Department of Environmental Science and Policy (ESP)

Around the world, environmental crises are making headlines, from the potential extinction of species and ecosystems to climate change. Students in George Mason University’s Department of Environmental Science and Policy (ESP) are driven to make a change.
This year five PhD students in the department received grants from the Cosmos Club Foundation to tackle a wide range of conservation efforts.

Saving an endangered species is possible, but it takes a village. Conservationists, including three George Mason University alumni working at the Smithsonian and a current student, are part of the team at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) and the Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation (SMSC) working to ensure red pandas move off the endangered list.

How do you combat an overabundance of algae? Create a floating biological island.
That’s what freshman Kennedy Ream did after attending the Washington Youth Summit on the Environment (WYSE) hosted by George Mason University, the National Geographic Society and the Smithsonian’s National Zoo as a high schooler in 2018.