The environmental plight of our planet is the issue of our time, and how we manage its resources, its natural systems, and our own linked human actions will largely determine the quality of life enjoyed by our children, their children, and the generations beyond. There is, accordingly, a great need for leaders who are highly trained not only in the physical sciences, but also in policymaking, economics, business, and management. The world needs people who can harness knowledge, technical skills, and analytical ability to a vision capable of ensuring that living well means living sustainably. Those leaders and movers are being trained at the Bren School.

The Bren School is one of the few environmental professional schools in the country and the only one in the western United States that combines Environmental Science & Management in an interdisciplinary way. We are, above all, a practice-oriented school dedicated to educating solution-centered professionals.

Solving real-world problems nearly always requires cooperation among experts in a variety of disciplines. Our Masters Program students experience this in an extraordinary way through their participation in the Group Project, a version of the master’s thesis that is unique to the Bren School. By working as part of a team to create a plan, a solution, an assessment, or some other deliverable requested by a real-world client, our students broaden their abilities and gain a decided edge in the job market.

The School’s faculty comprises distinguished professors who are leaders in their respective fields; many hold prominent positions on working groups engaged in developing environmental policy at the highest national and international levels. Further, the School's excellent student-to-faculty ratio ensures that students in both the Master's program and the highly individualized, mentored Ph.D. program have extraordinary access to their professors. And because the School is embedded in a University offering superior programs in an array of related disciplines, students can combine their interests to form any number of environmentally focused specializations.

Finally, the Bren School offers a dramatic location where the mountains meet the sea and such issues as ocean conservation, land use, and water quality and management are front and center. More than a pleasing place to learn, the area provides an inspiring context for those who have the minds, the skills, the vision, and the commitment to make a difference.

Thank you for visiting, and please contact us with any questions you might have.

Sincerely,

Ernst von Weizsäcker, Dean

The Bren School of Environmental Science & Management