Hixon Center for Climate and the Environment

Professors Hawkins (Director), Donnelly, Guo, Kavassalis, and Kirabo

The Hixon Center for Climate and the Environment is the primary home for campus efforts related to climate, sustainability, and environmental studies. Our mission is to provide interdisciplinary education, research, and programming that equips engineers, scientists, and mathematicians with the knowledge and skills to tackle complex environmental issues.

Each faculty member of the Hixon Center holds a joint appointment with another department and supports our joint majors in climate. Regardless of a student’s aligned discipline, they will find an avenue to apply their passion and make an impact on society, either through individual courses or through our new joint major programs.

Our Educational Approach

This program includes curricular and professional opportunities that address scientific and societal challenges presented by climate change, from battery storage to environmental justice. We graduate students who are prepared as leaders in this space through a combination of disciplinary breadth and technical depth. Each of our joint majors (Joint Major in Chemistry and Climate and Joint Major in Computer Science and Climate ) includes a four course disciplinary kernel: Climate Dynamics, Impacts, Interventions, and Contexts.

Through Climate Dynamics, students develop a theoretical understanding of atmospheric and oceanic dynamics and how they intersect to create our climate system. Climate Impacts courses address challenges facing the environment resulting from changes in the physical climate system and our current energy system. Our Climate Interventions courses help students understand the role of technology in mitigating climate change or adapting to impacts of climate change. Finally, our Climate Contexts courses highlight the role of the humanities, social sciences, and the arts in understanding and/or addressing climate change.

Each of the joint majors has additional requirements in foundational areas including thermodynamics, mathematics, and physics to support a broad technical education and in preparation for advanced work in climate-relevant fields.

Facilities and Research

Hixon Center faculty are actively engaged in scholarship and are eager to share this work with our students in both paid and credited opportunities. Our research programs have support from internal and external funding. Students participating in research are eligible to attend conferences to present their findings and share their methods. We provide dedicated research space for all students involved in scholarship with our faculty, including wet laboratories and shared computational laboratories accessible for academic year and summer research.

The Emphasis in Environmental Analysis

Environmental analysis (EA) fits exceptionally well within the Harvey Mudd College mission to train students who combine technical rigor and engagement with pressing social issues. The Emphasis in Environmental Analysis (EEA) provides a curricular program to help students move through their environmental studies in a coherent and cumulative fashion.

The Emphasis in Environmental Analysis is not a major or a minor. Rather, it is a coordinated program of study that allows students majoring in the sciences, engineering, and mathematics the opportunity to address environmental issues from a range of perspectives so that they may better understand the impact of their work.

Emphasis Structure: An Emphasis in Environmental Analysis consists of five courses beyond the Core with significant environmental analysis content taken on- or off-campus, including at least two courses in recognized humanities, social sciences, and the arts disciplines and two courses within science, engineering, and mathematics. At least three of the courses must be at the upper-division level. Upon approval by the Harvey Mudd Center for Environmental Studies, two summer research, yearlong research, or yearlong Clinic experience with a substantial environmental analysis component may be counted towards the five-course total.

Requirement: Students must declare their intention to pursue an Emphasis in Environmental Analysis in or before their fifth semester.

For more information on the EEA, visit: https://www.hmc.edu/hixon-center/environmental-analysis-at-harvey-mudd/

Advising

Students majoring in any of the Hixon joint majors with climate will be assigned the corresponding joint faculty member as their major advisor.

Course Descriptions