Reconstructing past climate and cultural shifts could help predict how people and animals might be affected in the future.
Addressing our deepest societal environmental challenges

The Center for the Environment is an interdisciplinary hub of environmental research that is committed to generating transformative solutions to our deepest societal challenges including: climate change, air pollution, access to clean water, food insecurity, biodiversity loss and infectious diseases.

By the numbers

137

Center scholars

46

Proposals/Grants supported

1000+

Activity participants

The Center’s mission

The center serves as a cross-cutting collaboration hub, encouraging partners, faculty and students to advance research projects in areas including biodiversity, environmental justice, planetary health, environmental solutions, and climate change. Here’s a closer look at who we are, what we do, and why it matters for our community, our region and our world.

Connect with us

Upcoming Events

Work with us! Program Coordinator position now open

The Program Coordinator engages a broad community of researchers and partners to expand the scope and scale of interdisciplinary environmental research at WashU, in order to address society’s deepest environmental challenges. This role does that by managing key programs of the Center for the Environment’s collaboration hub, and research accelerator functions.

The secrets of bunker 46

The secrets of bunker 46

Inside a World War II-era bunker at Tyson Research Center, preserved birds, handwritten logs and mold-covered artifacts tell a story of science, stewardship and changing times.

Core soil samples being taken at Riverlands Migratory Bird Sanctuary

The WashU ecosystem

Within the WashU ecosystem of environmental research, education, and practice, the Center for the Environment serves as a connector. Much like a biodiversity corridor, we work to create space where our partners within the ecosystem and across distinct disciplines come together to address our world’s biggest environmental challenges.

Research themes