Department: Earth and Environmental Science
Executive Officer: Professor Kieren Howard
The Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10016
Email: Ees@gc.cuny.edu
FACULTY
Terence Agbeyegbe, Sean Ahearn, Jochen Albrecht, Kafui Attoh, Pinar Balci, Teresa Bandosz, Homar Barcena, Stefan Becker, Sunil Bhaskaran, James Biles, Jeffrey Bird, Benjamin Black, Reginald Blake, William Blanford, Karin Block, Rebecca Boger, James Booth, Jacquelyn Bracco, Brett Branco, Lindsay Campbell, Jean Carmalt, Melissa Checker, Zhongqi (Joshua) Cheng, Jennifer Cherrier, Harold Connolly, Constantin Cranganu, Cheila Cullen, Naresh Devineni, Rebio Diaz Cardona, Valkiria Duran-Narucki, Timothy Eaton, Denton Ebel, John Flynn, Joshua Fogel, Allan Frei, Erin Friedman, Vinay Gidwani, Alexander Gilerson, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Tao Leigh Goff, Hongmian Gong. Jorge Gonzalez Cruz, Nathalie Goodkin, Yuri Gorokhovich, Kenneth Gould, Jean Grassman, Dianne Greenfield, Peter Groffman, Juliane Gross, Marta Gutman, George Harlow, David Harvey, Gang He, Spencer Hill, Kieren Howard, Tarry Hum, Tomoaki Imamichi, Urs Jans, Steve Jaret, Michelle Johnson, Peter Kabachnik, Cary Karacas, Cindi Katz, Ombia Khalil, Reza Khanbilvardi, Nazrul Khandaker, Steven Kidder, Yehuda Klein, Athanasios Koutavas, Nir Krakauer, Tarendra Lakhankar, John Lauermann, Alia Lesnek, Tammy Lewis, Marc-Antoine Longpre, Setha Low, Z. Johnny Luo, Nerve Macaspac, Elia Machado, Ryan Mann-Hamilton, Peter Marcotullio, Steven Markowitz, Jeff Maskovsky, Edmond Mathez, Kyle McDonald, Cecilia McHugh, Jin Meng, Michael Menser, Shakila Merchant, Jacob Mey, Ines Miyares, Alfredo Morabia, Fred Moshary, Alex Moulton, Veeshan Narinesingh, Wenge Ni-Meister, Robert Nolan, Hamidreza Norouzi, Ryan O'Loughlin, Gregory O'Mullan, Rupal Oza, Hari Pant, Jisun Park, Marianna Pavlovskaya, Te Pei, Stephen Pekar, Jonathan Peters, Wayne Powell, Patricia Price, Laxmi Ramasubramanian, Andrew Reinmann, Leonid Roytman, Randye Rutberg, Haydee Salmun, Indranil SenGupta, David Seidemann, Suresh Sethi, Jin Shin, Gregory Sholette, William Solecki, Dax Soule, Filip Stabrowski, Gillian Stewart, Celina Su, Shipeng Sun, Erika Svendsen, Marco Tedesco, Maria Tzortziou, Monica Varsanyi, Charles Vörösmarty, John Waldman, William Wallace, Zhengrong Wang, Michael Weisberg, Laura Wolf-Powers, Chuixiang Yi, Pengfei Zhang
THE PROGRAM
The Ph.D. Program in Earth and Environmental Sciences offers a wide array of research options with faculty specializations in Geography and Geological Sciences, with focuses on atmospheric sciences, geographic information sciences, geology, geochemistry, geophysics, human geography, hydrology, and physical geography. Many of these areas include environmental science applications in ongoing projects. Besides faculty from Geology and Geography, the EES program includes faculty from Anthropology, Biology, Chemistry, Economics, and Engineering.
The Ph.D. Program in Earth and Environmental Sciences cooperates with the Civil Engineering Department at City College, the Center for the Analysis and Research of Spatial Information at Hunter College, and the American Museum of Natural History.
The Earth and Environmental Sciences program’s two specializations are centered at one or more CUNY campus. The Geography specialization—including human geography, physical geography, geographic information science, and geographic education—is at Hunter College and at Lehman College. With regard to the Environmental and Geological Sciences specialization, geological sciences, including atmospheric sciences, is at The City College; geology is at Brooklyn College; and environmental geology is at Queens College. When applying for admission, applicants must specify the specialization (Geography or Environmental and Geological Sciences) for which they would prefer to be considered. All applications must be submitted to the Admissions Office at the Graduate Center.
All courses are offered through the Graduate Center. Most required courses and some special topics courses are conducted at the Graduate Center. Laboratory courses and research work are offered at the various campuses of the University.
En-route M.A.
Upon completing 45 credits with an average grade of B, passing the First Examination, and satisfactorily completing a major research paper, the student may apply for an M.A. degree. The degree is awarded formally by one of the participating colleges.
THE SPECIALIZATION IN ENVIRONMENTAL AND GEOLOGICAL SCIENCES
The Environmental and Geological Sciences specialization within the Ph.D. Program in Earth and Environmental Sciences offers research opportunities in a broad spectrum of Earth-focused science reflecting the research interests of the faculty – including topics of classical Geology; studies of Earth’s fluid envelopes; and applying combinations of geology, biology, chemistry, and physics to studying Earth’s diverse environments and their ecosystems. These are grouped into four mutually supportive areas within which faculty expertise and state-of-the-art instrumentation support exciting scientific investigations:
Atmospheric and Hydrological Sciences
Terrestrial, Estuarine, and Marine Studies
Earth Materials and Earth Processes
Urban Environments and Public Health
Modern research in Environmental and Geological Sciences commonly crosses the boundaries between these areas, e.g. isotope geochemists and biostratigraphers work with sedimentologists and climatologists to analyze paleoclimates over tens of millions of years; bedrock geologists work with geochemists and hydrogeologists to understand arsenic concentration in groundwater drinking supplies. Our program is designed to emphasize such linkages. A full range of research facilities is available within CUNY, and in addition, students may work at organizations and institutions, such as Brookhaven National Laboratory, the American Museum of Natural History, and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, with which our faculty are affiliated.
Core Areas in the Environmental and Geological Sciences Specialization
Atmospheric and Hydrological Sciences
Students with a primary interest in the two fluid envelopes that support life on Earth will find research opportunities in the Atmospheric and Hydrological Sciences area of concentration. CUNY faculty members are leaders in studies of weather, climate, and hydrology. Current research addresses topics such as storms, droughts, hurricanes, flooding, groundwater depletion and contamination, and their impacts on society. Recently identified trends in the atmosphere, cryosphere and hydrosphere indicate that anthropogenic climate changes now underway will profoundly alter terrestrial and marine hydrological systems with uncertain consequences for humanity. Our studies in paleoclimatology not only help with understanding the Earth’s climate history, but also can provide clues to what the future holds in store. Current research projects include: development of the history of hurricanes, isotope distributions within hurricanes, remote sensing of atmospheric pollutants, surface enhanced zeolites in groundwater treatment facilities, and paleoclimates recorded in the sediments below Antarctic ice shelves.
Terrestrial, Estuarine and Marine Studies
The Terrestrial, Estuarine and Marine Studies (TEMS) specialization is designed for students interested in a wide range of environmental sciences encompassing both basic and applied research. TEMS research emphasizes physical, biological, geochemical, and ecological interactions. TEMS offers opportunities for research in one of the world’s most densely populated areas, including impacts of urbanization, climate change, and invasive species on a variety of areas such as Long Island Sound and of the Hudson River Estuary. Worldwide, studies include: impacts of changing atmospheric chemistry on forests of the Upper Midwest; global change and the intensification of Gulf hurricanes; the role of post-glacial climate change and rising sea level in the flooding of Eurasian inland seas; arsenic contamination of South Asian water supplies; and many other topics.
Earth Materials and Earth Processes
Society has become increasingly aware of the importance of geologic constraints on a sustainable economy within a stable and healthy environment. Topics in this core area have traditionally resided in classically oriented Geology programs but are increasingly incorporated in modern, broad-spectrum studies of urban and rural environments. Such studies offer insights into the foundations of Earth’s varied environments and evidence from the past as to the nature and rate of environmental change. Doctoral studies can be done in mineralogy and petrology; sedimentology and stratigraphy; paleontology and paleoecology; tectonics; geomorphology; geochemistry; geochronology; seismology and other areas of geophysics; and resource exploration and development.
Such work not only advances the frontiers of these disciplines but also improves our understanding of the factors controlling environment and environmental change. Ongoing research includes studies on: tectonic evolution of the Appalachian and Caledonide orogens; deformation mechanisms in ductile and brittle fault systems; geothermometry and geobarometry; fluvial, eolian, glacial, and coast erosion and deposition; and evolutionary paleobiology of sharks.
Urban Environments and Public Health
Epidemics, tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanism, storms, and their prediction and effects on urban societies have become a subject of intense concern. The Urban Environment and Public Health core area focuses on these and other environmental, geological, and geomedical aspects of urban life. The Graduate Center’s unique location in the heart of one of the world’s largest urban areas ensures that students interested in contributing to improvement in urban life, in the health of urban populations, and the preservation of natural ecosystems in urban settings will find unexcelled opportunities at CUNY. Current research in this core area includes studies of: the effect of New York City power station effluents on fish populations; monitoring of heavy metal and organic compounds in benthos/bottom sediment/water in New York City estuaries; repopulation of native species in New York coastal waters; the epidemiology and risk assessment of asbestos, arsenic, silica, talc, polychlorinated biphenyls, and cigarette smoke in human populations.
THE GEOGRAPHY SPECIALIZATION
The Geography specialization within the Ph.D. Program in Earth and Environmental Sciences at The City University of New York provides an opportunity for doing geographical doctoral studies in one of the world’s largest and most dynamic metropolitan locations. The doctoral program aims to provide students with modern training in the discipline of Geography. Given the strengths and interests of the faculty, a focus on the environment, in the broadest sense of that term, animates much of the programmatic work and provides a bridge among specialized concentrations. The specialization has six core areas: Cities and Urban Processes, Physical Geography, Globalization and Uneven Development, Productions of Nature, Geographic Information Science and Spatial Methods, and Health Geographies. These areas are not construed as mutually exclusive but as overlapping and interactive. Many faculty members participate in more than one core area, and students are encouraged to do likewise. Students are permitted to combine courses from the Geography specialization with the Geosciences specialization. They are also encouraged to take courses in related disciplines—particularly those such as Anthropology, Environmental Psychology, and Women’s Studies—that house faculty with connections to geography to round out their educational experience. Through the Interuniversity Doctoral Consortium, it is possible to take courses at other institutions such as Columbia, New York, New School, and Rutgers universities.
Faculty members associated with the Geography specialization, based primarily at Hunter and Lehman colleges and at the Graduate Center, pursue interests in their own areas utilizing a variety of methods. A primary objective of the Geography specialization as a whole, however, is to utilize the urban laboratory of the New York metropolitan region as a catalytic framework to bring diverse threads of geographic research together in a collective and interactive effort. An attempt has been made to remove some of the artificial barriers that have traditionally developed between areas within the discipline of Geography. While a focus on the relations between urbanization and environmental issues seems particularly appropriate, many other combinations of research are possible. For example a student is able to combine geographic information science with urban theory, coastal geomorphology with urban hazards, social theory with a critical approach to geographic knowledge, theories of uneven geographic development with urban studies, migration studies with regional development, or geographic education with a focus on children’s geographies.
Helping to facilitate these cross-specializations are a number of research centers housed within the program including the Center for the Analysis and Research of Spatial Information, the Center for Urban Coastal Processes, and the Center for Geographic Education. The Center for Place, Culture, and Politics, the Center for Human Environments, and the Bildner Center for Western Hemisphere Studies at the Graduate Center also engage with themes of interest to students within the Geography specialization.
While there is an emphasis on using the New York metropolitan area as a laboratory for training and research, faculty with considerable expertise are actively engaged in a wide range of regional and global issues (Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Europe as well as North America). This permits local issues to be placed in a global perspective and facilitates cross-cultural and comparative work. Given the wide range of techniques and methods deployed by faculty, there is also an emphasis on maintaining the diversity of approaches and of methodologies that gives so much strength to the program. Our aim is to promote diversity and to ensure open conversation, communication, and collaboration across different traditions.
Course requirements are kept to a minimum. Each student, in consultation with key faculty, can look forward to designing a tailor-made educational program to satisfy his or her own needs. We are committed to fostering a strong sense of Geography as a community of interests working over a wide range of topics armed with an equally wide range of methodologies.
Core Areas in the Geography Specialization
Cities and Urban Processes
Located in the heart of Manhattan, the program aims to combine a general understanding of the role of cities in regional, national and international developments with deep analysis of the elements that make the city what it is: the built environment, transportation systems, migration flows, ethnic and religious differentiation, and the cultural, economic, and social uses of space. Within the varying frameworks of location theory, political economy, and political ecology, faculty research encompasses transportation system modeling, retail and consumption patterns, business location (including financial services), urban governance and administration, the role of philanthropic institutions and NGOs, social differentiation, transnational migration, gentrification, economic practices of the household, the environmental impacts of urbanization and sustainable urban development, climate change, urban health, social movements, public space and privatization of urban space, urban daily life, the ongoing urban transformation, and the dynamics of interregional and inter-urban relations in their global context. Social theorists examine the production of space and questions of race, gender, class, and ethnic differentiations in the urban and regional context.
Physical Geography
Studies of the physical environment, at all spatial and temporal scales, have always been important. In the context of environmental problems facing humanity in the 21st century, an appreciation of the earth system, including all its components and their interactions, is even more critical. To understand, mitigate, and/or adapt to any significant environmental problem, from urban pollution to global climate change, an interdisciplinary approach including aspects of physical science working in conjunction with other disciplines is usually essential. Faculty members are conducting research in a diverse array of fields, including climatology, geology, atmospheric sciences, oceanographic sciences, and remote sensing of the earth’s environment. Research projects focus on subdisciplines such as geochemistry, paleoclimate, land-surface interactions, hydrology, climate change, and cryospheric studies. Students are encouraged to avail themselves of opportunities to work on research projects with CUNY faculty, as well as with experts from other institutions. Many students are currently working in one of our active laboratories, including a geochemistry laboratory, a computer-based environmental geosciences laboratory, and a climate laboratory. Our students have participated in the NOAA-CREST (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Cooperative Remote Sensing Science and Technology Center) program, of which CUNY is one of the lead institutions. NOAA-CREST is a partnership between government, academe, and industry to conduct research consistent with NOAA’s missions of environmental assessment, prediction, and stewardship using a variety of modern techniques.
Globalization and Uneven Development
A critical investigation of globalization and uneven development is an important focus of the program. Globalization is viewed as a multifaceted process that consists of economic, cultural, and political developments. Its outcomes and challenges to it are studied in many contexts including global North and South as well as a post-socialist world.
Productions of Nature
Nature does not stand outside of history; indeed it is continuously made and remade within the complex of socio-spatial relationships that constitute human collectivities. While people have long modified nature for human ends, with capitalism this material transformation of nature now extends from the molecular to the planetary. Agricultural landscapes, managed forests, fish farms, genetically modified organisms, and built environments are all hallmarks of this “second nature.” So thoroughgoing is this production of nature that even the “natural” existence of our own bodies is no longer self-evident. But production of nature is not to be confused with control over nature. The rearranging of matter that is involved in producing nature can lead to novelty-by-combination and unexpected ecological outcomes – such as acid rain, avian flu, or global warming – that can thwart human design. More positively, the production of nature foregrounds the political and resolutely geographic character of justice: to the extent that human well-being is premised on nature being “available” in particular ways, some deeply iniquitous and some more equal, the question becomes how we produce nature and who controls this production of nature.
Geographic Information Science and Spatial Methods
Geographic information science deals with the development and applications of the concepts, principles, models, methods, and technologies for gathering, processing, and analyzing geographically referenced data and effectively communicating the derived information to scientists, engineers, legislators, managers, and the general public for judicious and timely spatial decision making. Program faculty have active research programs in spatial analysis, GIS programming, participatory GIS, critical GIS, global positioning systems, and remote sensing. The program covers the theoretical aspects and technical issues using a wide range of applications. Particular emphasis is placed on the representation, visualization, and communication of spatial information; models, algorithms, and methodologies for efficient extraction of spatial information from remotely sensed data; spatial statistics and analysis; collaborative spatial decision-making; and innovative applications of geographic information technologies in environmental and resource management, urban and regional planning, international development, public safety, human health, and policy analysis.
Health Geographies
The Health Geographies specialization track focuses upon the spatiality of disease and other public health issues, particularly health in the urban environment. It explores the intersection of population geography, ecological studies, community health research, epidemiology, environmental analysis, and hazard and risk assessment. The influence of environmental and socio-economic factors upon health are examined in a geographical context, including patterns of health disparities and inequities; environmental health justice; environmental burdens and impacts; differential access to health care and healthy lifeways; the impact of the built environment upon health outcomes; linking health outcomes with social and physical environments; the relationship between social capital and health; patterns of disproportionate vulnerability, exposure, and risk; local-scale and global health inequalities; migration and health; the provision and utilization of health services, the geographies of disease, illness, disability, and specific gender and age health issues. Health is studied from a geographical perspective through the relevant theory, methodologies, and research, using both qualitative and quantitative methods, including GISc, spatial analysis, and geostatistics. The theoretical framework can include the positivist, social interactionist, structuralist, and post-structuralist approaches to the geographies of health.