Elizabeth Wentz is the dean of social sciences in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and a professor in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning at Arizona State University. Her research focuses on the design, implementation and evaluation of geographic technologies with particular emphasis on how such technologies can be used to understand urban environments. Geographic technologies, which include Geographic Information Systems (GIS), remote sensing, and spatial analysis, offer insight into how human activities and physical space relate in urban systems by using quantitative methods to measure and analyze such activities.

Professor Wentz's teaching focuses on geographic technologies and graduate-level research design and proposal writing. Her book, "How to Design, Write, and Present a Successful Dissertation Proposal," guides students through the dissertation proposal process.