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About ERG
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ERG is more formally designated as the Graduate Group in Energy and Resources. Although the term "group" has an informal ring, this augmented Graduate Group at UCB is in fact an interdisciplinary graduate program. ERG has the same abilities as an ordinary department to admit students and offer courses as well as to confer advanced degrees. Graduate Groups differ structurally from ordinary departments mainly in the composition of the faculty: most of the faculty members associated with Graduate Groups hold their main appointments in disciplinary or professional departments and participate in the activities of the Group only part-time. A few of the larger Groups, however, have "core" faculty appointments of their own in addition to "affiliated" departmental faculty members. ERG was the first Graduate Group at UCB to have core appointments.
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PHOTO/R.NORGAARD
Windmills in Solano County, Rio Vista.
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" I have long admired the Energy and Resources Group as the most important and innovative interdisciplinary environmental program in the country. There simply is no other program that so effectively combines environmental science, engineering, policy and economics into a comprehensive effort that manages to bring the best out of these diverse fields rather than dulling them down through a forced programmatic marriage. Your track record in producing students who not only add another unique layer to the academic record but also shape the most important public conversations on environmental policy and advocacy is truly exceptional."
Professor Andrew Light
Director, Center for Global Ethics, Department of Philosophy, George Mason University and Senior Fellow, Energy and Environmental Policy, Center for American Progress, Washington, D.C., George Mason University
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ERG Mission Statement
ERG’s mission is research and education for a sustainable environment and a just society. Established as an academic degree-granting program at UC Berkeley in 1973, ERG has become a unique interdisciplinary community of graduate students, core faculty, and over 100 affiliates and researchers from across the campus.
ERG produces cutting edge research to inform scientific, policy, and business communities. ERG is an intellectual hub for research on clean energy, climate science, ecosystems and biodiversity, energy systems, international development, technology and society, and water policy.
Programs of study in Energy & Resources lead to MA, MS, and PhD degrees, as well as an undergraduate minor. These programs prepare the next generation of scholars and leaders to confront the challenges of environmental sustainability and equity.
ERG and its graduates have a global presence from Laotian villages to Washington hearing rooms, from international climate negotiations to corporate boardrooms.
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Who We Are: A Brief History of ERG
For thirty years, the Energy and Resources Group (ERG) at the University of California, Berkeley has provided its outstanding graduate students and exceptional faculty the scholarly conditions in which to:
> study the environmental sciences,
> analyze the social causes of our energy and environmental problems,
> undertake field research in a variety of ecosystems,
> engage in cross cultural learning, and
> devise technical and policy alternatives to unsustainable energy and resource use patterns.
The Berkeley Campus offers exceptional opportunities to learn from outstanding scholars in many disciplines. ERG facilitates the placement of specialized knowledge into the larger integrated perspective. Students and faculty incorporating one another's insights, work on alternative energy technologies, ecological economics, terrestrial ecology, environmental justice, resource conflicts, and society and technology. ERG and the term "activist-scholar" are closely associated: Faculty and students alike are motivated by current and foreseeable problems and are encouraged to take what they learn into the full range of educational, political, and policy processes. In this highly interactive academic environment, feasible paths to social justice, appropriate technologies and ecological integrity begin to emerge.
ERG traces its origins to the Committee on Energy and Resources, which was established in November l972 under the chairmanship of electrical engineering professor C. K. Birdsall as an Advisory Committee to the then Vice-Chancellor Mark N. Christensen. The Committee laid the groundwork for an interdisciplinary program of teaching and research in energy and resources and secured for this purpose the first regular faculty position in Berkeley's history to reside entirely in an interdisciplinary unit. John P. Holdren (emeritus) was appointed to fill that position, as Assistant Professor in the Energy and Resources Program, in summer l973. The program attained degree-granting status as a Graduate Group in late l974, and admitted its first graduate students in l975. Mark Christensen was appointed to the core faculty in l976, John Harte in l982, Gene I. Rochlin in 1984, Richard Norgaard in l987, Catherine Koshland in l995, Daniel Kammen,1998, Isha Ray, 2001, Alex Farrell in 2003, Ashok Gadgil and Margaret Torn in 2006, and most recently Duncan Callaway in 2009. The affiliated faculty meanwhile has grown from its initial membership of fifteen to more than one hundred and fifty. As of Spring 2010, more than 400 degrees have been awarded. The student population stands at about seventy.
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Facilities
Housed in 310 Barrows Hall on the south side of the Berkeley campus, ERG facilities include office space for core faculty members, visitors, students, and staff, a reading/seminar room, and a student lounge. The ERG computing system consists of PC and Macintosh microcomputers, several printers and scanners, linked with each other through a server and with the Berkeley-campus mainframes. Augmenting the modest collection of journals and reference books in the ERG reading room are the enormous information resources available within a short distance in UCB's Main Library, Engineering Library, and Earth Sciences Library, Business/Social Sciences Library, Governmental Studies Library and undergraduate library.
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Administrative Structure
For staff assistance please call: (510) 642-1640
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