Skip to main content

Appalachian Today

News and events at Appalachian State University
  • Subscribe
  • For the media
  • Contact
  • Events
  • Webcams
  • Podcasts
  • In the News
  • Research & Arts
  • Awards
  • Experts
  • All News
  • Topics
  • Accolades
  • Alumni
  • Arts and Humanities
  • Athletics
  • Awards and Honors
  • Community Engagement
  • Diversity
  • Events
  • Faculty and Staff
  • Gifts and Grants
  • Global
  • Health and Wellness
  • Publications
  • Research and Creative Works
  • Safety
  • Scholarships
  • Students
  • Sustainability
☰ Menu
  • Events
  • Webcams
  • Podcasts
  • In the News
  • Research & Arts
  • Awards
  • Experts
  • All News
  • Topics
  • Subscribe
  • For the media
  • Contact

App State's Dr. Maggie Sugg receives National Science Foundation award for mental health research

View larger image

Dr. Maggie Sugg, assistant professor in Appalachian State University’s Department of Geography and Planning, is the recipient of a CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). NSF’s annual CAREER Awards support early career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education — and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization. She is one of two App State faculty to receive the award to date. Photo by Chase Reynolds

Faculty and students involved in CAREER project

The following App State faculty will participate in Dr. Maggie Sugg’s five-year research project — “The Geography of Mental Health: Understanding contextual, compositional and external stressors” — which is funded through her CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation. Additionally, one master’s student and three undergraduate students will also be involved each year of the project.

  • Dr. Jennifer Runkle, an environmental epidemiologist at the North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies and a research assistant professor at App State.
  • Dr. Kurt Michael, App State’s Stanley R. Aeschleman Distinguished Professor of Psychology.
  • Dr. Saskia van de Gevel, professor in and chair of the Department of Geography and Planning.
Identifying place-based differences in suicide rates

Suicide is the second leading cause of death among adolescents and has increased by 56% from 2007–17, according to Dr. Maggie Sugg, assistant professor in App State’s Department of Geography and Planning.

Sugg, along with App State’s Dr. Kurt Michael and Dr. Jennifer Runkle, is engaging in grant-funded research to identify social, environmental and economic risk factors — at both the individual and community level — for adolescent suicide for specific locations.

“Research has shown a marked disparity in suicide deaths for this age group between rural and urban areas, with higher rates found in rural areas than urban area,” Sugg said.

The team’s research — funded by a nearly $100,000 grant from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention — may lead to better understanding of disparities in suicide rates in rural and urban areas.

Michael is App State’s Stanley R. Aeschleman Distinguished Professor of Psychology, and Runkle is an environmental epidemiologist at the North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies and a research assistant professor at App State.

By Ellen Gwin Burnette and James Johnston
Posted June 4, 2021 at 4:52 p.m.

BOONE, N.C. — Dr. Maggie Sugg, assistant professor in the Department of Geography and Planning at Appalachian State University, has earned a CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). She is only the second App State faculty to be so honored.

Sugg will receive an expected $413,763 over five years (May 2021–April 2026) in federal grant funding to support research, as well as teaching, student mentorship and outreach for her CAREER project.

According to Sugg, her project will advance understanding of the relationship between geography and mental health illnesses — ranging in severity from depression to suicide. She will use geographic research methods, coupled with public health data, to identify North Carolina locations with populations with elevated rates of adverse mental health illnesses — while also examining how these locations differ across a rural-to-urban spectrum.

Sugg also hopes to gain a better understanding of social and environmental factors — as well as external stressors, such as COVID-19 — that influence the prevalence of these illnesses.

“Mental disorders and suicide are acute public health crises and there is a critical need to understand the myriad of mental health disorders and implement public health interventions at multiple levels,” Sugg said.

The annual CAREER Awards, offered by NSF’s Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) program, support early career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education — and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.

CAREER research, teaching, mentoring and outreach

Over the course of her CAREER project, Sugg will serve as a mentor to both undergraduate and graduate students involved in the project’s research, with priority given to underrepresented students with an interest in geography and public health, she said.

Sugg’s research will examine how the following intersect to influence mental health illnesses:

  • Demographic factors, including age, race and/or veteran status.
  • An area’s social environment — which can include such factors as community members’ access to services, economic stability and level of education.
  • Climate data, such as temperature and humidity.
  • External and/or environmental stressors, such as the COVID-19 pandemic or natural disasters.

Sugg will share insights gained through her research with App State students and faculty, along with K–12 teachers in North Carolina, through the following:

  • On-campus speaking events featuring top scholars in the fields of mental health, climate science and geographic information science (GIScience).
  • An on-campus workshop for fifth grade teachers in North Carolina that will cover how geospatial science — the use of information technology to understand Earth’s people, places and processes — can be applied to the study of public health and climate change.
  • New content units and lab exercises on geographic information system (GIS) techniques and spatial analysis. Sugg will also collaborate to develop content units on GIScience that the state’s K–12 teachers can use in their classrooms.
  • Climate and Society — a course develop by Sugg designed to train students in research methods involving GIS-based analysis of climate and public health data. According to Sugg, this course will be one of the four mandatory course requirements for App State’s climate change graduate certificate.

Additionally, information derived from Sugg’s research will be distributed broadly to the public through nonprofit Helping Give Away Psychological Science (HGAPS).

Sugg and her geography and planning students will collaborate with students in the university’s HGAPS chapter and their adviser, Dr. Kurt Michael, App State’s Stanley R. Aeschleman Distinguished Professor of Psychology, to develop materials that translate Sugg’s research results.

“This work is critical to ensuring that the information derived from this project is put into practice, rapidly, accurately and effectively,” Sugg said.

The first App State faculty member to receive a CAREER Award was Dr. Baker Perry, Sugg’s colleague in the Department of Geography and Planning. He received the award in 2014 for his project exploring Andean precipitation patterns, which provide critical climate data for the region and beyond.

Sugg’s current research focuses on the patterns of environmental health illnesses that take place within certain geographic areas and over specific time periods — and how these patterns relate to environmental, socioeconomic and climatic factors. She holds a B.S. in biology (2008), and M.A. in geography (2011) and a Ph.D. in geography (2015), all from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The grant will be administered by App State’s Research Institute for Environment, Energy, and Economics.

Learn more about Sugg and her teaching and research.

What do you think?

Share your feedback on this story.

Faculty and students involved in CAREER project

The following App State faculty will participate in Dr. Maggie Sugg’s five-year research project — “The Geography of Mental Health: Understanding contextual, compositional and external stressors” — which is funded through her CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation. Additionally, one master’s student and three undergraduate students will also be involved each year of the project.

  • Dr. Jennifer Runkle, an environmental epidemiologist at the North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies and a research assistant professor at App State.
  • Dr. Kurt Michael, App State’s Stanley R. Aeschleman Distinguished Professor of Psychology.
  • Dr. Saskia van de Gevel, professor in and chair of the Department of Geography and Planning.
App State’s first CAREER awardee
App State’s first CAREER awardee
June 1, 2021

The first App State faculty member to receive a National Science Foundation CAREER Award was Dr. Baker Perry, professor in the Department of Geography and Planning. He received the award in 2014 for his project exploring Andean precipitation patterns, which provide critical climate data for the region and beyond.

Learn more about Perry, his climate science research and his impact on App State students.

Identifying place-based differences in suicide rates

Suicide is the second leading cause of death among adolescents and has increased by 56% from 2007–17, according to Dr. Maggie Sugg, assistant professor in App State’s Department of Geography and Planning.

Sugg, along with App State’s Dr. Kurt Michael and Dr. Jennifer Runkle, is engaging in grant-funded research to identify social, environmental and economic risk factors — at both the individual and community level — for adolescent suicide for specific locations.

“Research has shown a marked disparity in suicide deaths for this age group between rural and urban areas, with higher rates found in rural areas than urban area,” Sugg said.

The team’s research — funded by a nearly $100,000 grant from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention — may lead to better understanding of disparities in suicide rates in rural and urban areas.

Michael is App State’s Stanley R. Aeschleman Distinguished Professor of Psychology, and Runkle is an environmental epidemiologist at the North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies and a research assistant professor at App State.

Meteorological factors may influence COVID-19 transmission and spread in the US, according to research by App State and NCICS
Meteorological factors may influence COVID-19 transmission and spread in the US, according to research by App State and NCICS
July 2, 2020

A climate-health study conducted by Appalachian State University researchers shows a significant association between COVID-19 transmission and low humidity.

Read the story
Researching the Spread of COVID-19 in Nursing Homes
Researching the Spread of COVID-19 in Nursing Homes
College of Arts and Sciences
Dec. 2, 2020

The spread of COVID-19 has threatened nursing home residents and employees across the United States for the past several months. Two Appalachian State University researchers have determined which factors play the largest role in nursing home virus transmission.

Read the story
Adapting during COVID-19
Adapting during COVID-19
March 9, 2021

Faculty from App State’s College of Arts and Sciences discuss how the challenges presented by COVID-19 have opened up new learning and research opportunities for the college’s more than 6,000 students.

Watch the video
COVID-19 research in the College of Arts and Sciences
COVID-19 research in the College of Arts and Sciences
July 21, 2020

During this virtual summer 2020 presentation, faculty in App State’s College of Arts and Sciences share their research related to COVID-19.

Watch the video

About the Department of Geography and Planning

The Department of Geography and Planning promotes the understanding of the spatial dimensions of human behavior within the physical and cultural systems of the earth, and the role of planning in achieving improvement in those systems. The department offers degrees in geography and in community and regional planning. Learn more at https://geo.appstate.edu.

About the College of Arts and Sciences

The College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) at Appalachian State University is home to 17 academic departments, two centers and one residential college. These units span the humanities and the social, mathematical and natural sciences. CAS aims to develop a distinctive identity built upon our university's strengths, traditions and locations. The college’s values lie not only in service to the university and local community, but through inspiring, training, educating and sustaining the development of its students as global citizens. More than 6,800 student majors are enrolled in the college. As the college is also largely responsible for implementing App State’s general education curriculum, it is heavily involved in the education of all students at the university, including those pursuing majors in other colleges. Learn more at https://cas.appstate.edu.

About Appalachian State University

As a premier public institution, Appalachian State University prepares students to lead purposeful lives. App State is one of 17 campuses in the University of North Carolina System, with a national reputation for innovative teaching and opening access to a high-quality, affordable education for all. The university enrolls more than 21,000 students, has a low student-to-faculty ratio and offers more than 150 undergraduate and 80 graduate majors at its Boone and Hickory campuses and through App State Online. Learn more at https://www.appstate.edu.

Faculty and students involved in CAREER project

The following App State faculty will participate in Dr. Maggie Sugg’s five-year research project — “The Geography of Mental Health: Understanding contextual, compositional and external stressors” — which is funded through her CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation. Additionally, one master’s student and three undergraduate students will also be involved each year of the project.

  • Dr. Jennifer Runkle, an environmental epidemiologist at the North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies and a research assistant professor at App State.
  • Dr. Kurt Michael, App State’s Stanley R. Aeschleman Distinguished Professor of Psychology.
  • Dr. Saskia van de Gevel, professor in and chair of the Department of Geography and Planning.
App State’s first CAREER awardee
App State’s first CAREER awardee
June 1, 2021

The first App State faculty member to receive a National Science Foundation CAREER Award was Dr. Baker Perry, professor in the Department of Geography and Planning. He received the award in 2014 for his project exploring Andean precipitation patterns, which provide critical climate data for the region and beyond.

Learn more about Perry, his climate science research and his impact on App State students.

Identifying place-based differences in suicide rates

Suicide is the second leading cause of death among adolescents and has increased by 56% from 2007–17, according to Dr. Maggie Sugg, assistant professor in App State’s Department of Geography and Planning.

Sugg, along with App State’s Dr. Kurt Michael and Dr. Jennifer Runkle, is engaging in grant-funded research to identify social, environmental and economic risk factors — at both the individual and community level — for adolescent suicide for specific locations.

“Research has shown a marked disparity in suicide deaths for this age group between rural and urban areas, with higher rates found in rural areas than urban area,” Sugg said.

The team’s research — funded by a nearly $100,000 grant from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention — may lead to better understanding of disparities in suicide rates in rural and urban areas.

Michael is App State’s Stanley R. Aeschleman Distinguished Professor of Psychology, and Runkle is an environmental epidemiologist at the North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies and a research assistant professor at App State.

Meteorological factors may influence COVID-19 transmission and spread in the US, according to research by App State and NCICS
Meteorological factors may influence COVID-19 transmission and spread in the US, according to research by App State and NCICS
July 2, 2020

A climate-health study conducted by Appalachian State University researchers shows a significant association between COVID-19 transmission and low humidity.

Read the story
Researching the Spread of COVID-19 in Nursing Homes
Researching the Spread of COVID-19 in Nursing Homes
College of Arts and Sciences
Dec. 2, 2020

The spread of COVID-19 has threatened nursing home residents and employees across the United States for the past several months. Two Appalachian State University researchers have determined which factors play the largest role in nursing home virus transmission.

Read the story

Share

Topics

  • Awards and Honors
  • Faculty and Staff
  • Gifts and Grants
  • Research and Creative Works

What do you think?

Share your feedback on this story.

Archives

Appalachian Today is an online publication of Appalachian State University. This website consolidates university news, feature stories, events, photo galleries, videos and podcasts.

If you cannot find what you're looking for here, please refer to the following sources:

  • Podcasts may be found at Appalachian State University Podcasts
  • Stories and press releases published prior to Jan. 1, 2015 may be found in University Communications Records at the Special Collections Research Center.
  • A university-wide Google Calendar may be found at Events at Appalachian

Share

Topics

  • Awards and Honors
  • Faculty and Staff
  • Gifts and Grants
  • Research and Creative Works

Other Recent Posts

  • 4 new and reappointed App State Board of Trustees members to begin new terms July 1
    4 new and reappointed App State Board of Trustees members to begin new terms July 1
  • App State awards degrees to over 4,200 graduates ready to shape the future
    App State awards degrees to over 4,200 graduates ready to shape the future
  • Student research and creative projects spotlighted at App State’s annual showcase
    Student research and creative projects spotlighted at App State’s annual showcase
  • Will Sears appointed vice chancellor of university advancement at App State
    Will Sears appointed vice chancellor of university advancement at App State
  • N.C. Governor Josh Stein to address graduates at App State commencement
    N.C. Governor Josh Stein to address graduates at App State commencement
  • App State honors 29 students, faculty and staff with 2025 Awards of Distinction
    App State honors 29 students, faculty and staff with 2025 Awards of Distinction
  • App State to offer AI concentration in master’s programs [faculty featured]
    App State to offer AI concentration in master’s programs [faculty featured]
    WFDD
  • Campus emergency siren test to be conducted May 7
    Campus emergency siren test to be conducted May 7
  • App State students help restore national wildlife refuge as part of Alternative Service Experience
    App State students help restore national wildlife refuge as part of Alternative Service Experience
  • Dr. Neva J. Specht appointed App State executive vice chancellor and provost
    Dr. Neva J. Specht appointed App State executive vice chancellor and provost
  • $2 million grant funds scholarships, supports STEM education for over 50 App State students
    $2 million grant funds scholarships, supports STEM education for over 50 App State students
  • App State named Military Friendly School for 16th consecutive year, ranked a top 10 institution for 2025–26
    App State named Military Friendly School for 16th consecutive year, ranked a top 10 institution for 2025–26

Archives

Appalachian Today is an online publication of Appalachian State University. This website consolidates university news, feature stories, events, photo galleries, videos and podcasts.

If you cannot find what you're looking for here, please refer to the following sources:

  • Podcasts may be found at Appalachian State University Podcasts
  • Stories and press releases published prior to Jan. 1, 2015 may be found in University Communications Records at the Special Collections Research Center.
  • A university-wide Google Calendar may be found at Events at Appalachian
  • Events
  • Videos
  • Galleries
  • In the News
  • Research & Arts
  • Awards
  • Experts
  • All News
  • Topics
  • Subscribe
  • For the media
  • COVID updates
  • Contact

App State

Copyright 2025 Appalachian State University. All rights reserved.

University Communications
ASU Box 32153
Boone, NC 28608
828-262-6156
[email protected]

Abouts

Disclaimer | EO Policy | Accessibility | Website manager: montaldipa (beltmr) .. | Website Feedback

Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram LinkedIn Snapchat