Rate My Professor Narcisa Pricope

Narcisa Pricope is a Professor of Geography and Geospatial Science in the Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. She earned a PhD in Geography (minor in Environmental Engineering) from the University of Florida in 2011, an MSc in Geosciences from Western Kentucky University in 2006, and a BA in Geography and English from Babes-Bolyai University in Romania in 2004. Pricope joined UNCW in 2013 as an Assistant Professor, was promoted to Associate Professor in 2017, and to Full Professor in 2021. She founded and directed the USGIF-accredited undergraduate and graduate Certificate in Geospatial Intelligence, the FAA Unmanned Aerial Systems Collegiate Training Initiative, and the NSF-funded Coastal UAS Observatory. As Graduate Coordinator for GIS, Remote Sensing, and UAS certificates, she led UNCW's involvement in the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency's GEOINT Learning through Academic Programs (GLAP) $5 million contract.

Her research focuses on human-environment interactions as a land systems scientist, employing geospatial modeling, remote sensing, and uncrewed aerial systems to study the food-water-energy nexus, socio-ecological dynamics, environmental variability, and population vulnerability to change, particularly in drylands of eastern and southern Africa, Peru, Nepal, and coastal North America. Pricope has authored over 50 peer-reviewed articles, including highly cited works such as "The climate-population nexus in the East African Horn: Emerging degradation trends in rangeland and pastoral livelihood zones" (Global Environmental Change, 2013; 179 citations), "High-resolution spatial assessment of population vulnerability to climate change in Nepal" (Applied Geography, 2017; 104 citations), "A spatio-temporal analysis of fire recurrence and extent for semi-arid savanna ecosystems in southern Africa using moderate-resolution satellite imagery" (Journal of Environmental Management, 2012; 92 citations), and "Remote Sensing of Human–Environment Interactions in Global Change Research: A Review of Advances, Challenges and Future Directions" (Remote Sensing, 2019; 82 citations). She has secured over $1.2 million in external funding from NSF, NASA, NOAA Sea Grant, USAID, World Bank, and NCDOT. Among her honors are the 2021 UNCW College of Arts and Sciences Research Award, 2022 Graduate Faculty Mentor Award, Discere Aude mentorship award, WILMA Magazine Women to Watch (2021), and appointment to the UNCCD Science-Policy Interface Bureau (2022). Pricope has served as Associate Editor for Land Degradation and Development and guest editor for special issues in Journal of Land Use Science and Remote Sensing.