University of California, Santa Barbara
AC-4: Graduate Program

The program focuses on application and problem-solving and has three parts: the first-year core curriculum, the second-year work in one of seven Specializations, and the Group Project or Eco-Entrepreneurship Project. The Bren School MESM degree involves core curriculum that provides a solid foundation in coupled human and environmental systems. The specializations offered by Bren School include Coastal Marine Resources Management, Conservation Planning, Corporate Environmental Management, Economics and Politics of the Environment, Energy and Climate, Pollution Prevention and Remediation, and Water Resources Management. Lastly, students complete a Group Project or Eco-Entrepreneurship Project focused around coursework that develops skills and experiences that help them pursue new technologies and strategies for addressing society's environmental and resource challenges.

The Bren School’s PhD program is designed to develop the broad knowledge, analytical powers, technical skills, and creative thinking demanded of leaders in Environmental Science & Management. The program is also designed to accommodate a wide range of research interests, from those highly focused in a particular discipline to strongly interdisciplinary ones. All courses offered by the Bren School are open to PhD students. Courses are also available in such other departments as Geography, Earth Science, Economics, Political Science, and Ecology, Evolution & Marine Biology, as well as others. PhD research topics can be as focused or interdisciplinary as the courses. Current research projects include "Economics of water management, including markets, pricing, auctions, and payments for ecosystem services;" " Using computational numerical methods to develop a better understanding of energy and material resource management problems that are dynamic over space and time;" and "Environmental impacts of energy technologies and agricultural systems, approaches for regionalizing life cycle inventory, and China's environmental issues."

The Economics and Environmental Science (EES) emphasis at UCSB instills the ability to use economic tools in developing environmental approaches and policies. The program's goal is to develop environmental economists who are able to conceptualize economic problems related to environmental issues, then apply appropriate quantitative and qualitative techniques to design and implement appropriate research methods.

The Academic Senate Sustainability Working Group, a standing committee of faculty from more than a dozen academic units across the UCSB campus, proposed in Spring 2014 the creation of an Interdisciplinary PhD Emphasis on the Environment & Society (IEES). The goal of this emphasis is to create a means for UCSB doctoral students to benefit from our campus’s extraordinary strengths and resources in environmental studies and sciences—by reaching beyond those available in their home, degree-granting units—and in the process, to develop the integrative thinking and problem-solving skills necessary to lead the next generation of environmental scholars in their respective disciplines. As of March 2014, this proposal was still being reviewed for final approval from the campus. Pending final approval, the emphasis would begin in Fall 2015.