Tag Archives: ESPM

ESPM Ranked #1 Environmental Science Program!

QS logoThe Environmental Science, Policy and Management (ESPM) Department at UC Berkeley, where I received my PhD in 2011, was ranked the #1 environmental science program in the world.  While as I know from my research on sustainability rankings that there is a certain amount of subjectivity in these types of metrics, it is still pretty cool when your institution comes out on top.

The ranking is based on four criteria that have the following weights — 40% on academic reputation based on a survey of academics with related expertise, 10% on reputation among employers for excellence for recruitment for specific disciplines, 25% on the number of citations per faculty member, and 25% on the H Index, which attempts to “measure both the productivity and impact of the published work of a scientist or scholar” (http://www.iu.qs.com/university-rankings/subject-tables/#tab-id-7).  Other programs ranked in the top five were at Stanford, MIT, Harvard, and ETH – Zurich.

ESPM Graduate Student Survey Report

Yesterday I sent out the final version of the ESPM Graduate Student Survey Report to our student listserve, which I had been working on off and on over the last week with several of my classmates. Last spring, I coordinated the design and release of this survey of all ESPM graduate students as an effort to identify the key priorities and issues of students within the department. The survey includes both quantitative and qualitative questions assessing the quality and importance of 12 key areas relating to graduate student life, from advisor relationships to the financial support.  It includes sections summarizing the data and comments for each of the department’s three divisions, and an Executive Summary that I authored explaining the survey’s purpose, methods, and results. We haven’t yet decided whether we will release the report publicly, but if we do, I’ll try to post a link to it here.