Affiliated Research Institutes,
Departments, and Schools

A truly interdisciplinary venture, the M.A. Program in Climate and Society relies on a broad-ranging set of experts, researchers, and teachers. The resources of Columbia University speak to the challenge of the problems at hand.

The Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences

eesc.columbia.edu The staff and facilities of the Department overlap with the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) research campus. The Department and LDEO work together to understand how planet Earth works, in all of its physical manifestations. They are renowned for problem-solving innovation, unique geological and climatological archives, and the outstanding achievement of graduates. From global climate change to earthquakes, volcanoes, nonrenewable resources, environmental hazards, and beyond, the fundamental challenge is to seek to provide an adequate and rational basis for the difficult choices faced by civilization in its stewardship of our fragile planet.

The Department offers advanced degrees in a wide variety of specialties, including aqueous geochemistry, atmospheric science, climate science, ecophysiology, geology, marine geology and geophysics, paleoclimate, paleontology, physical oceanography, seismology and solid earth geophysics, and solid earth geochemistry. The atmospheric science program is conducted in partnership with NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Science and with Columbia’s Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics. In partnership with Columbia’s School of Journalism, the Department sponsors a two-year master’s program in earth and environmental sciences.

The School of International and Public Affairswww.sipa.columbia.edu
At the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), a major university connects in countless ways with the nation’s largest city, and with economic and political networks that span the globe. The School offers several graduate-degree programs: the Master of International Affairs (MIA); the Master of Public Administration (MPA); the MPA in Environmental Science and Policy; the Program in Economic Policy Management (PEPM); and the Executive MPA (EMPA).

Guided by distinguished scholars and policy professionals, tomorrow’s leaders define their goals and acquire the skills needed to achieve them. Through study, through discussion and analysis, through practica and workshops that bring them face-to-face with real-world clients and issues, our students prepare to help shape the future of neighborhoods, programs, and policies—next door and around the globe.

The Regional Institutes | In 1946, the founding mission of the School was to foster understanding of regions of vital interest and to prepare diplomats, officials, and other professionals to meet the complexities of the postwar world. Educational programs originated in dynamic regional institutes that, with an interdisciplinary vision bold for its day, drew on Columbia’s renowned faculties in history, economics, political science, linguistics, and other traditional fields. Today, there are eight distinguished regional institutes, spanning every part of the globe.

www.sipa.columbia.edu/regional.html

For more than fifty years, the School itself has provided a model of thoughtful evolution by adapting creatively to changing needs and opportunities. Today, the faculty continues to make important revisions to policy and area studies, building on the best aspects of traditional approaches while dramatically reconfiguring to mirror new realities. Among them, a growing number of practitioner-scholars provide an invaluable perspective—linking classroom to professional office, ideas to everyday experiences. SIPA places students in a setting—and a city—that is often as dynamic as the systems they study. Here they apprentice not only in tolerating change, but also in shaping it.

The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science

The Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering

Henry Krumb School of Mines
www.seas.columbia.edu/krumb

Earth Engineering Center
www.seas.columbia.edu/earth

The Department’s programs are concerned with the environmentally sound extraction and processing of primary materials (minerals, fuels, water), the remediation of land and water resources, and the recycling or disposal of used materials. The Department offers a variety of undergraduate and graduate degrees, and is home to the research-based Earth Engineering Center of Columbia University. The Center seeks to provide the engineering component to multidisciplinary analysis of the interactions between natural and engineered material cycles and the design of alternative solutions to specific local, regional, or global resource management problems.

The Earth Institute at Columbia University

www.earthinstitute.columbia.eduThe M.A. Program in Climate and Society is enriched by its connection with the Earth Institute. The Earth Institute at Columbia University is the world’s leading academic center for the integrated study of Earth, its environment, and society. Through research training and global partnerships, it mobilizes science and technology to advance sustainable development, while placing special emphasis on the needs of the world’s poor.

The International Research Institute for Climate and society iri.columbia.edu The International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), a unit of the Earth Institute, is a unique resource for our program. Established in 1996 as a cooperative agreement between the United States’ NOAA Office of Global Programs and Columbia University, the international staff of the IRI has grown to more than sixty people, who bring together physical, natural, and social science expertise. The IRI is centered at the Lamont campus of Columbia University.The mission of the IRI is to enhance society’s capability to understand, anticipate, and manage the impacts of seasonal climate fluctuations, in order to improve human welfare and the environment, especially in developing countries. This mission is to be conducted through strategic and applied research, education and capacity building, and provision of forecast and information products, with an emphasis on practical and verifiable utility and partnerships.

The overarching problem on which the IRI works is the reduction of social vulnerability to climate variability. Vulnerability is highest in the developing regions of the world, where climate also tends to vary substantially from year to year. The IRI approach embraces a basis in climate prediction science, with a focus on social and environmental problems that are regionally based.

Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory

www.ldeo.columbia.edu The Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) in Palisades, New York, is a research division of Columbia University dedicated to understanding how planet Earth works. Scientific inquiry at Lamont ranges from the origin and history of the planet to the processes taking place in and on it. More than five hundred scientific, technical, and support personnel, including one hundred scientists and one hundred graduate students, are involved in research that is often interdisciplinary and includes seismology, marine geology and geophysics, terrestrial geology, marine and terrestrial ecology, petrology, geochemistry, climate studies, atmospheric science, oceanography, and paleontology.

The Observatory was established in 1949 by Columbia geology professor Maurice Ewing and is located on a beautiful 125-acre estate, donated to the University by the Thomas W. Lamont family.

Research at Lamont made crucial contributions to scientific understanding of continental drift, seafloor spreading, and plate tectonics. In the 1970s, Lamont-Doherty scientists began new research in global climate changes and the ocean’s role in regulating climate change. Columbia professors are active researchers at Lamont, and Observatory scientists likewise play vital roles in advising students, directing student research.

Lamont scientists also collaborate with two affiliated institutions in New York City, the American Museum of Natural History and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The Observatory has fully equipped laboratories for rock mechanics, paleomagnetics, high-pressure experiments, tree-ring analysis, and a wide range of isotopic geochemistry. The Observatory also has its own library, electronics shop, and instrument laboratory.

The Goddard Institute for Space Studies http://www.giss.nasa.govThe NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) is located in the Morningside Heights–Columbia University neighborhood of New York City. A key objective of GISS research is prediction of atmospheric and climate changes in the twenty-first century. The research combines analysis of comprehensive global data sets derived mainly from spacecraft observations, with global models of atmospheric, land surface, and oceanic processes. Study of past climate change on Earth and of other planetary atmospheres serves as a useful tool in assessing our general understanding of the atmosphere and its evolution.
GISS works cooperatively with area universities and research organizations, most especially with Columbia University. Many GISS personnel are members of Columbia’s Center for Climate Systems Research (CCSR) and also work with researchers at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, both units of the Earth Institute.