项目介绍

2022年10月10日

The goal of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (DEES) is to educate future scientists who may follow careers in academia, research, government, and industry. Along the way, our students move swiftly from receiving knowledge to creating it. All the facilities and equipment necessary for modern studies in the Earth and environmental sciences are available for students in the department. Most of our faculty are scientists based at the renowned Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, located on its own beautiful wooded campus, and most DEES students conduct their research at LDEO. LDEO is one of the largest geoscience research institutions in the country, guaranteeing a broad and deep education, with ~150 post-Ph.D. scientists, most of whom may serve as students’ advisors. LDEO is the biggest research institute within the Columbia Earth Institute, an umbrella organization uniting all of the Earth-oriented science being conducted at Columbia, and connecting the sciences with policy and social sciences. Some of our students are based at the American Museum of Natural History with advisors in the Departments of Earth and Planetary Sciences or Paleontology, and other students conduct their research at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) with advisors who are Research Scientists there. GISS is part of NASA and is located near the Morningside campus. Scientists at GISS conduct theoretical and experimental research in climate, planetary atmospheres, and astrophysics. Some members of DEES have joint appointments in Columbia’s Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics and Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering.

The 21^st century will be the century of the geosciences, with climate change and sea-level rise, volcanic, earthquake, tsunami hazards, and the need for carbon sequestration just a few of the many challenges. An exciting development in 2020 is the founding of the Columbia Climate School, the first new School at Columbia in 25 years, and Lamont/AMNH/GISS will be at the center of it, will making geoscience research here even better than it already is.

For our PhD program, passion about the Earth and environmental sciences is the main ingredient we are looking for in students. We often admit students lacking key background courses (math or chemistry for instance), who take those classes the summer before or during their first semester of enrollment.

All of our Ph.D. students in good standing are guaranteed graduate fellowships covering 12 months of salary for 5 years. Moreover, to give students a measure of independence and flexibility, each one receives a research allowance of $1000 per year.