Agricultural, Environmental, and Sustainability Sciences (MS)

CIP Code

01.0308.00

General Overview

The School of Earth, Environmental, and Marine Sciences offers a Master of Science (MS) in Agricultural, Environmental, and Sustainability Sciences (AESS). The AESS program provides students with a unique, integrative education and training experience that prepares them to meet the challenges and opportunities in the multiple dimensions of contemporary agricultural, environmental, and sustainability science disciplines. Specifically, the AESS program targets students wishing to pursue a graduate degree with the intention of entering the work force and contributing their expertise towards sustainable agriculture, stewardship of natural resources and ecosystem services, or the development of sustainable systems in general. This multidisciplinary degree program is designed to provide a rigorous applied and theoretical education in the natural and social sciences with emphasis on the causes and consequences of land use change and other anthropogenic and natural forces across Texas coastal watersheds and beyond. Students graduating from the program will be prepared to take on decision-making positions in a wide range of governmental agencies and NGOs. Students can expect a broad set of science careers, within and beyond academia, including private and public sector organizations concerned with agriculture, environmental conditions, or sustainability, or which recognize that food systems, watersheds, biodiversity, and functional ecosystems are fundamentally important to our societies.

Admission Requirements

To be admitted to the graduate program, prospective candidates must first meet all requirements for graduate admission to UT Rio Grande Valley, as well as the other requirements listed below:

  1. Bachelor's degree from a regionally accredited institution in the United States or a recognized international equivalent in a similar or related field.
  2. Undergraduate GPA of at least 3.0 in the last 60 semester credit hours.
  3. GRE General Test. GRE test scores are valid for 5 years. A waiver of the GRE requirement will be granted to applicants who show proof of completing a graduate degree (master’s or doctoral).

Application for admission must be submitted prior to the published deadline. The application is available at www.utrgv.edu/gradapply.

Program Requirements

Required Core Courses - 4 Hours

EEMS 6100Systems Science and Applications Seminar

1

EEMS 6300Ecosystem Management and Social-Ecological Resilliency

3

Required Electives - 6 Hours

Students must take two of the three courses listed. The third, if taken, will count as a Restricted Elective - Group 1

EEMS 6305Advanced Sustainable Agriculture

3

EEMS 6332/PAFF 6332Environmental Policy

3

EEMS 6350Novel Ecosystems & Built Environments

3

Restricted Electives – Group 1 - 8 to 20 Hours

EEMS 5360Soil Science Conservation

3

EEMS 5365Integrated Pest Management

3

EEMS 6199Systems Science Issues and Applications Seminar

1

EEMS 6310Coastal and Deltaic Processes

3

EEMS 6320Biogeochemistry

3

EEMS 6330Hydrologic Systems

3

EEMS 6355Environmental Geophysics I

3

EEMS 6360Food Science

3

EEMS 6365Nanotechnologies for Food and Agriculture

3

EEMS 6385Graduate Research

3

EEMS 6390Graduate Internship

3

EEMS 6391Supervised Teaching

3

ENVR 5301Conservation of Natural Resources

3

ENVR 5350Environmental Planning and Permitting

3

ENVR 6350Environmental Management

3

ENVR 6450Environmental Monitoring

4

GEOL 5401

3

BIOL 5340Statistical Ecology

3

BIOL 6305Biometry

3

BIOL 6429Advanced Agroecology

4

POLI 6301

3

Notes:

All ‘Advanced Topics’ courses in ENVR, GEOL, or MARS are included

EEMS 6385: No more than 6 hours can be counted towards the thesis track

Restricted Electives – Group 2 - 0 to 12 Hours

Approval from the Graduate Advisory Committee (GAC) is required to take the courses listed Below. Courses not on this list may be counted with the approval of the GAC or Program Coordinator.

ANTH 6314Environmental Anthropology

3

BIOL 5340Statistical Ecology

3

BIOL 5342/EEMS 5342Restoration Ecology

3

BIOL 5344Advanced Mammalogy

3

BIOL 5346Advanced Aquatic Entomology

3

BIOL 5388Advanced Global Change Ecology

3

BIOL 5403Advanced Remote Sensing Technology

4

BIOL 5404Advanced Ichthyology

4

BIOL 5405Advanced Plant Physiology

4

BIOL 5407Plant Ecology

4

BIOL 5408Advanced Plant Pathology

4

BIOL 5409Advanced Herpetology

4

BIOL 5412Advanced Ornithology

4

BIOL 5422Conservation Biology

4

BIOL 5424Advanced Microbial Ecology

4

BIOL 5426/MARS 5426Advanced Marine Ecology

4

BIOL 5427/MARS 5427Coastal Ecology

4

BIOL 5452/MARS 5452Advanced Marine Zoology

4

BIOL 6303Advanced Ecology

3

BIOL 6308Plant-Microbe Interactions

3

BIOL 6321Applied Microbiology

3

BIOL 6404Fish Ecology

4

BIOL 6412Subtropical Ornithology

4

BIOL 6420Plant Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

4

CHEM 6302Environmental Chemistry

3

ENGR 6301

3

MARS 5410/BIOL 5410Marine Plant Science

4

SOCI 6306Multiple Regression Analysis

3

Capstone Requirement

Thesis - 6 Hours

EEMS 7300Thesis I

3

EEMS 7301Thesis II

3

Thesis Defense

Non-Thesis

EEMS 6386Non-thesis Research

3

EEMS 6390Graduate Internship

3

Total Credit Hours: 36