Student in yellow rain jacket walking along a shore at the Shoals Marine Laboratory.

About the Environment & Sustainability Major

Cornell’s interdisciplinary major that confronts environment and sustainability challenges

We provide opportunities for students.

Our students learn from and work with people and partners on campus and throughout the world. Together, we confront environment and sustainability challenges head-on and with confidence. We aim to be bold. We take heart in working together to sustain and restore healthy conditions that sustain people and the diverse wonders of our planet.

We span the resources of Cornell.

As a cross-college major, we are available to students in the College of Arts & Sciences and the College of Agriculture & Life Sciences. Five Cornell colleges are represented by faculty and courses associated with the major. Cornell programs and facilities throughout the U.S. and other countries further extend our reach beyond the Ithaca campus.

We work across the globe.

Our network of faculty, staff and alumni support our undergraduate students throughout their time on campus and beyond. Faculty and alumni provide connections with a broad range of local, regional, national and international off-campus organizations and institutions working together with common purpose.

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In this section

Field programs

Students can pursue field experiences outdoors and in the offices of policy-makers.

Senator Gillibrand with a group of students and faculty.
A single solar panel in the foreground and McGraw Tower in the background at dusk.
Campus partners
Three students working in a group near Beebe Lake
Learning goals

People

Making a positive impact

Student experiences, alumni pathways, news and other environment and sustainability stories.

a person standing on a boat

News

CBFS Saildrone StoryMap
Autonomous drones are taking center stage in fisheries assessments across the Great Lakes. These drones deploy acoustic technology which tracks and quantifies fish populations. Acoustic surveying, which utilizes beams of sound, has traditionally...
  • Biological Field Station
  • Ashley School of Global Development and the Environment
  • Natural Resources and the Environment Section
Kayden Nasworthy, a graduate student at Cornell University, holding a bag of collected mysids. A new New York Sea Grant-funded research project is evaluating long-term trends in mysid shrimp populations in Lake Ontario.

News

Cornell leads a Lake Ontario food web study in $1.5M Sea Grant research suite

Cornell University’s James Watkins and Kade Keranen are leading a nearly $240,000 study to examine the abundance of mysid, small, shrimp-like crustaceans that are critical links in Lake Ontario’s aquatic food web.

  • Biological Field Station
  • Sea Grant NY
  • Ashley School of Global Development and the Environment
Macaw flying in an open landscape

News

Rubber tree agroforestry supports birds, biodiversity in the Colombian Amazon

A doctoral candidate and Semlitz Sustainability Fellow and his Colombian partners seek to protect birds and biodiversity in the Amazon via sustainable rubber tree agroforestry.

  • Cornell Atkinson
  • Ashley School of Global Development and the Environment
  • Natural Resources and the Environment Section
Birds eye view of a farming town in China

News

China’s pollution declines came at a cost

China’s Scientific Outlook on Development program, which tied local leaders’ job performance evaluations to environmental quality improvements, had negative impacts on the country's agricultural economy, researchers found.

  • Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management
  • Agriculture
  • Climate Change
Cornell doctoral student Isabella Marie Errigo and Indigenous partners collect eDNA samples from a remote river in the Ecuadorian Amazon, helping communities assess aquatic biodiversity and ecosystem health across a range of environmental conditions.

News

Student, Indigenous partners use eDNA to aid biodiversity in Ecuador

A Cornell graduate student and indigenous Ecuadorian partners are sampling eDNA in Amazonian riverways to understand how gold mining and other human disturbances impact aquatic biodiversity and ecosystem health.

  • Cornell Atkinson
  • Ashley School of Global Development and the Environment
  • Biodiversity

Ready to take the next step?

Come and visit us in 117 Kennedy Hall. Schedule a meeting with an E&S staff member on Chatter or come to our drop-ins. Please email environment [at] cornell.edu or call 607-255-8055 if you are having difficulties scheduling a meeting.

Weekly In-Person Drop-Ins (virtual by request)

Mondays: 12:30 pm - 1:30 pm

Tuesdays: 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm

Wednesdays: 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm

Thursdays: 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm

Fridays: 11:00 am - 12:00 pm 

 

The E&S major can be found in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) and the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S). Prospective students may apply through either CALS or A&S admissions.