Pages (7 results)
TopCourses
All Course Offerings Please note: This is a full list of ERG course offerings; not all courses are offered each term. For current course offerings, please refer to the online ... Continue Reading »
Publications
“Biodiversity Scales from Plots to Biomes With a Universal Species-Area Curve” John Harte, Adam B. Smith, and David Storch“Carbon Cycle Uncertainty Increases Climate Change Risks and Mitigation Challenges” Paul A. ... Continue Reading »
Harte Lab: Ecology & Global Change
Ecology and global change are the primary topics of research in the Harte Lab. Among the goals are: to characterize ecological feedbacks to climate change, to predict effects of global change on biodiversity, and to develop fundamental theory that predicts the structure of ecosystems across spatial scales.
Faculty by Primary Interest
Areas of Interest Climate ChangeEcologyEnergyGovernanceWaterInternational Climate Change ERG CORE David Anthoff David Anthoff is an environmental economist who studies climate change and environmental policy. He co-develops the integrated assessment model ... Continue Reading »
Master’s Degree Curriculum Requirements (MA or MS)
The purpose of the ERG Master’s program is to educate the next generation of interdisciplinary leaders. Specifically, students are taught the range of methods and subjects they should be able ... Continue Reading »
Affiliated Faculty
ERG has a small core faculty but a much larger group of affiliated faculty. Affiliated faculty are based in other departments on campus or at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, ... Continue Reading »
Minor/Certificate in Sustainability — Courses
Summer 2022 Curriculum ERG’s minor and certificate require a minimum of five courses and 15 total units of coursework, completed over one or two summers (or for a UC Berkeley ... Continue Reading »
Faculty (1 results)
Top
Margaret Torn
Adjunct Professor
The focus of my work is carbon and nutrient cycling in terrestrial ecosystems and trace-gas flux between soil and atmosphere. I conduct research on soil carbon, global change, and the impacts of human activities on ecosystem processes.
Students (2 results)
Top
Rachel Ward
MS, PhD
Tropical Forests and the Allocation of Carbon to Reproduction (MS ’20) Rachel is interested in the social, ecological, and geophysical dynamics of agro-forestry coffee and cacao systems in the tropics. ... Continue Reading »
Eli Lazarus
MS, PhD
Eli is an Ecological Economist working on comprehensive welfare measurement, tracking, and optimization. His research investigates and contributes to filling the gap between market optimization/welfare and broader social welfare. Recent ... Continue Reading »
- Anthoff Lab
- Computable General Equalibrium (CGE)
- ecological economics
- ecology
- economics
- energy
- Julia
- Pigouvian taxes
- Systems dynamics
- Systems Modelling
Alumni (10 results)
Top
Molly Oshun
MS
Putting biodiversity on the map: exploring spatial dimensions of California biodiversity for conservation planning (MS ’22) Molly studies California watersheds. Her research investigates strategies to improve forest health, protect biodiversity, ... Continue Reading »
Michelle Sims
MS
At ERG, Michelle is interested in environmental and equity challenges within global food systems. In particular, her research focuses on the dynamics of land use change in agricultural landscapes in ... Continue Reading »
Adam Smith
PhD
Facets of Biological Conservation: Appropriate Ecology, Policy, and Ethics for Ensuring the Perpetuity of Biodiversity (’09 PhD)
- incentivization of conservation at the international level
- spatial patterns of species diversity
- teaching
Tania Simoncelli
MS
ACG and INBio: Diverging Approaches to Saving, Knowing and Using Costa Rica’s Biodiversity (’99 MS)
- biodiversity conservation and development
- international environmental and health politics and policy
- social and ethical implications of human and agricultural biotechnology applications
Patrick Gonzalez
PhD
Dynamics of Biodiversity and Human Carrying Capacity in the Senegal Sahel (97 PhD)
Erica Newman
MS, PhD
Erica’s niche is fire, particularly in the ecologically sensitive region of French Polynesia. She has already been trained as a physicist, but her curiosity draws her to ecology. ERG has become a unique place for Erica to explore her aspirations in the biological sciences alongside those who have successfully trekked through similar transitions. Read in her own words how Erica has fine-tuned her fascinations while at ERG.
- anthropogenic impacts on fire regimes
- California chaparral
- climate change and biodiversity interactions
- Fire ecology and natural disturbance
- French Polynesia cloud forests and wet montane forests
- macroecology
Grace Wu
MS, PhD
Land Use in Renewable Energy Planning (PhD ’18) Inspired by the possibility of ecologically-bounded growth, Grace is interested in water and land use impacts of energy technologies; water management that ... Continue Reading »
- ecological economics
- GIS
- land use impacts of energy systems
- renewable resource assessment
- spatial statistics
- water-energy nexus
Rebekah Shirley
MS, PhD
Rebekah Shirley believes that there is more than one path to a bright, energy secure future. Developing nations strive to connect more and more of their communities to energy. Many have emulated the fossil fuel intensive model of developed nations, but Rebekah believes that this is not necessarily the only way.
Tanya Dimitrova
MS
REDD Hot: How One Community Defends its Forest One Carbon Credit at a Time (MS ’14) Tanya was born and grew up in Bulgaria. She came to ERG after a ... Continue Reading »
Danielle Svehla Christianson
MS, PhD
At times the problem of understanding phenomena is one of seeing. That is why Danielle explores new ways of demystifying complexity through visual representation. She seeks new techniques to illustrate often-forgotten, yet fundamental dependencies between human society and the natural world. One such technique is terrestrial laser scanning (also known as LIDAR), which she used to create a 3-D model of her ecological study site in the Sierra Nevada. This along with her seedling research seeks to inform the uncertain future of resource management.
News (7 results)
Top
Dan Kammen and Tom Steyer Comment on the Adverse Effects of Climate Change on Biodiversity
June 6, 2019
A recent report released from the United Nations details the threat that climate change and human activities pose to hundreds of thousands of plant and animal species and their biodiversity. ... Continue Reading »
ERG Alum Gonzalez to Serve as White House Climate Advisor
September 14, 2021
UC Berkeley scientist Patrick Gonzalez has been appointed by the White House as an assistant director for climate and biodiversity. Gonzalez will work to help execute the climate plans declared by President Biden, like the "30 by 30" conservation goal and net zero emissions by 2050. (Photo by Al Golub)
ERG PhD Student Valeri Vasquez Calls to Protect the Antarctic — Before it’s Too Late
October 22, 2020
ERG PhD student Valeri Vasquez co-published "Protect the Antarctic Peninsula — before it’s too late" on Nature, focusing on how various issues like over-fishing have had devastating consequences on the icy regions. She depicts how banning fishing in such coastal waters, as well as limiting tourism and construction on land, can help protect the native marine mammals and seabirds. "With human activity and construction also rising, the region’s precious biodiversity is at risk of being destroyed. Preventive measures must be taken immediately, on sea and on land," Vasquez states.
ERG PhD Student Grace Wu Receives the 2018 Smith Conservation Research Fellowship
January 24, 2018
The David H. Smith Conservation Research Fellowship is a renowned postdoctoral program designed to support early-career scientists tackling the world’s most pressing conservation challenges. Throughout their research, the fellows partner ... Continue Reading »
ERG Summer Courses Available
February 28, 2016
ERG is offering four of its most popular courses this summer! Enroll Today!
BOOK: Applying Anthropology and Physics to Sustainability
March 30, 2015
New book by Dove and Kammen released this week.
RAEL at UN Climate Summit
September 26, 2014
SWITCH model selected as a "Project to Watch" by the UN's Big Data Climate Challenge.
Topics (6 results)
TopSintana Vergara
MS, PhD
Why do POUs Fail? Barriers to the Adoption of Point of Use Water Treatment Technologies (’07 MS) Transforming trash: reuse as a waste management and climate change mitigation strategy (’11 ... Continue Reading »
- adoption of Point of Use water treatment technologies
- biodiversity
- drinking water treatment technologies and applications in the developing world
- industrial ecology
- life cycle analysis
- solid waste management in U.S. and developing countries
- waste conversion technologies
Margaret Torn
MS, PhD
The Threats to Biological Diversity in California (’90 MS) Environmental Controls Over Methane Flux from Ecosystems and the Potential for Feedbacks with Climatic Change (’94 PhD) See Faculty Profile
- biodiversity
- biogeochemistry
- Carbon cycle
- climate change
- conservation
- democracy
- ecosystem goods and services
- ecosystem processes
- isotopes
- land use
Patrick Gonzalez
PhD
Dynamics of Biodiversity and Human Carrying Capacity in the Senegal Sahel (97 PhD)
Yasemin Biro-Kirtman
MS, PhD
Economic Valuation of the Environmental Impacts of the Kayraktepe Dam/Hydroelectric Power Plant in Turkey: An Exercise Contingent Valuation and Benefit-Cost Analysis (’95 M.S.) Prospects for Local Community Participation in the ... Continue Reading »
Margaret Torn
Adjunct Professor
The focus of my work is carbon and nutrient cycling in terrestrial ecosystems and trace-gas flux between soil and atmosphere. I conduct research on soil carbon, global change, and the impacts of human activities on ecosystem processes.
John Harte
Professor of the Graduate School
John Harte is a physicist turned ecologist. His research interests span ecological field research, the theory of complex systems, and policy analysis. Current interests include applying insights from information theory to the analysis of complex ecosystems and empirical investigation of climate-ecosystem feedback dynamics.