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Department Chair's Message

Welcome to Environmental Science
and Policy!

R. Christian Jones

One of the great challenges of the 21st century is to maintain and improve the quality of human life and that of the living support system that is our planet. To meet this challenge, we must consider the world's increasing population growth, the desire of individuals in under-developed economies to achieve the living standard found in more developed nations, international declines in natural resources, and the prospect of global climate change.

The Department of Environmental Science and Policy (ESP) believes that addressing these issues requires the synthesis of multiple disciplines and expertise in natural science, social science, and public policy. ESP has assembled a group of faculty and students whose goal is to create new frameworks for studying the environment and addressing the challenges of local and global sustainability. Our research ranges from terrestrial and marine mammal conservation to molecular and microbial ecology; from coastal geomorphology to clay minerology, from corporate environmental management and policy to the environmental perceptions and practices of indigenous peoples.

We invite your interest in our department, its faculty, students and programs. We welcome both full-time and part-time students, graduates as well as undergraduates,
professionally-oriented as well as academically-oriented students, traditional as well as returning students. Recent ESP graduates are employed internationally in a wide array of companies, nonprofits, government agencies, and educational institutions, and are helping to meet the environmental challenges of our future.

Each participant in our department helps contribute to our success. We invite you to join us.

R. Christian Jones is Professor and Chair of the Department of Environmental Science and Policy.