Jack Jeffrey — Geography Alumni Spotlight
Class of 2025 | B.A. Political Science, Magruder Scholar, Minor in Geography
Jeffrey transferred to the University of South Carolina with an interest in politics, the environment, and global issues. He attended the university for two years and one semester before graduating in December 2025. After discovering GIS through a Digital Earth course, he added geography as a minor alongside his political science major. That combination gave him new ways to explore environmental change, human decision-making, and other complex challenges. By his junior year, he had made geography his second major.
“I’ve always loved nature. I’ve always loved traveling and kind of understanding how the world works,” Jeffrey said. “I’ve just always been interested in big global questions.”
At USC, Jeffrey put that curiosity into practice through research. He explored remote-sensing technology for national defense, presenting his work as USC’s only student presenter at the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation’s GEOINT Symposium. He also applied GIS closer to home while working as a GIS intern with the SCDNR Geological Survey in January 2025. His work focused primarily on shoreline-change analysis, geological mapping, and terrain/DEM processing. He later interned with SCDNR’s Natural Heritage Program, where he worked on species distribution and habitat suitability modeling for rare species.
Those experiences helped prepare Jeffrey for his next major opportunity this past summer: NASA’s EarthRISE Developers Academy. As a geospatial analyst, he worked with the National Park Service and The Nature Conservancy to support invasive plant management across California’s Channel Islands. His team developed habitat suitability models and explored hyperspectral and multispectral remote-sensing methods for identifying invasive vegetation. The program culminated at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, where Jeffrey presented the team’s work and was nominated for STELLAR Developer of the Term.
Jeffrey credits USC faculty with helping him discover many of those opportunities. His advice to current students is straightforward: get to know your professors and share what interests you.
“If you’re able to connect with them, you can really learn a lot and find a lot of new doors open that you wouldn’t have otherwise known were there.”
After graduating summa cum laude with bachelor’s degrees in both political science and geography, Jeffrey is continuing that momentum at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He is pursuing a master’s degree in geography and environment while serving as a graduate teaching assistant in GIS.
His goal remains rooted in the same curiosity that shaped his USC experience: using geospatial science to better understand—and care for—the world around him.
“I’m motivated by the idea that understanding place better can lead to more responsible stewardship of the Earth.”