Focus area: Environmental Sciences

Faculty and students focus on the sources, transport and transformation of natural and anthropogenic (synthetic) materials in stressed and unstressed multimedia environments. Emphasis is on the study of mechanisms that control environmental processes, and the processes that affect the fate and transport of contaminants in air, water, sediments, and soil. We also study experimental and perturbed ecosystems as well as remediation practices. Environmental Science' scope extends from the study of subcellular processes to environmental phenomena at the ecosystem and global levels, with emphasis on the interactions among physical, chemical, and biological components of aquatic, terrestrial, and atmospheric environments.

Faculty backgrounds include analytical, aquatic, atmospheric, organic and physical chemistry; biochemistry; ecology; limnology and microbiology.

Employment opportunities

Graduates at both the Master's and Doctoral level pursue careers in governmental agencies, industry, and academia. In the past several years most of the Master's graduates have taken positions with public water utilities, as researchers or in roles in which they facilitate regulations or manage the quality of water resources in industry or government whereas the majority of Doctoral graduates have taken academic positions or senior positions in national laboratories.

Degree Requirements

There are no focus area requirements although students must meet the graduate school criteria in their program of study plus any departmental requirements in force at the time of initial enrollment. For the academic year 2005/2006 these are ENVR 103 (seminar) and ENVR 104 Unifying Concepts.

PhD students must complete ENVR 110 and a set of courses relevant to their doctoral research that is approved by their Doctoral Supervisory Committee. All PhD Supervisory Committees meet with the student to evaluate progress at least once per semester.

Curriculum

For illustrative purposes, two examples are available which demonstrate the manner in which one recent student with a chemistry background and one with a biology background made course selections towards meeting the Departmental and Graduate School degree requirements for the Master's degree. Owing to the individualized nature of doctoral programs, no illustrations are shown.

/Masters Student (Aquatic Chemistry Interests) /

        ENVR 103 Seminar Series

        ENVR 104 Unifying Concepts

        ENVR 111 Laboratory Techniques and Field Measurements

        ENVR 113 Limnology

        ENVR 119 Chemical Equilibria in Natural Waters

        ENVR 130 Health Effects of Environmental Agents

        ENVR 175 Environmental Risk Assessment

        ENVR 185 American Environmental Policy

        ENVR 210 Environmental Physical-Organic Chemistry

        ENVR 211 Instrumental Methods for the Chemical Analysis of

        Environmental Samples

        ENVR 393 Masters Thesis

        BIOS 145 Principles of Experimental Analysis

    /Masters Student (Biology Background) /

        ENVR 103 Seminar Series

        ENVR 104 Unifying Concepts

        ENVR 111 Laboratory Techniques and Field Measurements

        ENVR 112 Ecological Microbiology

        ENVR 115 Biogeochemical Processes

        ENVR 130 Health Effects of Environmental Agents

        ENVR 133 Environmental Health Microbiology

        ENVR 200 Special Topics in Microbiology

        ENVR 393 Masters Thesis

        EPID 160 Principles of Epidemiology