Stanford University
AC-4: Graduate Program

Stanford's Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER) trains the next generation of interdisciplinary scholars and leaders to address the world's most challenging environmental and sustainability problems. E-IPER students combine academic disciplines, including natural and earth sciences, engineering, economics, humanities, social sciences, law, health, policy, and business to yield new insights and novel solutions to urgent global problems, such as energy use, climate change, food security, freshwater availability, depletion of ocean resources, land degradation, and biodiversity loss.

Our shared goal is to understand, predict, and respond to human-caused environmental change at local to global scales. To take on this challenge, we strive to investigate the complexity of the global system, including the interactions, synergies, and feedbacks that link the oceans, atmosphere, land surfaces, and freshwater systems. A global perspective has emerged that challenges the research community to view and study the planet as a singular, highly-interactive system, moving past disciplinary approaches to evaluate the interactions among chemical, biological, and physical processes across the Earth's surface. Through the graduate and undergraduate programs, we will train a new generation of scientists that comprehend the multiple facets of environmental processes, and who are able to think synthetically, evaluating change in our oceans, water, air and land processes as part of an integrated and connected system. This is the directive of the Environmental Earth System Science Department, carried forth by faculty representing many interdisciplinary areas, talented graduate students and postdoctoral scholars, and experienced and creative research staff. We are distributed in laboratories and offices across the Stanford campus, with the department headquarters based in the Yang and Yamazaki Environment and Energy building (Y2E2).

The geological and environmental sciences are naturally interdisciplinary, and include the study of earth materials, earth processes, and how they have changed over Earth's 4.56 billion year history. More specifically, courses and research within the department address the chemical and physical makeup and properties of minerals and rocks (at pressures from the surface to the core), as well as of soils, sediments, and water; the formation and evolution of Earth and other planets; the processes that deform Earth's crust and mantle and that shape Earth's surface; the stratigraphic, paleobiological, and geochemical records of Earth history including changes in climate, oceans, and atmosphere; present-day, historical, and long-term feedbacks between the geosphere and biosphere, and the origin and occurrence of our natural resources. The department's research is critical to the study of natural hazards (earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, and floods), environmental and geological engineering, surface and groundwater management, the assessment, exploration, and extraction of energy, mineral and water resources, remediation of contaminated water and soil, geological mapping and land use planning, and human health and the environment.

There are numerous such programs offered for graduate-level degrees. Please see the complete list, including website URLs, in the back-up document uploaded for AC-2.

The Civil and Environmental Engineering department is committed to finding solutions to our major sustainability challenges this century, and to educating and training the leaders who will have a large impact on our profession and on society.

A PhD minor is a program in another department that complements the student’s PhD program. A minor is not a requirement for any degree, but is available when agreed upon by the student and both major and minor departments. It is not available to students pursuing other graduate degrees.

Each department offering a PhD minor establishes the core, elective and examination requirements for the minor program. The major department determines acceptance of the minor as part of the student’s total PhD program. Approval from both the major and the minor departments must appear on the student’s Application for Candidacy for Doctoral Degree. The minor department must be represented on the university oral examination committee.

A student desiring a PhD minor in civil and environmental engineering must have a minor program advisor who is a regular CEE faculty member (member of Academic Council) in the program of the designated sub field. This advisor must be a member of the student’s University oral examination committee and on the reading committee for the dissertation.

The program must include at least 20 units of graduate-level course work (that is, courses numbered 200 or above, excluding special studies and thesis) in CEE completed at Stanford University. Units taken for the minor cannot be counted as part of the 45 unduplicated units for the PhD major. The list of courses must form a coherent program and must be approved by the minor program advisor and the CEE chair. An average GPA of at least 3.0 must be achieved in these courses.

Management Science & Engineering’s mission is, through education and research, to advance the design, management, operation, and interaction of technological, economic, and social systems. We support this mission through a diverse portfolio of world-class research activities, leveraging expertise across multiple disciplines and methodologies and through internationally renowned research centers. Our engineering research strength is integrated with a broad based educational program at the undergraduate, masters, and doctoral levels: graduates of our program are not only trained as engineers, but also as future leaders in technology, policy, and industry. Our research and teaching activities are complemented by an outreach program that encourages the transfer of ideas to the fertile environment of Silicon Valley and beyond.

Students pursuing a Ph.D. in another department who wish to receive a Ph.D. minor in Management Science and Engineering should consult the MS&E student services office.

A minor in MS&E may be obtained by completing 20 units of approved graduate-level MS&E courses, of which 6 units must be at the 300-level. Courses approved for the minor must form a coherent program, and must include one course from at least three of the ten MS&E M.S. core options. The program must include a minimum of 16 letter-graded units, and a minimum grade point average of 3.3 must be acheived in these courses.

As described in the section above, E-IPER is an interdisciplinary graduate program, rooted in the School of Earth Sciences. The E-IPER Joint MS allows professional degree students to take advantage of environment and resources courses, faculty, and programs on campus, earning an MS while jointly completing their professional degree in Stanford Law School, Graduate School of Business, or School of Medicine.

At Stanford, a Joint MS is a Masters of Science degree that is completed concurrently with another graduate or professional degree, allowing some coursework to count towards both degrees. E-IPER offers a Joint MS for selected students currently enrolled in Stanford's Graduate School of Business or Stanford Law School, and a dual MS for students at Stanford's School of Medicine, in which course units are not double-counted.

There are numerous such programs offered for graduate-level minors, concentrations, and certificates. Please see the complete list, including website URLs, in the back-up document uploaded for AC-2.