At the beginning of the 21st century, as global environmental change proceeds at an unprecedented pace, the practice of conservation is adapting to a complex set of new challenges. The conservation community has increasingly recognized that responding effectively to these challenges will require that the next generation of practitioners and scholars not only develop expertise in specific fields but also have the conceptual tools to work across disciplines. The University of Georgia's Integrative Conservation Ph.D. program is designed to meet that need by ensuring that students gain disciplinary depth while also learning to collaborate across disciplines and fields of practice to seek integrative solutions to complex conservation challenges. Students who choose Integrative Conservation and Geography as their disciplinary focus will receive rigorous theoretical and methodological training in a traditional discipline, while also working integratively at the intersections of multiple disciplines. For information on the ICON program, please visit their website. For admission to the ICON and Geography program, you should have a bachelor's and a master's degree, competitive verbal and quantitative GRE scores, a strong GPA, and three letters of recommendation. We strongly encourage applicants to contact faculty members with whom you are interested in working. Prior to admission, you must identify a faculty member who will serve as your major professor. For many students, financial aid (awarded in April prior to the beginning Fall semester) is an important consideration for entering a graduate program. The annual competition for student financial awards (such as Graduate School Assistantships and Presidential Graduate Fellowship Awards) takes place each February. Thus, due to the volume of applications received, it is best to have your application and all supporting materials submitted to both the Department of Geography and the Graduate School no later than December 1. Please keep in mind other ICON partner program have different deadline, and December 1 is explicitly for admission through Geography. Graduate study in Integrative Conservation and Geography at the University of Georgia is a demanding and highly competitive course of study. All students take core courses in Geography their first year, as well as Integrative Conservation. ICON students also complete an internship in their first summer at UGA. Beyond these requirements, students and their advisory committees select additional courses in conservation-related disciplines to form a program tailored to their needs. For application and assistantship information, visit the Geography Ph.D. website for prospective students. Send ICON inquiries to iconphd@uga.edu.
