Majors & Programs

Engineering & Community Practice

New Program for Fall 2023

Degrees Offered: MS

Airport microgrid, Demi Oluwademilade Ogunwo, Steven Richards

Engineering & Community Practice is designed to develop future engineering leaders who will sustain, restore, and protect our natural resources and the environment.

The one-year M.S. in Engineering and Community Practice degree addresses state and national workforce needs and is tailored to those who wish to pursue resource management positions that require strong technological and management skills with a particular focus on interfacing and working with Indigenous and traditionally underserved communities.

The program includes an engineering design concentration, an engineering professional development component, coursework that explicitly address environmental justice, Indigenous sovereignty, tribal history and law, environmental sustainability, natural resource  economics, and a capstone project. 

Possible areas of concentration include: Clean and Renewable Energy Systems, Aquatic Restoration, and Watershed Protection and Management. Potential partnerships for projects would focus on traditionally underserved communities such as our local tribes. 

Learning Outcomes

  • Apply engineering analysis and design to identify critical environmental resources problems and solutions aimed at restoring and sustaining the global environment and assist communities who depend on access to natural resources.
  • Demonstrate a command of skills necessary to practice engineering research and design with Native nations and communities and advocate for strategies that facilitate collaboration with tribal nations in mutually-beneficial environmental management practices that are free from discrimination and that foreground the protection of sacred and historical sites.
  • Critique and conduct the engineering design process with knowledge of historical and contemporary struggles for social justice and recognition of the diversity of human cultures and experiences.
  • To use discipline conventions to communicate to diverse audiences the results of their analysis of a critical natural resource engineering and management problem focused on engaging Tribal partners expertise in their selected specialty through their master’s thesis or project and be able to identify how their work will contribute to the field.

Careers

Graduates of the program will be on track to become Professional Engineers who wish to pursue engineering and resource management positions that require strong technological and management skills with a particular focus on interfacing and working with indigenous and traditionally under-served communities. Students with an ABET accredited BS degree and having passed the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam to become Engineers In Training (EITs) also receive one year of experience credit towards their Professional Engineering (PE) licensing by completing an MS. Thus, a one-year course and project-based MS is the desired graduate degree for students intending professional practice as engineers in the private, government or non-profit sectors. In fact, for many positions, the MS is considered the entry-level degree.

  • Environmental Engineer
  • Water Resources Engineer
  • River Restoration
  • Renewable Energy Systems Planning
  • Design and Development
826-3619
HGH 119

Degrees & Requirements

More Information

Eileen Cashman, Professor and Department Chair of Environmental Resources Engineering
eileen.cashman@humboldt.edu
707-826-5776

Cutcha Baldy Risling, Associate Professor and Department Chair of Native American Studies
crislingbaldy@humboldt.edu
707-826-4322

Margaret Lang, Professor of Environmental Resources Engineering
mml1@humboldt.edu
707-826-3613