The dissertation committee includes at least one PEI faculty member from a department other than the student's home department, and their degree program must be approved by both their department and the PEI graduate committee. The following departmental courses, usually offered by faculty affiliated with the Princeton Environmental Institute, are cross-listed with PEI to indicate their substantial environmental science or policy content. A new topic is chosen every semester. A description of the hydrologic mechanisms that underlie ecological observations. A review is done of the role of environmental fluctuations in the distribution of vegetation.
Emphasis is made in the dynamics of soil moisture.
The signatures revealing fractal structures in landscapes and vegetation are reviewed as result of self-organizing dynamics. Unifying concepts in the processes responsible for these signatures are studied, with examples from hydrology and ecology. May be used to satisfy a graduate level mathematics requirement.