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Departments and programs

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The school's departments and programs create new knowledge across all areas of scholarship needed to address the planetary sustainability and educate students to tackle current and future challenges.

Departments hire and host faculty, admit students, offer degrees, develop curricula, and conduct knowledge-driven research. In the school's ambitious effort to reimagine academia, this traditional role for departments remains central to our activities.

Learn more about each of the programs, and apply to join us through the individual department and program pages.

Departments and Divisions

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Students in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering make a lasting impact in the world as they launch careers which design and apply innovative solutions fostering sustainability in the natural and built environments.

Visit the Civil and Environmental Engineering website

Learn about undergraduate degrees Learn about graduate degrees Meet our faculty

Earth & Planetary Sciences

We study the properties of minerals, rocks, fossils, soils, sediments and water, using multiple lenses – stratigraphy, paleobiology, geochemistry, and planetary sciences. Our work informs our understanding of natural hazards such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, and floods. It helps us meet natural resource challenges through environmental and geological engineering, mapping and land use planning, surface and groundwater management, and the exploration and sustainable extraction of energy and minerals. It enables us to answer fundamental questions about the origin, history, and habitability of our and other planets.

Visit the Earth & Planetary Sciences website

Learn about the undergraduate degree Learn about graduate degrees Meet our faculty

Earth System Science

The goal of Earth System Science is to understand, predict, and respond to human-caused and natural environmental change at local to global scales. The department has focus areas in Climate Science and in Environment & Ecosystems. 

Visit the Earth System Science website

Learn about graduate degreesLearn about the Earth Systems program Research groups

Energy Science & Engineering

We combine theory, experiment, and simulation to transform the global energy system to sustain the people and the planet. We do that by developing the engineering science and educating the future leaders needed to transform global energy supply, production/conversion, storage, and use to achieve energy sustainability.

Visit the Energy Science & Engineering website

Learn about the undergraduate degrees Learn about graduate degreesMeet our faculty

Environmental Social Sciences

The Environmental Social Sciences department will discover the causes of sustainability challenges, innovate new solutions to these challenges, and educate future scholars and leaders in how the social sciences can be used to understand and solve sustainability challenges.

The department includes two areas: Environmental Behavioral Sciences and Global Environmental Policy.

Visit the Environmental Social Sciences website

Learn about graduate degrees Meet our faculty

Geophysics

Geophysicists study Earth and planetary processes through laboratory experiments, computational and theoretical modeling, remote imaging, and direct observation. At Stanford, our teaching and research focus on understanding systems critical to the future of civilization. Students apply expertise to fundamental research sustaining life on Earth, combining underlying science with studies of Earth’s environment and resource needs. Such breadth of exposure is highly sought after and leads to careers in academia, industry, and government.

Visit the Geophysics website

Learn about the undergraduate degrees Learn about graduate degrees Meet our faculty

Oceans

The mission of the Oceans Department is to Discover, Educate, and Innovate to support a Known, Sustainable, and Equitable Ocean. Faculty, postdocs, students and staff advance ocean research, education, and impact through interdisciplinary collaboration, technology development, use-inspired research, immersive education and training. To advance exploration and knowledge of our blue planet, and tackle the most pressing challenges in climate and sustainability, the Oceans Department brings together ocean science (including biological, physical, and social sciences), technology, and solutions into an academic unit focused on ocean discovery and solutions.

Visit the Oceans website

Learn about the undergraduate degrees Learn about graduate degreesMeet our faculty

Interdisciplinary programs

Interdisciplinary degrees for undergraduate, masters, and PhD students provide students with a broad-based education to yield new insights and create novel solutions to urgent global problems.

Earth Systems Program

The Earth Systems Program is an interdisciplinary environmental science major and coterminal masters program. Students learn about and independently investigate complex environmental problems caused by human activities in conjunction with natural changes in the Earth system.

Visit our Earth Systems Program website

Learn about the undergraduate degrees Learn about co-terminal degrees

Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources

The Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER) develops the knowledge, skills, perspectives, and ways of thinking necessary to help solve the world’s most significant environmental and resource sustainability challenges. E-IPER students and faculty work across academic disciplines – the physical and natural sciences, engineering, social sciences and humanities, law and policy, medicine, and business – to yield new insights and novel solutions to urgent global problems. They include clean energy, climate change, food security, water quality and quantity, land conservation, human health and sanitation, sustainable cities, ocean health, and biodiversity loss. 

Visit the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program website

Learn about our masters degrees Learn about PhD degrees

Change Leadership for Sustainability Program

We prepare leaders to radically accelerate the transition to a more sustainable society.

Visit our Change Leadership Program website

Learn about our masters degrees Learn about executive education programs