Firooza Pavri, PhD

Firooza Pavri serves as Director of the Muskie School of Public Service and is Professor of Geography at the University of Southern Maine. Prior to joining USM, she lived in the Midwest and received her M.A. in Geography & Planning at the University of Toledo and Ph.D. in Geography at the Ohio State University respectively. She is originally from India and research and family take her back frequently.

Firooza’s teaching and research is in the area of environmental geography, with a focus on society environment interactions, natural resource conservation & policy, sustainable development, and geospatial technologies, including satellite imaging. More recently, her work has focused on sub-Arctic and Arctic environments in Iceland and Greenland. In Iceland, she uses satellite data to monitor changes to the Hofsjökull icecap in the central highlands over the past twenty-five years. She also works as part of an interdisciplinary team focused on the Kujataa UNESCO World Heritage site and its surrounding in south Greenland. Her work in Greenland is focused on understanding shifting land cover and vegetation patterns using satellite data from the past three decades. Firooza’s research has been supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation, among others. She is co-author of two books, articles, and reports in her areas of expertise.