University of California, Irvine
AC-4: Graduate Program

The Masters in Conservation and Restoration (MCRS) program is offered through the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) and the Center for Environmental Biology (CEB) within the School of Biological Sciences. It is targeted specifically to working adults and recent graduates (within the last five years).

The mission of the MCRS Program is to prepare leaders in the fields of environmental science, conservation, restoration, and sustainability by engaging them in active adaptive management experiences.

The MCRS program provides curriculum that includes the following: 1) apply concepts of ecological systems under stress to conservation and restoration actions with the goal of solving complex problems, 2) explain how policy impacts ecosystem health, 3) describe the historical context of the modern environmental movement and its influence on current environmental laws and regulations, 4) Lead/collaborate in planning, designing, implementing, and managing complex, large-scale conservation and restoration-related adaptive management activities and collaborations with multiple stakeholders, and 5) adhere to social dimensions of conservation and restoration, including socioeconomic values such as cultural features, social uses and perceptions, and environmental ethics.

The Master of Urban and Regional Planning (MURP) degree program educates aspiring planning professionals to solve societal, economic, and environmental challenges and build a just and sustainable future.

The MURP program curriculum provides a balance of critical thinking and skills development, empowering students to address complex urban challenges in diverse areas such as environmental planning, housing and community development, land use planning, transportation, and international development planning.

The Department’s doctoral program is aimed at training new research scientists in the field of Earth System Science. Understanding the sensitivity of the Earth’s climate system requires a broad base of scientific knowledge, which includes detection, quantification, and prediction of the rates of change of chemical, physical, and biological variables.

The Earth System Science program is built around this interdisciplinary and holistic approach to the Earth System. The graduate education provides a comprehensive curriculum, along with opportunities to conduct groundbreaking research. The Department’s doctoral-level students are expected to become researchers with a global perspective and broad research skills as well as a high level of expertise in specific areas. Active programs of research are underway studying the influence of human activities in the Earth System, biogeochemistry, and physical climate.

Ph.D. in Urban and Environmental Planning and Policy:
(https://uppp.soceco.uci.edu/pages/phd-program-planning-policy-and-design)

Program Description:
Today's complex environmental, social and urban issues are best understood by researchers who can work across disciplinary boundaries, and who understand the relationship of research to action. The Urban and Environmental Planning and Policy (UEPP) doctoral program at UCI trains scholars in the analysis of social problems related to the built, natural, and institutional environments. The UEPP Ph.D. is based on the department's internationally prominent research and teaching strengths in environmental policy, urban and community development and design.

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Ph.D. in Social Ecology:
(https://socialecology.uci.edu/core/grad)

Program Description:
The Ph.D. program in Social Ecology allows students to develop a tailored course of graduate study that draws upon the knowledge of several traditional academic disciplines. This is a small distinguished program intended for genuinely interdisciplinary doctoral students. The emphases of this training program are in keeping with the academic mission of the School, namely, its emphases on an ecological approach to research and policy, an interdisciplinary approach to research and community intervention, and the application of theory and research to community problem solving.

Students are encouraged to integrate the diverse theoretical and methodological insights of several disciplines in order to analyze important social and environmental problems from a perspective of breadth as well as depth. In doing so, students gain familiarity with the classic and contemporary literature in social ecology and with the application of the ecological paradigm, as it has evolved in the natural and behavioral sciences. This program is ideally suited for independent students who wish to develop a unique interdepartmental program of study in consultation with faculty from several departments.

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M.S. in Civil & Environmental Engineering:
(http://www.eng.uci.edu/dept/cee/grad/programs)

Program Description:
The department offers an M.S. degree in civil and environmental engineering. Students work with faculty members that have interest and research expertise in four primary areas: hydrology and water resources systems; structures, geotechnics and materials; transportation systems and environmental and energy systems.

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Ph.D. Civil & Environmental Engineering:
(http://www.eng.uci.edu/dept/cee/grad/programs)

Program Description:
The department offers a Ph.D. degree in civil and environmental engineering. Students work with faculty members that have interest and research expertise in four primary areas: hydrology and water resources systems; structures, geotechnics and materials; transportation systems and environmental and energy systems.

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M.S. in Earth System Science:
(https://www.ess.uci.edu/grad)

Program Description:
Are you passionate about understanding Global Environmental Change? Join our world-renowned interdisciplinary graduate program in Earth system science. Our recently revamped curriculum maintains a comprehensive core curriculum while offering diverse elective options tailored to student research interests. We train students to become researchers with global perspectives and broad research skills, as well as a high level of expertise in specialized areas.

Students 1) develop a mechanistic understanding of the Earth and gain the conceptual and analytical tools needed for research in this rapidly growing field, 2) work with distinguished and highly recognized faculty in the classroom, laboratory and field, 3) become a scientific expert on research topics spanning atmospheric chemistry, physical climate, human systems, and biogeochemistry, and 4) join a diverse community of scientists working to understand and solve the greatest challenges facing our planet.

The Educational Policy and Social Context (EPSC) area seeks to understand and develop policies and practices aimed at promoting learning and the developmental well-being of children, youth and adults. Policy and social contexts include schools, families and communities.

Adopting an interdisciplinary research perspective by drawing from economics, sociology, developmental psychology, and anthropology, EPSC faculty and students use a range of quantitative, qualitative and mixed method approaches to understand impacts of existing policies, to design and evaluate new policy and intervention models, and to understand the relationship between policy making and implementation. With a commitment to promoting social mobility for disadvantaged populations, faculty engage with diverse communities to understand how local, state and national policy can best achieve that goal.

UCI is internationally recognized for its program in atmospheric chemistry, with the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded to Professor F. S. Rowland for his work on ozone destruction in the stratosphere by chlorofluorocarbons. The UCI Chemistry Ph.D. program has a unique specialization in atmospheric chemistry that focuses on fundamental chemical principles applied to atmospheric systems. In addition to a cluster of courses that encompasses atmospheric, physical and analytical chemistry, students have available for their thesis research a choice of advisors with projects ranging from field studies to laboratory experiments and theory.

The newly established Emphasis in Global Studies offers graduate students from across the social sciences, humanities, law, social ecology, and public health schools an opportunity to pursue additional training in Global Studies. The Emphasis is designed to instill an intellectual ethic of interdisciplinarity among participating students and to create trans-disciplinary communities of emerging Global Studies scholars whose intellectual development will be enhanced by formal and informal exchange across diverse fields. The Emphasis is structured around the following core questions:

1) What are the phases of globalization and how do we understand it as a historical process?
2) What are the qualities, current manifestations, and implications of globalization today?
3) How does one conceptualize and implement research across the local-global continuum?
4) How can disciplinary-based scholarship be broadened to engage interdisciplinary/transdisciplinary theoretical frameworks and methodologies? Conversely, how can interdisciplinary questions engage disciplinary concerns and contexts?
5) How does one design global studies research projects, making our work timely and relevant to the unique challenges of our contemporary era?

The Global Studies Emphasis course work is theoretically rich and empirically grounded. Students explore both abstract and concrete expressions of the global across the world. Courses are designed to be historically grounded, geographically global, and relevant to contemporary problems. Curriculum explores topics like migration, urbanization, communication technologies, the crisis of liberal-centrism, climate change, warfare, economic crisis, transnational governance, global apartheid, public health, imperialism, and global social movements.

Ph.D. Education with a Concentration in Human Development in Context:
(http://education.uci.edu/hdic.html)

Program Description:
Human Development in Context (HDiC) focuses on cognitive and socio-emotional development as it takes place in a wide range of contexts across the lifespan. Drawing on education, cognitive science, neuroscience, developmental psychology, and anthropology perspectives, faculty and students conduct lab experiments, engage in field-based studies, and use longitudinal data sets to examine human development in a wide range of areas, including language and literacy, mathematical thinking, motivation, memory, and other cognitive processes, as well as social relationships with peers, teachers, and parents. Research in this area contributes to building theory on human development across the lifespan and intervention efforts, as well as understanding how particular settings such as schools, homes, communities, media & technology, and afterschool programs influence individual developmental trajectories.

Specializations include: 1) Social, Institutional, and Cultural Contexts, 2) Cognition & Neuroscience,
3) Early Childhood Development and Policy, 4) Language & Literacy, 5) Motivation & Achievement, 6) Special Education, and 7) STEM Teaching and Learning.

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M.A. Social Science with a Concentration in Demographic and Social Analysis:
(https://www.demography.uci.edu/masters.php & http://catalogue.uci.edu/schoolofsocialsciences/socialscience_ma/#demographicandsocialanalysistext)

Program Description:
The M.A. in Social Science with a concentration in Demographic and Social Analysis offers specialized training in the research skills to address practical problems confronting society, business, government, and the nonprofit sector. The concentration emphasizes the Pacific Rim and issues defining Southern California’s population, such as immigration, changing household and family structure, racial and economic inequalities, and the impact of local and regional population growth. Informed by the interdisciplinary field of demography, the program draws on faculty and courses in the Schools of Social Sciences and Social Ecology.

UC Irvine offers a number of other sustainability-inclusive graduate degree programs:

M.S. DEGREE PROGRAMS

M.A. of Public Policy:
(https://mpp.soceco.uci.edu/page/curriculum)

Program Description:
The Master of Public Policy (MPP) program educates the next generation of public policy experts and practitioners to meet the unique multifaceted challenges of the 21st century. The MPP program prepares graduates for careers analyzing, developing, implementing, and advocating for policy solutions. Under the mentorship of top-notch faculty – who are themselves important voices in the local, national and international policy community – graduates of the program hone their basic and applied research skills, sharpen their the ability to communicate effectively in the policy world, and tackle some of the most pressing problems in society.

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M.S. in Transportation Science:
(http://www.transci.uci.edu/)

Program Description:
Transportation Science draws upon contributing departments for faculty, courses, and research opportunities, providing a synergy that is rare if not unique in transportation education. The program stresses research at the frontiers of Transportation Science, and is designed to educate students in a broad set of competencies and perspectives that mirror the practice of current transportation research and practice, inherently interdisciplinary fields. Graduates acquire a broad range of skills and master one of four specializations: Planning and Policy Analysis, Traffic Systems Analysis, Transportation Economics, and Methods & Analysis.

UCI offers an environment for broad interaction between faculty and students in research, courses, and seminars. Research topics include: travel forecasting and activity-based modeling, road pricing, Intelligent Transportation Systems and Advanced Transportation Management Systems, development and deployment of advanced technologies, land use and regional development, vehicle choice and usage models, the future of the automobile, logistics and freight modeling, transit management and analysis, and traffic microsimulation.

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M.S. Nursing Science with a Concentration in Community and Population Health Nursing (CPHN):
(https://nursing.uci.edu/programs/mepn/ & http://catalogue.uci.edu/sueandbillgrossschoolofnursing/nursingscience_ms/#mastersentryprograminnursingtext)

Program Description:
The Master’s Entry Program in Nursing (MEPN) is designed to grant students who have a non-nursing bachelor’s degree, direct entry into an MS in Nursing Science degree program. Our graduate-level accelerated program covers the foundation of nursing practice. Students achieve competencies in research and the ability to utilize scholarly evidence in the design, delivery, evaluation, and improvement of health care. The small MEPN cohorts also have the opportunity to learn alongside our undergraduate prelicensure students in certain courses creating a mixed learning community. Additionally, the MEPN boasts a concentration in Community and Population Health Nursing (CPHN) preparing graduates to lead interprofessional health care teams that advocate for the expansion of health care opportunities to under-served populations.

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Ph.D. DEGREE PROGRAMS

Ph.D. in Transportation Science:
(http://www.transci.uci.edu/program_phd.html)

Program Description:
Transportation Science draws upon contributing departments for faculty, courses, and research opportunities, providing a synergy that is rare if not unique in transportation education. The program stresses research at the frontiers of Transportation Science, and is designed to educate students in a broad set of competencies and perspectives that mirror the practice of current transportation research and practice, inherently interdisciplinary fields. Graduates acquire a broad range of skills and master one of four specializations: Planning and Policy Analysis, Traffic Systems Analysis, Transportation Economics, and Methods & Analysis.

UCI offers an environment for broad interaction between faculty and students in research, courses, and seminars. Research topics include: travel forecasting and activity-based modeling, road pricing, Intelligent Transportation Systems and Advanced Transportation Management Systems, development and deployment of advanced technologies, land use and regional development, vehicle choice and usage models, the future of the automobile, logistics and freight modeling, transit management and analysis, and traffic microsimulation.

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GRADUATE-LEVEL MINORS, CONCENTRATIONS, AND CERTIFICATES

Ph.D. in Education with a Concentration in Teaching, Learning, and Educational Improvement:
(http://education.uci.edu/tlei.html)

Program Description:
Teaching, Learning, and Educational Improvement brings together the tightly integrated nature of learners and the contexts in which learning takes place. Faculty and students draw on cognitive, socio-cultural, anthropological, and discipline-specific research perspectives to advance learning theory and provide an empirical foundation for improving teaching and learning, including in science, math, engineering, computer science, language, and literacy. With attention to both learners and learning environments, we investigate teaching and learning in schools, communities, and online settings using case studies, design-based implementation research, research-practice partnerships, evaluations of learning outcomes, and data and text mining. Central to this area is the role that social, cultural, and learning environments play in advancing or limiting learning opportunities for diverse learners, as well as the role of teaching and learning innovations in addressing educational inequities.

Specializations include: 1) Digital Learning and Media, 2) Language and Literacy, 3) Sociocultural Perspectives on Learning and Educational Improvement, 5) STEM Teaching and Learning, and 6) Teacher Learning and Professional Development.

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Ph.D. in Economics with a Concentration in Transportation:
(http://www.its.uci.edu/node/112)

Program Description:
The program of study and research in Transportation Economics leads to a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D) in Economics with a Concentration in Transportation Economics. This program is an option within the regular Ph.D. program offered by the Department of Economics, allowing students to substitute some additional transportation-related courses for a portion of their requirements in advanced micro- and macro-economic theory. Students also take advantage of Irvine's unusually large and strong concentration of faculty in transportation economics within the economics department.

Several economics faculty have active research programs specialized mainly in transportation, while others find frequent transportation applications for research in such areas as econometrics, public choice, industrial organization, urban economics, and economic geography. This work is both applied and theoretical, and is published both in specialized transportation journals and in general economics journals or journals specialized in related fields of economics. Students receive a mix of theoretical, empirical, and public-policy training suitable for academic, public-sector, and private-sector settings. Recent Ph.D. graduates and post-doctoral scholars have taken positions at universities, research institutes, consulting firms, and public agencies.

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Ph.D. in Economics or Political Science with a Concentration in Public Choice/Political Economy:
(https://www.economics.uci.edu/files/docs/pubchoice.pdf & http://catalogue.uci.edu/schoolofsocialsciences/departmentofpoliticalscience/politicalscience_phd/politicalscience_phd.pdf)

Program Description:
Public choice is an interdisciplinary field, at the intersection of political science and economics, which draws on sophisticated quantitative tools to model the functioning of political institutions. Public choice examines such areas as theories of voter and party choice; the theory of constitutions; the theory of committees and elections; models of regulation; problems of public goods and externalities; rent-seeking models; and issues in social choice, social welfare, and demand revelation.