• Macdonald Campus
• Bieler School of Environment
• Rowles House
• 21,111 Lakeshore Road
• Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue QC H9X 3V9

• Downtown Campus
• Bieler School of Environment
• 3534 University Street
• Montreal QC H3A 2A7
• Telephone: 514-398-2827

• Coordinator – C. Zhu
• Telephone: 514-398-2827
• Email: christina.zhu [at] mcgill.ca
• Website: mcgill.ca/environment
• Graduate Option website: mcgill.ca/environment/envroption

Resolving environmental issues requires a dialogue between pure and applied sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities. The degradation of the biological and biophysical environment has roots in the structure of human societies while solutions to environmental problems have an impact on human livelihoods.

A number of academic departments and institutes at McGill promote graduate-level research and training on environmental topics and have faculty members whose main research interest falls in this domain. As such, environmental research is widespread throughout the McGill community. The Environment option provides a vehicle whereby discipline-based graduate programs can easily and effectively incorporate collaborations from at least one other discipline into their research.

Goals of the Option

• To provide thesis or non-thesis students with an understanding of how knowledge is transferred into action with regard to the environment;
• To develop an appreciation of the role of scientific, political, socioeconomic, and ethical judgments in influencing that process;
• To provide a forum whereby graduate students in environment throughout the University bring their disciplinary perspectives together and enrich each other's learning through structured courses, formal seminars, and informal discussions and networking.

Students admitted into the Environment option will be supervised or co-supervised by either a Bieler School of Environment appointed faculty member or a Bieler School of Environment associate member. Their advisory committee will include at least one individual from outside the home department. It is expected that the thesis, dissertation, or project, as well as the final seminar presentation, will contain an environmental component and will include a discussion of the applied implications of the research findings. Together with the courses common to the Environment option, specific course requirements for each program are given within the departmental listings cited below.

Program List

The Environment option is currently available with the following graduate programs: