General86
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ESP Students Tackle Tough Environmental Problems
On April 30, students in the Master of Public Administration in Environmental Science and Policy presented their initial findings for the Workshop in Applied Earth Systems Policy Analysis. This semester’s workshop projects dealt with topics ranging from natural disaster resilience to evaluating the success of solar incentive programs.
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Sustainability Management Students Present Research Results
Each semester, M.S. in Sustainability Management students must draw on both the practical skills and the analytical knowledge they have gained in order to address crucial sustainability management issues as consultants for a real-world client as part of the Integrative Capstone Workshop. Last week, students made presentations earlier this week about projects that they are…
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Faculty Profile: Richard Plunz
Richard Plunz is considered one of the world’s leading authorities on housing and urban development. As director of the Urban Design Lab at the Earth Institute, Plunz addresses the challenges of contemporary urban life, from sustainable urban infrastructure to the myriad developmental factors of the contemporary city. In addition to his role at the Earth…
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The Breathing Ocean
Far south and farther south, where winds are cold and screaming, Waters churn, and deep below, old sediments lie dreaming. A million years’ residuum of life and death and dust, A library of ice ages reposed upon Earth’s crust.
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Sustainability Management Student Explores Energy Efficiency
Current Master of Science in Sustainability Management student Lillian Cheng has long been interested in energy efficiency and climate change, but it is her time at Columbia that has instilled in her the necessary quantitative, financial, and project management skills necessary to succeed in the sustainability industry.
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Barbados Corals
A new video, “Flip Flops and Outcrops,” captures good vibrations from a recent Columbia University geology field trip to the Caribbean island of Barbados
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Climate Change Innovator Elected to National Academy
Peter Kelemen, a geologist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory who studies rocks from the deep earth and, recently, their possible uses in battling climate change, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
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Alumna Takes Sustainable Development Degree to El Salvador
Undergraduate Program in Sustainable Development alumna, Hannah Perls, takes her degree to El Salvador, where she is responsible for program development at Foundation Cristosal, a non-profit human rights NGO.
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Amid a Fossil Bonanza, Drilling Deep into Pre-Dinosaurian Rocks
On a high ridge in Arizona’s Petrified Forest National Park, paleontologist Paul Olsen sits on the fallen trunk of a 215-million-year-old tree, now turned to stone. The tree once loomed 70 or 80 feet above a riverine landscape teeming with fish, turtles, giant crocodilians and tiny, early species of dinosaurs.

AGU25, the premier Earth and space science conference, takes place December 15-19, 2025 in New Orleans, Louisiana. This year’s theme—Where Science Connects Us—puts in focus how science depends on connection, from the lab to the field to the ballot box. Once again, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Columbia Climate School scientists, experts, students, and educators are playing an active role, sharing our research and helping shape the future of our planet. #AGU25 Learn More
