Overview

The Nicholas School's Climate Change Science and Applications (CCSA) certificate program is open to all Master of Environmental Management (MEM) and Master of Forestry (MF) students. To earn the certificate, students must complete 12 credit hours of required coursework in physical or natural science, social science, and integrated assessment modeling, as well as a climate-related elective specific to their individual concentration area. They also must demonstrate mastery of skills learned through these courses by applying them in their Master’s project or another equally substantive faculty-supervised capstone research project.

Faculty Experts

The certificate brings together courses taught by many of the top experts on climate change science, policy and law at the Nicholas School and from across Duke's campus. A partial list of these courses includes:

• “The Climate System,” taught by Wenhong Li;
• “Climate and Society,” taught by Drew Shindell;
• “Climate Change Economics and Policy,” taught by Billy Pizer;
• “Climate Change Law,” taught by Jonathan Wiener;
• “Integrated Assessment Modeling,” taught by Dan Loughlin;
• “Global Environmental Change,” taught by Paul Baker;
• “Introduction to Coastal Environmental Change Processes,” taught by A. Brad Murray;
• “Marine Climate Change,” taught by David Johnston;
• “Air Quality Management,” taught by Junfeng Zhang and John Vandenburg;
• “Ecological Diversity and Climate Change,” taught by James Clark;
• “Landscape Analysis and Management,” taught by Dean Urban; and
• “Introduction to Atmospheric Chemistry,” taught by Prasad Kasibhatla.

Certificate coursework will be augmented with workshops and panel discussions on current topics in climate science, co-hosted by Duke’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions and the Duke Energy Initiative. Students can also select courses taught at North Carolina State University or the University of North Carolina to fulfill their elective requirement.