Department of Environmental Studies, College of the Environment
Program Graduate 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 tourism, minimum wage, social justice, quality of life, transborder environmental issues with Canada.
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, governance and utilization of science in democracies; science, technology, and society; participatory governance of science and technology; 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 geographies of nature, British Columbia.
Sheikh, Imran, PhD, energy efficiency, building decarbonization, heating electrification, demand response, tiny houses.
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.
Introduction
The Master of Arts in Environmental Studies is a two-year, interdisciplinary academic degree, designed to prepare students to productively engage in societal discourse, analysis, and decision making regarding human-environment interactions. Students in this program co-design their academic emphasis with their faculty advisor. We share a commitment to fostering critical thinking and contextual understanding alongside technical skills and knowledge.
Program faculty have expertise in and offer courses in physical geography, human geography, environmental justice, environmental governance, energy systems and policy, disaster studies, environmental sociology, geographic information science, and science policy. Our program prepares students for careers in government, consulting, advocacy, business, teaching, and research, as well as advanced academic and legal degrees.
In addition to our ENVS MA, we offer a graduate certificate in GIS. This certificate complements many areas of scholarship. ENVS MA students have priority admission to this certificate.
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.
Areas of Faculty Expertise
Beginning upon arrival in the fall of their first year, each student works with their academic advisor to identify a thesis or project topic, specify research questions, and select methods to address those questions. Students should work with their faculty advisors as well to select the courses most appropriate to their educational goals. Coursework is essential to an academic master’s degree; we encourage students to use their coursework to add breadth, depth, and critical engagement to their developing expertise. Below are areas in which our faculty teach and have expertise, but students are encouraged to consider relevant courses from across campus.
Environmental Policy, Politics, and Governance
Scholarship in this area emphasizes critical engagement with the roots of environmental controversies, environmental injustice, disaster vulnerability and the material impacts of natural resource use. It explores existing and emerging approaches to governance that bypass entrenched political disagreements to achieve equitable social and environmental outcomes.
Work in this area emphasizes environmental decision-making with particular focus on the ecological, economic, political, and social factors that affect environmental governance processes. Research methods in this area draw from the full range of the social sciences and include some that are more typical of the humanities. Typical methods include: interviewing, surveying, discourse analysis, statistical and geospatial analysis, policy analysis, case studies, and Q method.
Core faculty advisors include Kate Darby, Mark Neff, Rebekah Paci-Green, Xi Wang, and Cam Whitley.
Our faculty are engaged in scholarly work in the areas of:
- Environmental justice
- The roles of science in environmental controversies and decision making
- Environmental governance
- Disaster risk reduction
- Sustainable development
- Human dimensions of natural resource management
- Critical animal studies
Geography/GIS
Geography is the science of place and space. Environmental Geography links 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 of how and why socio-ecological systems and cultural and natural landscapes interact over space and time. Geographers use quantitative, qualitative, and spatial analysis methods and techniques to explore geographical patterns and processes. Our program offers strong opportunities to develop skills in Geographic Information Science (GIS), remote sensing, and cartography.
Core faculty advisors include Andy Bach, Patrick Buckley, Aquila Flower, Francisco Laso, Michael Medler, David Rossiter, Laurie Trautman, and Xi Wang.
Geography faculty expertise and scholarship includes the fields of:
- Biogeography
- Climate change
- Economic geography
- Geographic Information Science
- Historical geography
- Long-term environmental change
- Political ecology
- Pyrogeography
- Salish Sea and US-Canada regional geography
Energy Policy
Scholarship in this area includes energy system transitions, stakeholder engagement, energy policy, innovation policy, and environmental politics/policy.
Core faculty advisors include Mark Neff, Imran Sheikh, Charles Barnhart, Froylan Sifuentes, and Xi Wang.
Our faculty are engaged in scholarly work in the areas of:
- Energy studies
- Energy efficiency
- Energy system transitions
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 or 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 a thesis, described above. 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. Final products must include 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 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. Graduate school rules require that this third member must have at least a master’s degree. Your committee should be formed and you should have a Thesis Topic Approval esign form on file by the end of the third quarter of residency.
The project committee must have at least two members. The chair and second member must be 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. Graduate school rules require that this third member must have at least a master’s degree. Your committee should be formed and you should have a Project Thesis Topic Approval form on file by the end of the third quarter of residency.
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 or 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.
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