engineered nanomaterials, nanomaterial synthesis, water purification system development, exposure induced cardiopulmonary physiological effects, remote sensing, geographical information system (GIS), fate and transport, and medical geography.  ES with ES division specifically focuses on various issues involved with environmental justice including air, water, and soil pollution problems present in many nearby minority communities. 

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