Sustainable Energy

Field Description

Curricular topics, contact: Rowena Lohman (rbl62@cornell.edu), Tobias Hanrath (tobias.hanrath@cornell.edu), or Jeff Tester (jwt54@cornell.edu)


Administrative or registrar topics, contact: Polly Marion (pmm4@cornell.edu)


Summary: Meeting the energy needs of the present and future global population is a grand challenge for the 21st century. This will hasten an improvement in lifestyles of those from developing nations and should be achieved without further impairment of the natural environment and climate. Providing affordable, clean energy that is both secure and sustainable is the goal. Achievement of this goal requires the participation, ingenuity, and hard work of people from a great range of specialized activities working collaboratively. Accordingly, this minor is intended to integrate scientific and engineering principles that focus on the creation, analysis, and improvement of energy technologies, with knowledge of environmental systems potentially impacted by energy production, and with an understanding of human systems that are intertwined with energy-related decisions. An outcome of the minor should be an understanding of the ways in which those themes interact as a system, all of whose parts need to be understood and successfully integrated in order to progress toward meeting the world’s energy needs.

Program Requirements:
1. Students must be enrolled for an MS or PhD degree. Students enrolled in professional Masters are not, at this time, eligible to participate in the minor.


2. At least one faculty member representing the minor field of Sustainable Energy is required to be a formal member of the student’s Special (Thesis) Committee.


3. Students enrolled in the minor will have to demonstrate, to the satisfaction of the faulty member representing the minor field of Sustainable Energy, that they have an adequate understanding of the area pertaining to Sustainable Energy. For students in a PhD program, this will be demonstrated as part of their Admission to Candidacy examination, typically in the form of an oral examination. For MS students, this mastery will be demonstrated by completion of coursework (see item four). The representative of the minor field in Sustainable Energy may also test the student’s knowledge at the final thesis defense examination.


4. All students enrolled in the minor are required to take a minimum of nine credit hours in three or more energy-related courses or modules (at least nine credit hours), as specified on the Graduate School’s website. These three (or more) courses must be taken from lists of approved courses in three topical areas:
         i. At least one foundational core course in Sustainable Energy Systems
         ii. At least three credits of courses or modules related to Energy Sources and Technologies for                a Transition to Sustainability
         iii. At least three credits of courses or modules related to environmental, policy, economic, and               business consequences


As a guide for students and minor field faculty, we have provided below the course numbers and titles of about 60 courses and one-credit modules that provide a comprehensive foundation of knowledge in the sustainable energy area. Our goal in making these course suggestions is to allow students from many fields and colleges to obtain a graduate minor in Sustainable Energy. Students are encouraged to take more than the minimum number of courses or modules if their schedules can accommodate them.

Contact Information

Website: https://energy.cornell.edu/education/sustainable-energy-systems-minors
Email: pmm4@cornell.edu
Phone: 607-255-8656

362 Olin Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY  14853

Subject and Degrees

Concentrations by Subject

Sustainable Energy

  • sustainable energy (minor)

Faculty

Richard Waldron Allmendinger

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Sustainable Energy: sustainable energy

Lynden A Archer

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Sustainable Energy: sustainable energy

Larry Douglas Brown

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Sustainable Energy: sustainable energy

Louis A Derry

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Sustainable Energy: sustainable energy

Elizabeth Mills Fisher-York

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Sustainable Energy: sustainable energy

H. Oliver Gao

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Sustainable Energy: sustainable energy

Emmanuel P Giannelis

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Sustainable Energy: sustainable energy

David A Hammer

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Sustainable Energy: sustainable energy

Tobias Hanrath

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Sustainable Energy: sustainable energy

Donald L Koch

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Sustainable Energy: sustainable energy

Sidney Leibovich

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Sustainable Energy: sustainable energy

Christopher Kemper Ober

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Sustainable Energy: sustainable energy

Richard D. Robinson

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Sustainable Energy: sustainable energy

Norman Roy Scott

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Sustainable Energy: sustainable energy

Abraham Duncan Stroock

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Sustainable Energy: sustainable energy

Jefferson W. Tester

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Sustainable Energy: sustainable energy

Ulrich Bernd Wiesner

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Sustainable Energy: sustainable energy

Frank William Wise

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Sustainable Energy: sustainable energy

Ke Max Zhang

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Sustainable Energy: sustainable energy