Nature, Ethics, and the Human Imagination
Directors of Undergraduate Studies: Robin Kelsey and Joyce Chaplin
Standing Committee: Joyce Chaplin, Janet Gyatso, Robin Kelsey, Ian Miller, Alex Rehding, and Karen Thornber
Students interested in Nature, Ethics, and the Human Imagination should contact either Joyce Chaplin at chaplin@fas.harvard.edu or Robin Kelsey at kelsey@fas.harvard.edu. Students interested in the Arts & Humanities are always welcome to schedule an advising appointment with Lauren Kaminsky.
The increasingly visible impacts of climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss are driven to a large degree by the world’s increasing demands for energy. Other developments, including the proliferation of microplastics and forever chemicals, also threaten planetary health. Solutions to these challenges require invention and design of technologies for a low-carbon future and simultaneous understanding and creation of changing social, political and economic practices. Solutions will require development of new science and engineering designs, innovation in policies and markets for decarbonizing economies, mitigation of climatic impacts on public health and ecosystems, renewed attention to ethical principles, and consideration of alternative ways of negotiating relations between humanity and our planet.
The concentration on Energy, Climate, and the Environment (ENCE) is solutions focused and prepares the next generation of leaders to address these complex and multifaceted problems in the private sector, government, civil society, the arts, and academia. Students will develop field expertise, with a deep grounding in the methods and tools of a specific area of specialization, while gaining literacy and collaborative capacity in other relevant fields. For example, leaders in the development of low-carbon technologies should understand markets, social impacts, and stakeholder concerns, and government and business leaders should understand the science and engineering of climate change and low-carbon technologies. Students will learn the value of and be well prepared for working effectively with experts outside their own field.
To reflect this philosophy, ENCE takes a truly cross-School and cross-Divisional approach, spanning the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the FAS Divisions of Arts & Humanities, Social Science, and Science. All students share a common core of coursework, fostering a community where peers learn with and from one another across disciplines. Students will begin and end their programs with a shared introductory course (ENCE 10) and a shared, team-based capstone class in their senior year (ENCE 100), while focusing the remainder of their program on one of four tracks that will provide field depth and will also incorporate a distribution requirement for students to take two courses from other tracks or disciplines. Each track has a braided structure to ensure coherence, proper scaffolding, and disciplinary depth, and students follow one of the pre-approved braids listed under each track. Students can propose other braids that meet the same standards; however, alternative braids need approval by the faculty advisor.
The four tracks
This track provides students with core competencies in understanding and addressing environmental challenges from historical, ethical, literary, artistic, and other value-sensitive perspectives. The curriculum covers diverse positions on the foundational causes and ultimate costs of human-caused climate change, biodiversity loss, and marine degradation, discussions of why we should care, and exploration of individual roles in the quality of all lives on the planet. It includes innovative design strategies, morally persuasive literary and art forms, values and practices of different cultures, and historical cases of environmental care. Pre-approved Braids have emphasis in: Historical Study, Religion and Ethics, or Art and Media.
This track prepares students to be future inventors and drivers of technical solutions to the world’s converging problems of growing energy needs, climate change, and environmental pollution. Students will gain depth and expertise in sciences and engineering, with a focus on decarbonization and electrification of the energy, chemical manufacturing, and transport sectors, design of state-of-the-art computing systems optimized for both compute performance and environmental impacts, and mitigation of human impacts on natural environmental systems with outcomes ranging from climate to public health. Pre-approved Braids have emphasis in: Energy Systems, Sustainable Computing, or Climate and Environmental Systems and Modeling.
This track provides rigorous social-science training in fields such as economics, political science, sociology, and AAAS. Students utilize quantitative and qualitative methods to understand the systemic forces – from global markets to local governance to community life – that shape climate mitigation, sustainability finance, and social adaptation. Pre-approved Braids have emphasis in: Making Markets, Sustainable Business, or Justice & Law.
This track focuses on the interface of Earth system science and biology. Climate governs how ecosystems function, and ecosystems influence how carbon, water, and energy move through the Earth system. Topics covered in this track include climate–ecosystem interactions and physical drivers of biodiversity change. Students develop the tools to analyze and address questions such as how climate change reshapes species distributions and ecosystem services, when and how nature-based strategies can contribute to climate mitigation, and how to evaluate tradeoffs among emissions goals, ecosystem integrity, and land use needs across coupled human–natural systems.
Graduates of the Energy, Climate, and the Environment program achieve the following objectives as part of their program completion, and they are trained to become solutions focused and informed leaders prepared to address real-world challenges in energy and climate.
- Disciplinary Depth with Multidisciplinary Literacy & Collaborative Leadership: The ability to operate effectively within "T-shaped" professional environments, leveraging deep expertise in a specific track while communicating and collaborating fluently with experts across science and engineering, the social sciences, and the arts and humanities to address systemic societal challenges.
- Integrated Problem-Solving & Design Thinking: The capacity to translate complex, large-scale energy and environmental challenges into tractable problems through an iterative design process that incorporates stakeholder needs, real-world boundary conditions, and iterative experimentation.
- Technical & Disciplinary Mastery for their Track: A rigorous command of the quantitative and qualitative foundations, methods, and tools specific to their chosen track; ranging from energy systems and climate science to economic policy analysis and historical critique.
- Synthesis of Theory and Real-World Application: The proficiency to apply academic frameworks to real-world scenarios through experiential learning and team-based capstones, resulting in viable solutions that account for technical, social, and cultural dimensions of energy-climate issues.