Department of Environmental Studies, College of the Environment
Graduate Faculty
Core Faculty
Bach, Andrew J., PhD, physical geography, geomorphology, soils development, landscape change.
Barnhart, Charles, PhD, energy analysis, life cycle assessment, societal energy use, early energy technology appraisal.
Buckley, Patrick H., PhD, economic and development geography, modeling the Hawaiian economy to explore issues of social justice, quality of life, transborder environmental issues.
Darby, Kate J., PhD, Social and environmental justice, environmental justice pedagogy in higher education, food systems.
Flower, Aquila, PhD, geography, biogeography, climatology, forest ecology, long-term environmental change, paleoclimatology, dendrochronology, cartography, and GIS. Regional focus on Western North America and the Salish Sea.
Laso, Francisco, PhD, geography, human-environment interactions, conservation, agroecology, remote sensing, critical cartography, and participatory GIS. Regional focus on Galapagos, Ecuador.
Medler, Michael J., PhD, biogeography, GIS, remote sensing, forest fire and wilderness management.
Myers, O. Eugene, PhD, environmental education, conservation psychology, human ecology, environmental history and ethics.
Neff, Mark W., PhD, science, democracy and decision making; science, technology, and society; participatory governance of science and technology; sustainability; science in environmental controversies.
Paci-Green, Rebekah, PhD, natural hazards risk, social vulnerability, resilience, risk perception, disaster risk reduction, comprehensive school safety, disaster management policy.
Rossiter, David A., PhD, historical geography, settler colonialism, outdoor recreation, Canada/BC.
Sheikh, Imran, PhD, energy efficiency, electric power systems, energy and environment.
Sifuentes, Froylan, PhD, renewable energy integration, building control and design, international energy analysis.
Stanger, Nicholas R., PhD, environmental education and exploration of the emotional, ecological, educational, indigenous, and complexity systems.
Trautman, Laurie D., PhD, human geography, transboundary resource management, energy transport, borderlands, Canada-U.S. relations, international trade
Wang, Xi, PhD, energy governance and policy, energy geography, climate change governance and policy, political economy, industrial organization and labor, industrial infrastructure, community solutions to climate change.
Whitley, Cameron T., PhD, human-animal relationships/animal studies, environmental sociology, queer/LGBTQ+ environmentalism, empathy and altruism, climate change, environmental justice, sustainability, decision-making, mixed-methods approaches.
Other Faculty
Abel, Troy D., PhD, environmental policy, policy analysis, environmental justice, climate change governance, and natural resource governance.
Berardi, Gigi, PhD, agroecology and sustainable agriculture, food security, resilient food systems and international business sustainability, all-hazards planning.
Hollenhorst, Steven, PhD, social dimensions of natural resources, wilderness and protected area policy and management.
Kamel, Nabil, PhD., social and environmental justice, post-disaster recovery, political economy of urbanization, sustainable development, critical urban theory, housing and poverty, physical planning, urban design, regional and international development.
Laninga, Tamara (Tammi), PhD, land use zoning reform, community development, natural resource policy and planning, and participatory and collaborative planning methods.
Salazar, Debra, PhD, environmental inequality in the contexts of air pollution, gentrification, and agricultural pesticides and state policies related to environmental justice.
Stangl, Paul A., PhD, pedestrian planning, new urbanism, urban landscapes, memory and meaning; history, geography and planning in Berlin and San Francisco.
Wang, Grace A., PhD, natural resource policy, sustainability, community-based forestry, and cultural resources management.
Zaferatos, Nicholas C., PhD, community and environmental planning, sustainable development, European environmental policy, Native American political development
All tenure-track graduate faculty of the College of the Environment, or those listed as members of the Environmental Studies, MA Graduate Faculty, can serve as chairs or members of Environmental Studies master’s thesis or project committees.
Introduction
The Master of Arts degree in Environmental Studies is a two-year, interdisciplinary academic degree designed to prepare students to productively engage in societal discourse, analysis, and decision making to bring about change to our most pressing environmental problems. Students in this program have high flexibility to co-design their academic emphasis in collaboration with their faculty advisors. We share a commitment to fostering critical thinking and contextual understanding alongside technical skills and knowledge.
We offer courses and faculty expertise in physical geography, human geography, environmental justice, environmental governance, energy, disaster studies, environmental sociology, and geographic information science. The program prepares students for environmental careers in government, consulting, advocacy, business, teaching, and research, as well as advanced academic and legal degrees.
Over the last 15 years, we have graduated 81 students; over 85% of our accepted applicants received at least a partial teaching assistantship or research assistantship at the start of their program to support their education. All received at least some teaching or research assistant position during their time in the program. For those who received only partial support, over a third received added funding through recruitment incentives or tuition waivers.
Emphasis Areas
Environmental Policy
Coursework in this area emphasizes critical engagement with the roots of environmental controversies, environmental injustice, disaster vulnerability and material impacts of natural resource use. It explores existing and emerging approaches to governance that might bypass entrenched political disagreements and interests to achieve just social and environmental outcomes.
Emphasizes environmental policy and especially the ecological, economic, political, and social factors that affect environmental governance processes.
Core faculty advisors include Kate Darby, Mark Neff, Rebekah Paci-Green, Xi Wang, and Cam Whitley.
The major research programs led by these faculty include:
- Environmental justice
- Science, environmental controversies, and decision making
- Environmental governance
- Disaster studies
- Sustainable development
- Human dimensions of natural resource management
Geography/GIS
Geography is the science of place and space. Environmental Geography links together the social sciences and natural sciences, studying the relationships between human activity and natural systems. We draw on knowledge from many different fields of study to give us the big picture view of how and why socio-ecological systems and cultural and natural landscapes vary over space and time.
Many environmental systems and issues involve spatial patterns that can be analyzed, visualized, and communicated through Geographic Information Science (GIS) techniques. We offer a sequence of advanced GIS courses that provides students with in-depth training in GIS theory and techniques. Our students gain advanced skills in the creation, development, management, analysis, and visualization of spatial data. MA students can also complete our Graduate Certificate in GIS.
Core faculty advisors include Andy Bach, Patrick Buckley, Aquila Flower, Francisco Laso, Michael Medler, David Rossiter, Laurie Trautman, and Xi Wang.
The major research programs led by these faculty include:
- Agricultural geography
- Biogeography
- Climate change
- Economic geography
- Geographic Information Science
- Historical geography
- Long-term environmental change
- Political ecology
- Pyrogeography
- Remote sensing
- Salish Sea and US-Canada regional geography
- Soils science
- Transboundary management and environment
Energy Policy
Emphasizes coursework in energy system transitions, stakeholder engagement, advanced energy policy, innovation policy, and environmental politics/policy.
Core faculty advisors include Mark Neff, Imran Sheikh, Charles Barnhart, Froylan Sifuentes, and Xi Wang.
The major research programs led by these faculty include:
- Energy studies
- Energy efficiency
- Energy system transitions
Student Designed
Coursework will be developed in conjunction with your specific faculty advisor.
Faculty advisors must be tenure-track graduate faculty in the College of the Environment, or listed as members of the Environmental Studies, MA Graduate Faculty, and often serve as the chair of your committee.
Application Information
Deadline: Students generally will be admitted into the MA in Environmental Studies fall quarter only. The Graduate Program Committee will begin reviewing application materials until the enrollment limit is reached or on June 1, whichever comes first. Because maximum student enrollment is limited, all applicants are strongly encouraged to submit application materials by February 1.
TA Deadline: To be considered for a graduate teaching assistantship, applicants must submit their application materials by February 1.
Specific Test Requirements: Graduate Record Exam, General Test is not required to apply, but if submitted will be considered as part of a whole person review.
Supporting Materials: An application for admission into the MA program in Environmental Studies must include a one- to two-page statement of purpose addressing the following questions:
- Why do you wish to pursue a graduate degree in Environmental Studies at the College of the Environment?
- Please describe the emphasis area (Environmental Policy, Geography/GIS, Energy Policy) or student-defined inquiry focus you are interested in pursuing and why. How has your prior experience prepared you to work in that area?
- What coursework are you interested in taking (See University Catalog) towards your specialization?
- What is your research topic idea (thesis or project) and who are potential faculty advisors?
Requirements
Students with a 4-year degree in Environmental Studies or related fields, who meet the requirements of the Graduate School and who show evidence of superior scholarship, are encouraged to apply.
Thesis Project
The thesis option requires satisfactory completion of a research project emphasizing original theoretical or applied research and resulting in a comprehensive written thesis, grounded in the appropriate literature. The candidate will provide a public seminar based on the thesis as part of an oral defense and acceptance of the thesis by the candidate’s thesis committee.
The project option requires satisfactory completion of a project with a scale and scope of work that is commensurate with the scale and scope of work for the thesis option. The project option requires satisfactory completion of a project emphasizing a tangible product or outcome, for an identified audience, that produces new knowledge and disseminates it in a form that includes a written report. The candidate will provide an individual public seminar based on the project as part of an oral defense and acceptance of the project by the candidate’s project committee.
Committee Makeup
The thesis committee will have three members. The chair, and at least one other member, must be a tenure-track graduate faculty in the College of the Environment or be listed as a member of the Environmental Studies, MA Graduate Faculty. The third member, with approval of the Environmental Studies Graduate Committee and Graduate School, can come from elsewhere on campus or another university or can be a professional in the field. Your committee should be formed by the third quarter of residency (Thesis Topic Approval esign form).
The project committee must have at least two members. The chair and second member must be a tenure-track graduate faculty of the College of the Environment or be listed as a member of the Environmental Studies, MA Graduate Faculty. An optional third member, with approval of the Environmental Studies Graduate Committee and Graduate School, can come from elsewhere on campus or, another university, or can be a professional in the field. Your committee should be formed by the third quarter of residency (Project Approval esign form).
Students should meet monthly with the committee chair to report progress on their thesis/project, and with the entire committee as needed. Failure to make satisfactory progress on the thesis/project over an extended time may result in the student’s termination from the program.
Thesis Project Approval & Proposal Presentation
Students may file a Thesis or Project Approval esign form as soon as fall quarter of their first year. The proposal presentation will then be held when the student and the committee agree, typically by the second or third quarter of residency. The purpose of this presentation is to allow the student to share the proposed thesis/ project with a broader audience than the committee to facilitate further refinement of the work. Major changes to the thesis/project topic will require a new presentation at the discretion of the committee.
