About the Climate Adaptation Science Program

Purpose

The Climate Adaptation Science specialization prepares trainees for research-based careers that integrate science, management, and policy to understand and adapt to a changing climate. 

Program Description

The Climate Adaptation Science program closely integrates research, work-place experience, and scientific collaboration between scientists, policy-makers, federal, state, and local land and resource managers, and citizen stakeholders. The program emphasizes interdisciplinary research and includes training in informatics, modeling, communication, leadership, project management, risk assessment, decision-making, and interdisciplinary teamwork.

While trainees acquire primary expertise in their discipline from their departmental major degree fields, they can then acquire additional expertise across a full range of climate-adaptation-related disciplines by working with a team of their peers to solve user- and stakeholder-driven problems related to a changing climate.

Trainees complete a 9-credit specialization that includes two experiential elements. The required courses are an Introduction to Climate Adaptation Sciences seminar (2 credits), an Interdisciplinary Research Colloquium (1 credit), and a two-semester Studio course (4 credits), accompanied by ENVS 6889 (1 credit). Trainees must also complete an internship (1 credit) with a government, industry, or NGO partner that precedes the two-semester research studio course. Please note that the specific course requirements will change for students entering the program in Fall 2025 or later. Details are given in the Program Timeline. For details pertaining to the course requirements prior to Fall 2025, please use this link. 

Please note, all Utah State University graduate students in participating programs are eligible for the program.

Internships
CAS students complete a mentored internship with a government agency, NGO, or industry partner organization. Internship experiences precede a year-long research studio.Through these internships, and a series of Science-Management-Policy Exchange meetings, trainees learn about the culture, opportunities, constraints, and science needs of the many workplaces in which climate adaptation science is created and used.

Skills Acquired
  • Collaboration across Disciplinary and Workplace Boundaries
  • Teamwork, as a Leader and Follower
  • Project Management
  • Risk Assessment
  • Decision-making
  • Communication with Scientist and Non-scientist Audiences
  • Reproducible Science
  • Comprehensive Thinking about socio-environmental issues

Team Research
CAS students collaborate to define and execute a research project that advances our understanding in some area of climate adaptation science. Over the course of two years, students form interdisciplinary teams to define research problems, develop plans to address those problems, write and present formal proposals, and complete the research. The research results in a variety of outputs, including technical publications and presentations of new knowledge for scientific audiences, as well as materials for other users of science, such as plans, brochures or reports, informational websites, publications in popular media, public conversations and briefings, etc.