“We need Joy as we need air. We need Love as we need water. We need each other as we need the earth we share.”

Maya Angelou

The mission of the Environment and Sustainability Studies (ENV) Program is to prepare students to create just and sustainable futures. By leveraging the experiential learning of liberal arts education and coupling it with our vibrant professional schools, we teach students how to think across disciplinary boundaries to address environmental challenges and to act within their communities for environmental justice. We ready students to be bold and ethical leaders who respond to environmental issues using socio-environmental synthesis for evidence-based, creative, and principled action.

Click to view ENV/Sustainability Jobs

Upcoming Events

Check out upcoming program-related events at Wake Forest below.


New Deac Week Open House for the Environment and Sustainability Studies Program

Come and find out about our two majors and two minors, and meet faculty. Our open house will be in Palmer Hall from 3-5 p.m. on Wednesday, August 21st. We look forward to seeing you there.

Click to view full Wake Forest Events Calendar

News

  • ENV Program welcomes new faculty
    As we wind down the summer and prepare to begin the 2024-2025 academic year, we are happy to welcome three new faculty members to the ENV team and send off Dr. Sames on new adventures. Dr. Leslie Straker has joined us from the WFU Graduate Program in Sustainability.  He has coastal expertise in natural and […]
  • Picture of Julie Velasquez
    Velásquez Runk published in Forest History Today
    Dr. Julie Velásquez Runk, Director, Professor & Weigl Fellow of Environment and Sustainability Studies, has published “Rosewood: Centuries of Global Exploitation” in Forest History Today.
  • Climate Risk Mapping
    by Ella Gay (’24). I was initially drawn to this internship because of the environmental research aspect that it seemed to offer. As a biology major interested in research and an environmental studies minor looking to explore the effects of climate change, it seemed like a perfect fit. I feel like my three years of […]
  • The transformation of Alto de Cuba into a solar community.
    Bioregionalism addresses climate change, environmental justice, colonialism, and globalization.
    By Luis M. Bou (’25). Thanks to my summer fellowship, I was able to research this summer in Adjuntas, Puerto Rico about bioregionalism and how it addresses the struggles and crises that humanity is living right now in the midst of climate change. I was able to navigate the ideas of re-learning, live-in-place, re-inhabitation, and […]
  • Bat work in the Peruvian Amazon
    By Matthew Kline (’24). This past summer, I spent over seven weeks at a research station in the Peruvian Amazon gaining hands-on research experience.  Most of my work was with bats, but I was also able to assist the bird, herp, caiman, and mammal teams with their research.  I learned how to set up and […]