Research
Environmental Studies students at the University of Colorado at Boulder are fortunate to embedded within a rich research environment. Faculty and students from the program conduct research locally, throughout the intermountain west, and also around the globe. Current research projects in our program include field work in Antarctica, Africa, Europe, Alaska, South America, and South Asia. Field work opportunities and research activities are enhanced by faculty affiliation with various research facilities, including the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, the Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research, the Mountain Research Station, and the Institute for Behavioral Science (IBS). Many of the government research laboratories located in and near Boulder are involved in research and activities directly related to the environment, and provide important platforms for our graduate students to conduct novel, meaningful research projects.
Student Research Opportunities
There are many options for ENVS students to develop thesis and dissertation research topics tailored to their interests, given the diversity of faculty interests within ENVS and the array of resources present on the CU-Boulder campus and in the Boulder area. For example, some of our students work closely with faculty in other departments or with researchers who have other affiliations either on and off campus (research institutes and centers, partner government agency labs in the Boulder area, or in local government). A number of students have conducted thesis research as part of one of several long-term field research projects housed at CU, such as the Niwot Ridge and McMurdo Dry Valleys Long-term Ecological Research (LTER) projects.