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About Us

The School of Geosciences at UL Lafayette specializes in energy and environmental education, research, and training. This includes Louisiana’s most important natural and economic resources: waters, soils, wetlands, and oil and gas.

It is estimated that, in Louisiana alone, between 100,000 and 195,000 jobs will be created in the areas of water management and oil and gas production in the next 20 years. Our degree programs in geology and environmental science provide you with the knowledge, tools, and problem-solving capacity to address these needs. 

Our programs offers you many unique opportunities:

  • A large majority of our students find exciting hands-on opportunities through internships with petroleum companies, local engineering and environmental firms, and state and federal agencies. 
  • We utilize a variety of talented adjunct faculty with experience in industry and state and federal agencies to further infuse our curriculum with real-world information.
  • South Louisiana - with its rivers, wetlands, deltas, swamps, marshes, and beaches - is a natural laboratory for studying waters, soils, and modern sedimentary processes.
  • One result of a large geological community is a broad range of local organizations which offer technical meetings, short courses, and other support for UL Lafayette geology students. The Lafayette Geological Society, the Southwest Louisiana Geophysical Society, the Lafayette chapter of the Society of Independent Professional Earth Scientists, and the Lafayette chapter of the Society of Professional Well Log Analysts all hold monthly meetings, which are open to students. The meetings usually include a technical presentation.
  • You can join one of our active student organizations, which include chapters of the Soil and Water Conservation Society (SWCS); American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG); Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG); the Association for Women Geoscientists (AWG), and more.

These opportunities inside and outside the classroom give our students a competitive edge. For example, our Geology graduate students have won three times the International Imperial Barrel Award Competition (2012, 2014, 2018), each time beating out more than 100 student teams from around the globe.  This event, sponsored by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG), involves 5-student teams who compete in the area of petroleum exploration. Our students are the best in the world — no other university has won the competition as many times as we did!

The School of Geosciences contains 14 full-time faculty and instructors that serve 240 students — 70 Environmental Science, 100 Geology undergraduates, and 70 Geology graduate students. We graduate about 20 students per year.

Learn more about our programs!