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Ph.D. in Sustainable Development

The PhD in Sustainable Development is offered by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and housed in the School of International and Public Affairs.

Many of the most important policy issues facing the planet today require a central focus on the sustainability of development. These include the causes and consequences of long-term climate change; the challenges of extreme poverty, of public health and infectious disease in a global economy (e.g., SARS, AIDS, etc.); of global demographic change (aging, population growth in poor countries, urbanization, and global migration); and of the threat of massive species extinction and weakened ecosystems (e.g. extreme water stress in the Middle East or the arsenic in the groundwater of South Asia). Whether focusing on gender and development, urban growth, industrial or agricultural policy, science and technology, education, or other related fields, policymakers, research scholars, and scientists confront increasingly complex and difficult dilemmas.

There is, therefore, substantial and growing demand for PhDs with a broad social science education, strong research skills, and knowledge of the natural sciences. The new interdisciplinary PhD in Sustainable Development is designed to educate researchers, university teachers, and global policymakers in the social science and natural science disciplines that underpin sustainable development.

Housed at the School of International and Public Affairs, the PhD program continues Columbia's recent initiatives in multidisciplinary doctoral education and also reflects SIPA's longstanding commitment to interdisciplinary graduate social science education for policymakers and analysts.

The purpose of the PhD in Sustainable Development is to create a generation of scholars and professionals equipped to deal with some of the most crucial problems in the world today. By combining elements of a traditional graduate education in social science, particularly economics, with a significant component of training in the natural sciences, the program's graduates will be uniquely situated to undertake serious research and policy assessments with the goal of sustainable development. The program includes a set of rigorous core requirements, but also provides students with the flexibility to pursue in-depth research in a broad variety of critical policy issue areas.

There are a wide variety of potential employers for the program's graduates. Graduates will find academic jobs in the standard social science disciplines, in policy schools, and in undergraduate and graduate environmental science programs. Many will choose nonacademic positions, however, taking leadership roles in government ministries in the United States and throughout the world, working on environmental protection and sustainable development programs; or in international institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank; in private firms engaged in large-scale development projects; or in consulting firms analyzing development issues for private and public clients.

After reading the rest of the information on this Web site, including the Frequently Asked Questions at http://sipa.columbia.edu/academics/degree_programs/phd/faq.html any additional questions about the program can be e-mailed to the assistant dean at sipa_phd@columbia.edu.

Degree Requirements

The requirements listed below are special to this department and must be read in conjunction with the general requirements of the Graduate School.

Curriculum

The distinctive and innovative nature of this program requires a core set of courses that provide an interdisciplinary grounding for each cohort of students. Each of these courses is taught on the level expected of first- or second-year PhD students in the affiliated departments of instruction.

Ten core courses are required, including three quantitative, or methods, courses, two social science electives, and a coherent sequence of four natural science courses. There are currently four departments closely associated with the Earth Institute that are excellent sources of science course sequences and faculty advising for this PhD program. These are the Departments of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology (E3B) and Earth and Environmental Sciences (DEES) in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; Environmental Health Sciences (EHS) at the Mailman School of Public Health; and Earth and Environmental Engineering (DEEE) at the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS).

Students participate in integrative seminars throughout the five years of the program, and complete pre-dissertation research projects, in addition to a PhD dissertation. The MA thesis project is a written exercise that should be completed by the end of the second year and should treat a problem in sustainable development using data and methodologies from the four natural science courses completed in the first two years of the program. The thesis project should also use the integrative methodologies explored in the core course components and integrative seminars in sustainable development.

Due to the unique interdisciplinary content of the program, students entering with a master’s degree earned at Columbia or elsewhere are still required to complete all M.A. and M.Phil. course requirements and examinations.

Students are not permitted to begin examinations for the M.Phil. in sustainable development until after they have completed all core courses, including the natural science course sequence and the social science elective sequence, as well as the M.A. thesis, (i.e., after the sixth semester which is the end of the third year). In order to take the oral examinations for the M.Phil., students must first complete the written and course requirements for the M.A. (end of the second year), and then submit a dissertation prospectus by the end of the third year. In addition, students must have completed requirements to demonstrate competency in at least two research tools (see below) before taking the M.Phil. oral examinations.

The M.A. Project

The master’s project should be completed by May 1, in the fourth semester. The project consists of an article (around thirty pages long), which would be publishable in an appropriately refereed academic journal. The student should identify several journals for which the article would be suitable; they should reflect the disciplinary orientation of the project and the audience the student wishes to address with this work.

The project is read and graded by the student’s adviser and a second member of the faculty from a different discipline by the end of the fourth semester. In the event of a significant difference in their assessment of the project, a third member of the faculty may be consulted.

M.Phil. Qualifying Exams

Qualifying exams should be taken by the end of the student’s sixth semester. The exams are in three fields in at least two disciplines (one of which shall be a social science and one a natural science). The exams are oral, a half hour devoted to each field, with a half hour devoted to consultation between the faculty and, subsequently, with the student. Qualifying exams include assessment of the student's familiarity with development economics or environmental economics. This choice, as well as the choice of the two other fields for the examination, is determined by the student and his or her adviser, reflecting the specific research interests of each student. The exam fields should be defined, the examiners should be invited to serve, and bibliographies should be established during the fifth semester at the latest.

The Ph.D. Dissertation

The PhD dissertation will be on a social science topic in sustainable development. The social science research will be informed by an understanding of physical and natural science constraints and opportunities influencing economic development.

For the M.A. Degree

The following M.A. core courses and electives must be completed before the beginning of year three:

1. Completion of all required courses in the first two years as follows:

Year One Year One Human Ecology (Sachs) Microeconomics and Sustainable Development (Linden) Quantitative Course #1 (Hill) Natural Science Elective # 1 Macroeconomics and Sustainable Development (Khan) Sustainable Development Seminar I (Anderson) Quantitative Course #2 (O'Halloran) Natural Science Elective #2 Year Two Environmental and Resource Economics (Schlenker) Comparative Development (Stiglitz) Quantitative Course #3 (Almond) Natural Science Elective # 3 Science Policy (Corburn) Sustainable Development Seminar II (Fishlow) Politics of Sustainable Development (Anderson) Natural Science Elective #4

2. Completion for the M.A. thesis project (written)

Requirements for the M.Phil. (to be completed before beginning full-time work on the dissertation in the fourth year)

1. Completion of the M.A. requirements described above
2. Completion of all required courses in the third year, described below

For the M.Phil. Degree

The following must be completed before beginning full-time work on the dissertation in year four:

c. Submission and approval of the dissertation prospectus
d. Fulfillment of requirements to prove competency in two research tools
e. Successful completion of the oral qualifying examination

Requirements for the PhD Dissertation

Students should possess at least two research tools before starting the dissertation portion of this program. Among these is an advanced understanding of quantitative methods, to be gained through the mandatory completion of the core courses, "Quantitative Methods I, II, and III," which are taken by all students in the cohort. The other research tool should be appropriate to the student's dissertation work, and should be chosen with this in mind. In consultation with the student's academic advisers, this second tool could be fulfilled through a two-course sequence in GIS or other analytic modeling systems, or through a proficiency examination in an appropriate language. This language may be particularly important for understanding the literature of the student's chosen specialty, or selected with the approval of the academic adviser. English is not accepted as a foreign language in fulfillment of this requirement.

Students in the program with a regional area of interest to their dissertation may wish to conduct research abroad, either for the use of archives, to improve language skills, or to confer with a particular expert. In order that students may complete the PhD program without delay, it is preferred that they make use of summers to conduct such research. In cases where the student believes that dissertation research will be greatly benefited by a longer period of field research or language training, such study must be approved by the student’s adviser, the director of the program committee, and the director of the associated regional institute at the School of International and Public Affairs. Students may not receive extended residence credit for study or research away from Columbia before the completion of all course work requirements and comprehensive examinations. Teaching requirement: In addition to the completion of the requirements mentioned above for the M.A. and the M.Phil., students are required to fulfill a teaching and research requirement. This entails six semesters as a teaching assistant or a research assistant, as assigned by the director of the program. Students who secure external fellowship funding may reduce this requirement with the approval of the director of the program.

Financial Aid

A comprehensive program of financial aid, including fellowships and appointments in teaching and research, is available. All Ph.D. students receive full funding, which includes the prevailing stipend and appropriate tuition and health fees, for five years, provided that they remain in good academic standing. Students awarded two Residence Units of advanced standing receive four years of support.