Environmental Sciences Ph.D. Program

Research in Environmental Sciences

Research projects in the Environmental Sciences Ph.D. program cover a diverse range of interdisciplinary topics in the core areas of environmental biology, chemistry and earth science. Many of the faculty research projects involve collaborative efforts among program faculty as well as with scientists external to Wright State, offering you in-depth research in cutting-edge environmental science. 

Research Areas

The major thrusts of our program are summarized in the following areas of excellence, in which you would focus your dissertation research: 

Environmental Biology: Genes, Organisms and Ecosystems

  • Chemical, physiological, population, community, landscape and ecosystem ecology 
  • Conservation biology and ecological restoration 
  • Microbial ecology 
  • Ecological and environmental genomics 
  • Population and evolutionary genetics 
  • Stress physiology 
  • Environmental toxicology 

Environmental Earth Science

  • Watershed processes 
  • Hydrogeology 
  • Environmental geochemistry 
  • Chemical oceanography 
  • Environmental geophysics 
  • Environmental stressors 
  • Ecotoxicology and risk assessment 
  • Environmental health sciences 

Environmental Chemistry

  • Analytical environmental chemistry 
  • Chemistry of mineral-water interfaces 
  • Aqueous geochemistry 
  • Development of environmentally friendly chromatographic methods 
  • Development of microscopy techniques for applications in surface chemistry and materials science 

Environmental Complexity

  • Non-traditional approaches to ecosystem analysis 
  • Nonlinear dynamics of natural systems 
  • Biological-physical coupling 
  • Emergent phenomena and biocomplexity 
  • Self-affine time series analysis and prediction 
  • Agent-based modeling 
  • Environmental applications of percolation theory 

Environmental Physics

  • Environmental geophysics 
  • Spectroscopy, chemical physics, remote sensing, atmospheric physics 
  • Radio frequency and terahertz sensor science and technology, solid-state physics and engineering