When you enroll in the Master of Environmental Studies degree with a concentration in Environmental Sustainability, you will benefit from both the rich diversity of course offerings and the sustainability programs run by Penn faculty and students on campus, in Philadelphia and around the world.
Careers in sustainability are emerging and are found in diverse areas in both private and public sectors. The Master of Environmental Studies program offers a wide range of course options that allow you to create a program specific to the requirements of the area of sustainability you are most interested in pursuing, and will make you uniquely qualified for the professional opportunities you seek.
Graduates with the Environmental Sustainability concentration often take leadership positions guiding organizations or communities to be more sustainable, such as Sustainability Coordinator at a university or non-profit or Director/VP of Sustainability at a corporation.
Student research
Your capstone project is a culmination of your classroom, research and internship experiences in the MES program. Your methods and results are unique to your professional and academic goals. Take a look at abstracts by recent MES students with a concentration in Environmental Sustainability to understand the breadth of capstone topics and formats.
Every student in the Master of Environmental Studies (MES) program creates a research poster designed to showcase their capstone project. The selection of posters listed below is representative of the range of research projects undertaken by recent students in the Environmental Sustainability concentration.
- Consumer Perceived Sustainability Vs. Scientific Facts of Single-Use Plastic (SUP) Bags: Misconceptions and Environmental Problem Shifting (EPS) by Yutong Du ‘26
- Reducing Penn Health's Environmental Impact: An Analysis on Disposable Gloves by Evelyn Ziba Gordi ‘26
- Data Center Expansion and Decarbonization Challenges in Pennsylvania's Electricity Market by Ariel (Xinyi) Pang ‘26
- Comparative Assessment of Household-scale and Community-scale Biogas Program in a Farming Village in Indonesia by Nabila Safitri ‘26
Sample Environmental Sustainability concentration courses
In the Environmental Sustainability concentration, you will choose from a wide variety of courses, from departments and graduate Schools across the University. The following list provides some examples of courses that the program has approved for students to take as part of this concentration.
| School/Department | Courses |
|---|---|
| Department of Earth and Environmental Science (MES home) |
|
| Wharton School of Business |
|
| School of Engineering and Applied Science |
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| Stuart Weitzman School of Design |
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| School of Veterinary Medicine |
|
