Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences Edward Spiegel. Rutherford Professor of Astronomy Marc W. Spiegelman. Adjunct Associate Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences Yechiam Yemini. The Mathematical Structures for Environmental and Social Sciences program trains graduate students in new areas of applications of mathematics arising at the interface of social, physical and biological sciences. The program prepares students for careers as academic researchers and teachers, and for professional positions managing the allocation of resources in the environmental, financial, and insurance areas.
Environmental problems originate from the interaction of human and natural systems.
The global use of environmental resources has become a pressing issue because today, economic activity has the ability to change the atmosphere of the planet and alter irreversibly the complex web of species that constitutes life on earth. The Columbia Earth Institute is the intellectual site for this program. Created in 1996, it coordinates a number of research and teaching units which include renowned organizations that study physical, biological and economic systems in an integrated and cross-disciplinary manner. The Earth Institute offers unified scientific approach to global systems uniting earth and human sciences based on quantitative and analytical tools, and as such is unique in the world. It has a natural need to foster Mathematical training as a mean of communication across biological, physical and social sciences.