SIPA: School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University

PhD in Sustainable Development

Director of Graduate Studies: Joshua Graff Zivin
Co-Directors:  Jeffrey Sachs and Joseph Stiglitz

About the Program

Many of the most important policy issues facing the planet today require a central focus on the sustainability of development. These include the causes and consequences of long-term climate change; the challenges of extreme poverty, weak public health systems and infectious disease, and global demographic change (aging, population growth in poor countries, urbanization, and global migration); and the threat of massive species extinction and weakened ecosystems.

There is, therefore, substantial and growing demand for PhDs with a broad social science education, strong research skills, and knowledge of the natural sciences. The purpose of the PhD in Sustainable Development is to create a generation of scholars and professionals equipped to deal with some of the most crucial problems in the world today. By combining elements of a traditional graduate education in social science, particularly economics, with a significant component of training in the natural sciences, the program's graduates will be uniquely situated to undertake serious research and policy assessments to further the goal of sustainable development. The program includes a set of rigorous core requirements, but also provides students with the flexibility to pursue in-depth research in a broad variety of critical policy areas.

Housed at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), the PhD program continues Columbia's recent initiatives in multidisciplinary doctoral education and also reflects SIPA's longstanding commitment to interdisciplinary graduate social science education for policymakers and analysts.