This degree is designed for students interested in pursuing careers in environmental policy and analysis, stewardship, education, consulting, or management. The program requires course work in both the natural and social sciences, with a focus on the complex relationship among science, management, and policy. The purpose of the program is to provide students with a scientific understanding of ecological and social systems that can be applied in a policy or management context.

Objective

Preparation for professional careers in environmental management.

MEM Curriculum

Students pursuing the MEM degree must take seven distributional courses. In consultation with their academic advisor, each student will select appropriate courses to build foundational training for advanced study. Each student will also identify an advanced study program for further coursework–concluding his or her experience with a master’s project.

Students choose one core course from each of the seven foundational areas: earth and climate science; ecosystem science and biodiversity; sustainable development nad social ecology; economics; policy, institutions nad law; environmental health and urban and idnsutrical ecosystems; and information and data analysis. Course options are listed at the end of this section. The full course catalog can be accessed here.

Advanced Training

Students are expected to gain advanced training in a concentration of their choosing. The advanced curriculum should lead to rigorous, in-depth expertise in some aspect of environmental science, policy or management. Students will work with their academic advisor to identify an advanced course structure that meets their professional goals. Faculty strengths in teaching and research at the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies are broadly represented by nine
advanced topic areas:

1. Ecology, Ecosystems and Biodiversity
2. The Social Ecology of Conservation and Development
3. Forest Science, Management, and Conservation
4. Global Change Science and Policy
5. Environment, Health, and Policy
6. Industrial Environmental Management training
7. Policy, Economics, and Law
8. Urban Ecology and Environmental Design
9. Water Science, Policy, and Management

Master's Project and Independent Study Projects

All students in the MEM degree program must enroll in one or more courses that officially fulfill degree requirements for a master’s project. Course numbers for these project courses are provided near the end of the School Bulletin. These are distinct from courses that allow for independent study that is additional to, and not intended for, fulfillment of the project requirement of the individual’s degree program. Independent study course numbers are listed separately near the end of the Bulletin. Project courses and independent study may be assigned three or more credits, and more than one project course may be taken towards fulfillment of the 48 credits needed to graduate.

Project courses can involve research in laboratory, field, or library, or analytical case studies designed to solve manage ment problems. Master’s degree projects often originate with the student, with guidance from faculty members with expertise in teh subject matter. Projects require an official faculty research advisor to oversee the research and with whom the student will work closely; the research advisor need not be the same as the student’s academic advisor. These projects enable individual students or small groups to study topics in a depth that is not always possible in regular courses. Management projects acquaint students with the literature dealing with localities, problems, and issues relevant to environmental management or natural resources and they provide a means of integrating and testing skills, knowledge, and judgment gained in formal coursework. Master degree projects frequently enable students to make a significant contribution to solving problems in local communities or to the academic literature.

Other opportunities for other independent study are provided through enrollment in independent study courses.

Core Course Waiver

Prior course waivers are permitted in the rare cases in which students have extensive undergraduate or graduate level training equivalent to that addresses in any of the required courses, and have passed the course with a grade of A or B. Prior course waivers must have the approval from the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs.

Career Options

Regulatory environmental affairs in the private sector; public sector; environmental stewardship, policy analysis in non-governmental organizations, education, consulting careers.

Students pursuing the MEM degree must take seven distributional courses. In consultation with their academic advisor, each student will select appropriate courses to build foundational training for advanced study. Each student will also identify an advanced study program for further coursework–concluding his or her experience with a master’s project.

The core courses for the MEM are as follow:

Foundations
Students are expected to gain graduate level proficiency in seven core topic areas. Therefore, students are required to select one course from each of the following seven categories. Waivers out of this requirement will not be permitted.

1. Earth and Climate Science

• F&ES 61003a Air Pollution
• F&ES 61110a Biogeochemistry and Pollution
• F&ES 61018a Environmental Hydrology
• F&ES 61024a River Processes and Restoration
• F&ES 61001a Marine, Atmospheric and Surficial Geochemistry
• F&ES 61005b Climate and Life
• F&ES 61006a A Biological Perspective of Global Change
• F&ES 61016a Water Resource Management
• F&ES 61021b Hydrology and Water Resources

2. Ecosystem Science and Biodiversity

• F&ES 32002b Tropical Ecosystem Dynamics and Anthropogenic Change
• F&ES 62017a Coastal Ecosystems: Natural Processes and Anthropogenic Impacts
• F&ES 32005b Scientific Bases of Sustainable Agriculture
• F&ES 32011a Aquatic Ecology
• F&ES 32019a Landscape Ecology
• F&ES 32001b Methods of Ecosystem Analysis
• F&ES 32006a Tropical Forest Ecology: The Basis for Conservation and Management
• F&ES 32007a Ecosystem Pattern and Process
• F&ES 52001b Local Flora
• F&ES 52006a Anatomy of Trees and Forests
• F&ES 52008b Physiology of Trees and Forests
• F&ES 52012a Global Resources and the Environment
• F&ES 52013b Principles in Applied Ecology: The Practice of Silviculture
• F&ES 52016a Forest Dynamics: Growth and Development of Forest Stands
• F&ES 62013a Introduction to Soil Science
• F&ES 52003b Forest Ecosystem Health: Urban to Wilderness

3. Sustainable Development and Social Ecology

• F&ES 83047a Social Ecology, Community Forestry, and the Future of Place-Based Environmentalism
• F&ES 43001a Issues and Approaches in Environmental Education
• F&ES 83065b Topics in Environmental Justice
• F&ES 83026a Technology, Society, and the Environment
• F&ES 83056a Social Science of Development and Conservation
• F&ES 33003b Seminar in the Conservation and Development of Amazonia
• F&ES 33012a Species and Ecosystem Conservation: An Interdisciplinary Approach
• F&ES 33015a Human Dimensions in the Conservation of Biological Diversity
• F&ES 53005b Agroforestry Systems: Productivity, Environmental Services, and Rural Development
• F&ES 83037b Large-Scale Conservation: Integrating Science, Management, and Policy
• F&ES 83049b Society and Natural Resources
• F&ES 83050a Society and Environment: Introduction to Theory and Method
• F&ES 83058b Monitoring and Evaluation Techniques: Theory and Methods Applied to Ecosystem Rehabilitation/Community Revitalization Interventions
• F&ES 83064a Energy Issues in Developing Countries
• F&ES 83155b Challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa

4. Economics

• F&ES 94110b Public and Private Management of the Environment
• F&ES 84001b Economics of Pollution
• F&ES 84002a Economics of Natural Resource Management
• F&ES 84004a The Economics of Sustainable Development

5. Policy, Institutions and Law

• F&ES 85030a Private Investment and the Environment
• F&ES 85012b Science and Politics of Environmental Regulation
• F&ES 85014a Foundations of Environmental Policy and Politics
• F&ES 65014b Coastal Ecosystem Governance
• F&ES 85009b Seminar on Forest Certification
• F&ES 85011a Environmental Policy Analysis for an Unpredictable World
• F&ES 85013a Environmental Politics and Policy
• F&ES 85023a Markets, Social and Environmental Certification, and Corporate Accountability
• F&ES 85033a Environmental Law and Policy
• F&ES 85035a International Environmental Law and Policy
• F&ES 85036b Foundations of Natural Resource Policy and Management
• F&ES 85068b International Environmental Policy and Governance

6. Environmental Health And Urban and Industrial Ecosystems

• F&ES 66008a Organic Pollutants in the Environment
• F&ES 76014a Business Concepts for Environmental Managers
• F&ES 96112b Corporate Environmental Management and Strategy
• F&ES 96002b Environmental Health Policy
• F&ES 86024b Transportation and Urban Land-Use Planning: Shaping the Twenty-First-Century City
• F&ES 86025a Energy Systems Analysis
• F&ES 86048a Introduction to Planning and Development
• F&ES 86059a Cities and Sustainability in the Developing World
• F&ES 86062b Theory and Practice of Restorative Environmental Design
• F&ES 96004b The Environment and Human Health
• F&ES 96005b Introduction to Toxicology
• F&ES 96006a Greening the Industrial Facility
• F&ES 96007b Industrial Ecology

7. Information and Data Analysis

• F&ES 77001b Remote Sensing: Observing the Earth from Space
• F&ES 77004b Econometrics
• F&ES 77107b Spatial Statistics
• F&ES 77112b Statistical Design of Experiments
• F&ES 77006a Sampling Methodology and Practice
• F&ES 77009a Introduction to Statistics in the Environmental Sciences
• F&ES 77010a Modeling Geographic Space
• F&ES 77011b Modeling Geographic Objects
• F&ES 77108b Statistics for Environmental Sciences
• F&ES 77113b Multivariate Statistical Analysis in the Environmental Sciences
• F&ES 77105a Seminar in Forest Inventory

Teacher Preparation Program

Students interested in teaching careers in environmental education or relevant natural science disciplines in grades 7 through 12 may apply to the Teacher Preparation Program that Yale offers to both undergraduate and graduate students. This is a five-semester program that requires full satisfaction of MEM degree requirements, approximately six teacher preparation courses, and practice teaching. Students who complete the program meet the requirements for teaching in public secondary schools. Tuition is the same as for the MEM degree for the first four terms. In the fifth term students pay only a continuing registration fee of $250.

For more information, see http://www.yale.edu/tprep/ .