Master of Science in Earth Resources Engineering (MS-ERE)

The MS-ERE program is designed for engineers and scientists who plan to pursue, or are already engaged in, environmental management/development careers. The focus of the program is the environmentally sound mining and processing of primary materials (minerals, energy, and water) and the recycling or proper disposal of used materials. The program also includes technologies for assessment and remediation of past damage to the environment. Students can choose a pace that allows them to to complete the MS-ERE requirements while being employed.

MS-ERE graduates are specially qualified to work for engineering, financial and operating companies engaged in mineral processing ventures, the environmental industry, environmental groups of in all industries, and for city, state and federal agencies responsible for the environment and energy/resource conservation. At the present time, the U.S. environmental industry comprises nearly 30,000 big and small businesses with total revenues over 150 billion dollars. Sustainable development and environmental quality has become a top priority of industry and government in the U.S. and many other nations.

This M.S. Program is offered in collaboration with the departments of Civil Engineering and Earth and Environmental Sciences (DEES). Many of the teaching faculty are affiliated with Columbia's Earth Engineering Center.

For students with a BS in engineering, at least 30 points (10 courses) are required. For students with a BS or a BA, preferably with a science major, up to 48 points (total of 16 courses) may be required for make-up courses. Students may choose courses in a particular concentration that matches their interests and career plans.

There are five optional concentrations in the program.

In each concentration there are a number of required specific core courses and electives. In each case students are required to carry out a research project and write a thesis (3 - 6 points). The lists of specific courses for each track are shown below and the course syllabi are available at the Department

1. General :

Provides a broad background on environmental engineering and earth resources consisting of a number of courses covering water resources, pollution prevention, energy, resource economics, recycling, reclamation and health.

2. Water resources and Climate Risks:

Climate induced risk is a significant component of decision making for the planning, design and operation of Water Resource Systems, and related sectors such as Energy, Health, Agriculture, Ecological Resource, and Natural Hazards Control. Climatic uncertainties can be broadly classified into two areas – (1) those related to anthropogenic climate change; (2) those related to seasonal to century scale natural variations. The climate change issues impact the design of physical, social and financial infrastructure systems to support the sectors listed above. The climate variability and predictability issues impact systems operation, and hence design. The goal of the MS Concentration in Water Resources and Climate Risks is to provide (1) a capacity for understanding and quantifying the projections for climate change and variability in the context of decisions for water resources and related sectors of impact; and (2) skills for integrated risk assessment and management for operations and design, as well as for regional policy analysis and management. Specific areas of interest include:

• Numerical and statistical modeling of global and regional climate systems and attendant uncertainties
• Methods for forecasting seasonal to interannual climate variations and their sectoral impacts
• Models for design and operation of water resource systems, considering climate and other uncertainties
• Integrated risk assessment and management across water resources and related sectors

 Audience:

The MS Concentration in Water Resources and Climate Risks is aimed at professionals working in or interested in careers in the application of quantitative risk management methods in any of the sectors listed above. The program is particularly appropriate for engineers and planners who are interested in continuing education in climate and risk management with an interest in water resources. Employment opportunities are anticipated with Engineering Consultants; Federal, State and Local Resource Management, Environmental Regulation, Hazard Management and Disease Control Agencies; the Insurance and Financial Risk Management Industry; and International Development and Aid Agencies. A complementary degree (Master of Arts in Climate and Society) is available through Columbia University for students who are more directly interested in social or planning aspects of climate impacts, and are not quantitatively oriented.

 Requirements:

The MS in Earth Resource Engineering requires a minimum of 30 credits beyond a Bachelor’s degree, preferably in a science or engineering discipline (up to 48 credits may be required to allow for make-up undergraduate courses). Also required is original research culminating in a M.S. Thesis, to which 6 credits are applied. Students typically enroll in two semesters of graduate-level inter-disciplinary coursework in the Fall and Spring Terms, and complete the M.S. Thesis in the Summer Term.

Required and recommended courses for this concentration

3. Sustainable Energy:

Energy and economic well being are tightly coupled. Fossil fuel resources are still plentiful, but access to energy is limited by environmental and economic constraints. A future world population of ten billion people trying to approach the standard of living of the developed nations cannot rely on today’s energy technologies and infrastructures without severe environmental impacts. Concerns over climate change and changes in ocean chemistry require reductions in carbon dioxide emissions but most alternatives to conventional fossil fuels, including nuclear energy, are too expensive to fill the gap. Yet, access to clean, cheap energy is critical for providing mineral resources, water, food, housing and transportation.

Building and shaping the energy infrastructure of the 21 st century is one of the central tasks for modern engineering. The purpose of the Sustainable Energy Concentration is to expose students to modern energy technologies and infrastructures and to the associated environmental, health and resource limitations. Emphasis will be on energy generation and use technologies that aim to overcome the limits to growth that are experienced today.

Concentration specific classes will sketch out the availability of resources, their geographic distribution, the economic and environmental cost of resource extraction, and avenues for increasing energy utilization efficiency, such as co-generation, district heating and distributed generation of energy. Classes will discuss technologies for efficiency improvement in the generation and consumption sector, energy recovery from solid wastes, alternatives to fossil fuels including solar and wind energy, nuclear fission and fusion, and technologies for addressing the environmental concerns over the use of fossil fuels and nuclear energy. Classes on climate change, air quality and health impacts focus on the consequences of energy use. Policy and its interactions with environmental sciences and energy engineering will be another aspect of the concentration. Additional specialization may consider region-specific energy development.

Audience:

This concentration is aimed at engineers with a minimum background of a BS degree in an engineering discipline. The objective is to gain a better understanding of present day energy infrastructures, their strength and weaknesses and to scope out future technology developments for a world with seemingly insatiable demand for energy. The master degree aims at preparing a new generation of engineering professionals who will be involved with the rebuilding of a world energy infrastructure that today is stretched nearly beyond the limits of its capacity.

The program aims at young engineers and active professionals who see their future in the large and international energy development markets. Since the challenges are global in nature, this program addresses energy infrastructure engineering for all types of economies. Problems facing the industrialized countries, the emerging economies and the poor countries of the world differ substantially and a one size fits all solution is unlikely to work.

Expected employment opportunities are in extractive industries and energy processing companies, such as oil companies, mining industry, power producers, and equipment builders. Employment is also likely to be found in environmental consulting companies, with NGOs interested in environmental and energy issues, as well as local, national and international government agencies. In short, the program aims to educate technology experts for all stakeholders in the development of the energy backbone of society.

 Prerequisites:

The Master Degree is offered to students with a bachelor degree in engineering or equivalent science background. Candidates with technical strengths in physics, chemistry, chemical, electrical or mechanical engineering are preferred.

 Requirements:

A total of 30 credits, including a 3-credit research course or a 6-credit thesis, are required.

Any changes should be done in consultation with the student’s advisor. For students with a B.S. or a B.A., preferably with a science major, up to 48 points are required to allow for make-up undergraduate courses.

Required and recommended courses for this concentration

4. Integrated Waste Management (IWM):

Humanity generates nearly two billion tons of municipal solid wastes (MSW) annually. Traditionally, these wastes have been discarded in landfills that have a finite lifetime and then must be replaced by converting more greenfields to landfills. This method is not sustainable because it wastes land and valuable resources. Also, it is a major source of greenhouse gases and of various several contaminants of air and water. In addition to MSW, the U.S. alone generates billions of tons of industrial and extraction wastes. Also, the by-product of water purification is a sludge or cake that must be disposed in some way. The IWM concentration prepares engineers to deal with the major problem of waste generation by exposing them to environmentally better means for dealing with wastes: Waste reduction, recycling, composting , and waste-to-energy via combustion, anaerobic digestion, or gasification. Students are exposed not only to the technical aspects of integrated waste management but also to the associated economic, policy, and urban planning issues.

Since the initiation of the Earth and Environmental Engineering program in 1996, there have been several graduate research projects and theses that exemplify the engineering problems that will be encompassed in this concentration:

• Design of an automated materials recovery facility
• Analysis of the bioreactor landfill
• Generation of methane by anaerobic digestion of organic materials
• Design of corrosion inhibitors
• Flocculation modeling
• Analysis of formation of dioxins in high temperature processes
• Combination of waste-to-energy and anaerobic digestion
• Application of GIS in siting new WTE facilities
• Corrosion phenomena in WTE combustion chambers
• Mathematical modeling of transport phenomena in a combustion chamber
• Effect of oxygen enrichment on combustion of paper and other types of solid wastes
• Feasibility study and design of WTE facilities in major urban centers.

Audience:

The MS Concentration in Integrated Waste Management is aimed at professionals already working or interested in industry, government or education careers in what has become the most costly sector of urban management. Past graduates have been engaged by engineering firms (e.g., Malcolm Pirnie, Hydroqual, etc.), government agencies in the U.S. and abroad (e.g., U.S.A.C.E., Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Juniper Consultants, National Commission on Energy Policy , NYCED, etc.) or continued with higher studies.

Requirements:

A total of 30 credits beyond a Bachelor’s degree are required including a 6-credit MS thesis. Students must start work on their thesis project after the first semester of courses. Any changes should be made in consultation with the student’s advisor. For students with a B.S. or B.A., preferably with a science major, up to 48 points may be required to allow for make-up undergraduate courses.

Required and recommended courses for this concentration

5. Environmental Health Engineering:

The purpose of the proposed track and concentration in the respective master’s degree programs is to train professionals who can address both the public health and engineering aspects of environmental problems. The identification and evaluation of environmental problems frequently revolves around the risks to human health, whereas the development of remediation or prevention strategies frequently involves engineering approaches. Currently, these two critical steps in addressing environmental problems are handled by two separate groups of professionals, public health practitioners or engineers, who usually have very little understanding of the role of the other profession in this process. The goal of the proposed master’s degree programs is to train those specialists, collaboratively through the two departments.

Government reports have consistently demonstrated a national need for more environmental specialists, including environmental health professionals and environmental engineers (US DOL, 1980; US EPA, 1985; US DHHS, 1988; US DHHS, 1991), and these shortages are likely to be exacerbated “due to eligible retirements over the next five years” (ASPH, 2000) . Moreover, due to the increasing complexities of environmental issues, these reports have called for “the cross-training of other…professionals in the fundamentals of environmental health” (US DHHS, 1988) with rationale similar to our proposed joint master’s program in public health and engineering. It has been noted that many of the nation’s environmental problems “can be traced to a shortage of goal-oriented, interdisciplinary trained environmental health science and protection practitioners” and that “other professionals…such as engineers…are essential, but not usually trained in the basic public health sciences which have a health goal and orientation” (US DHHS, 1991). In the New York metropolitan area, these needs are particularly critical because of the large concentration of environmentally hazardous sites. For example, 97 repositories of toxic waste have been designated by the US EPA as priority sites for remediation in New Jersey and 69 have been designated in New York. Since the New York, New Jersey metropolitan area is the most heavily industrialized region of the US with the highest per capita concentration of chemical and petrochemical industries in the nation, future regional needs for environmental specialists are likely to remain high.

Curriculum

• A Masters of Science in Earth Resource Engineering requires 30 credits. This includes a 3 credit report or a 6 credit thesis. Students in the Environmental Health concentration should generally take the thesis research option, and be co-advised by faculty from Earth and Environmental Engineering and Environmental Health Sciences.
• A Masters of Public Health in Environmental Health Sciences requires 45 credits. Students who choose the Environmental Health track should consider 6 of these credits for thesis research to be co-advised by faculty from Earth and Environmental Engineering and Environmental Health Sciences.

Coursework Requirements for MS in Earth Resource Engineering:

A total of 30 credits including a 3 credit report or a 6 credit thesis are required. Of these at least 15 need to be in Earth and Environmental Engineering and 9 in environmental Health Sciences classes. The thesis will generally be co-supervised by an EE and an EHS faculty member. A recommended program is shown with the courses in bold. Any changes should be done in consultation with the student’s advisor. For students with a B.S. or a B.A., preferably with a science major, up to 48 points are require to allow for make-up undergraduate courses.

Required and recommended courses for this concentration

Descriptions of most of the EEE courses can be found by clicking here. For a full list of all engineering courses please look up the Bulletin of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. For a copy of the Columbia EngineeringViewbook for Graduate Studies , please complete the on-line form of SEAS Graduate Admissions or send an e-mail to seasapplication@columbia.edu. For additional information on MS-ERE, contact our Student Affairs Administrator, Ms. Kimberly Labor, (212) 854-2905, #918 Mudd, 500 West 120th St., NY, NY 10027. She will answer your questions or direct you to a faculty member who can.