Landslides kill at least a thousand people each year but because they are often triggered by earthquakes or heavy rains, the danger remains poorly understood. Scientists know less about landslides ...

As the deputy director and director of research at the Earth Institute, Columbia University, Peter Schlosser plays an active role in developing interdisciplinary research on sustainable development—in ...

The Millennium Villages project offers a bold, innovative model for helping rural African communities lift themselves out of extreme poverty. The Millennium Villages themselves are proving that by ...

The Earth Institute was established in 1995 to advance our understanding of Earth science and apply that knowledge to decisions made by governments and businesses around the world. A world leader in ...

Mark Cane has never been one to follow the status quo. After studying pure mathematics and what is now known as computer science at Harvard in the 60s, he took a hiatus from academia to work in New ...

For ten years, scientists at Columbia University’s Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), part of the Earth Institute, have worked behind the scenes to provide ...

Ruth DeFries examines human transformation of the landscape and its consequences for climate, biogeochemical cycling, biodiversity, and other ecosystem services that make our planet habitable. The ...

On June 9, the Earth Institute and the School of Continuing Education held an open house at Columbia’s Italian Academy with over 100 admitted students for the new Master of Science in Sustainability ...

Pedro Sanchez attributes the roots of his life’s work in soil sciences to the fact that he always liked to “play with dirt.” That boyhood pastime was nurtured by the fact that his family owned a ...

For twenty years, Robin Elizabeth Bell has worked alongside a team of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory geophysics senior scientists and engineers to coordinate nine major aero-geophysical expeditions ...

Peter Coleman, Co-Executive Director of the Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict and Complexity (AC4), created four short and engaging videos about intractable conflicts for AC4, an ...

Elke Weber has made it her life’s work to understand why and how people make the decisions they make. Not a simple task. Take, for example, smoking cigarettes. Doctors’ warnings of the deadly ...