Stony Brook Students Can Select a New Climate Sciences Major

Stony Brook University's School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS) is welcoming a brand new major that combines its atmospheric sciences and sustainability studies programs to research and respond to environmental changes.

TheBS in Climate Sciencesmajor offers students the tools and knowledge necessary to study and find solutions to address climate change, said SoMAS Dean Paul Shepson.

"We are building a program about climate change, so we want to draw on intellectual content from everyone on campus. The solutions to climate change are about human decision-making," Shepson said.

The program is now availablefor students to select in the Undergraduate Bulletin for Spring 2025.

The new major expands on already existing environmentally focused majors offered by SoMAS. The atmospheric studies program takes a more scientific and analytically intensive approach to climate studies while courses in the sustainability program will offer students a more environmental justice approach.

The goal is that by combining these two approaches, the Climate Sciences program will train students to understand not just the hard sciences behind climate change, but also the social and economic impacts that a changing environment can have locally and globally.

"This major will help prepare students to be the leaders of tomorrow that we need to address climate change," said Brian Colle, professor and head of the Atmospheric Sciences Division at SoMAS.

The new major follows a recent effort by university leaders to provide academic programs that help provide students with training in the growing field of climate jobs. Last April, Stony Brook was named an anchor institution of The New York Climate Exchange, which seeks to be a hub for accelerating climate change solutions and careers in New York City and beyond, and new academic programs are being brainstormed on-campus, such as at events hosted by Stony Brook's Collaborative for the Earth.

New climate-focused academic program offerings include: an accelerated BS/MPH in Climate Change and Human Healthin Stony Brook Medicine, a climate concentration offered for MS in Science Communicationstudents in the School of Communication and Journalism (SoCJ), and a SoMAS's Climate Solutionsminor, which explores how climate change intersects with human health, social sciences, economics, business, and engineering.

"The university should not operate like a mosaic of silos," Shepson said. "Undergraduate and graduate degrees should reflect not just who is in the building that you're in and what kind of degree could the people in that building offer."

"A passion of mine is helping universities reach their potential to be useful to society and create leaders for the future. Everything that I do is motivated in some way, more or less by climate change," he added.

Choosing between SoMAS's Climate Sciences major and the Climate Solutions minor?

The largest difference is that the minor is more multidisciplinary offering courses from both the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, as opposed to the major, which is a bit more narrowly focused on the intersection between hard and social sciences approaches to climate and climate change.

The minor is made of three unique paths that students can choose to specialize in - a natural sciences, engineering, or social sciences and humanities perspectives, which allows students to look at the human impact of the climate.

SoMAS will begin accepting students into this exciting new major this coming fall semester.

"There's an enthusiastic energy associated with those that love this planet and want to protect it," said Mark Lang, a senior systems engineer in SoMAS who is also on the planning committee of Earthstock, an annual campus-wide initiative that seeks to inform and get students involved in climate action. "SoMAS encapsulates that for the students that want to save the planet."

"Putting [these courses] together is giving our students some of the things they've been wanting for years," he added.

- Benjamin William Stephens, J.D. Allen

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