The Center for the Environment is organized around four interconnected research themes and one foundational, cross-cutting theme. The most complex environmental challenges and the most exciting research needs are at the intersections of these themes.
Research themes
Addressing societal challenges
We are 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.
Summer Undergraduate Research
At WashU, undergraduate students have the opportunity to spend the summer conducting research alongside principal investigators, graduate students, and peers – working to address environmental challenges in an interdisciplinary cohort.
Research Facilities
WashU has a variety of available research facilities. Find out how they might support your work.
Featured research & stories
The hidden river: Hoeferlin on watersheds, climate change and how the river shapes St. Louis
In this video, Derek Hoeferlin describes how a highly managed system of locks and dams has transformed the river over the last century — and how that transformation affects local perceptions as well as potential responses to climate change.
Largest ice shelf in Antarctica lurches forward once or twice each day
WashU seismologist Doug Wiens discovered that unexpected movements of the Ross Ice Shelf are triggered by the sudden slipping of parts of the Whillans Ice Stream.
Movement of crops, animals played key role in domestication
Archaeologist Xinyi Liu’s field work on the Tibetan Plateau, inner Mongolia and regions across Central Asia has contributed to a better understanding of the globalization of food in deep antiquity and its biological and social consequences.