Sumanth Reddy
Dr. Sumanth G. Reddy received his B.S. from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, M.S. from the University of North Texas, and Ph.D. from Kansas State University, all in Geography. He is the coordinator of the geography minor since his start at BSU in 2015. His research interests are in medical, cultural, population, and tourism geography with regional application in Africa and Asia. His master's thesis entailed examining disease variance between a gold-mining and non-gold mining town in Ghana, West Africa and his Ph.D. dissertation focused on medical tourism in India. His 2010 co-authored paper in the International Journal of Tourism Research titled, “Travel for treatment: students’ perspective on medical tourism” has been cited more than 150 times. His current research is examining topophilia or a sense of place and attachment among the Siddi people in South India. His most recent publication on the topic based on his fieldwork in India was published in the journal, Focus on Geography.
Dr. Reddy has traveled globally for research, conferences, and leisure to over 50 countries. He is a member of the American Association of Geographers (AAG) and has presented research papers at regional, national, and international conferences, including Tel Aviv, Israel; Tunis, Tunisia; and Santiago, Chile. He is passionate about study abroad and experiential learning and strives to provide students the opportunity to experience the world beyond the classroom. As an undergraduate, he studied abroad in a semester-long program in Scotland and again studied abroad in Ghana as a graduate student. In 2016, he took 10 students to China on a two-week study abroad trip; in 2017, he took 10 students to Ghana and London on a three-week study abroad trip. In 2022, Dr. Reddy was awarded a $14,000 grant from the AAG to conduct a camping and hiking trip with his students to explore several national parks in the Southwest. During spring break of 2024, he took 15 students on a one-week study abroad trip to Panama to study Congo Culture. In May 2024, he will take 14 students on a one-week camping trip in Maryland and Virginia, funded by a grant from the National Park Trust.
Dr. Reddy’s passion is teaching. He received Bowie State University’s Presidential Teaching Award in 2022. In 2023, he was honored with the USM Board of Regents Excellence in Teaching Award. For Fall 2024, he will be on sabbatical, traveling around the world while teaching in the Semester at Sea program, which has been a dream in the making for 25 years. Besides the classroom, he enjoys traveling, hiking, cycling, gardening, cooking, and meeting people. He is a native of Bengaluru, India.
