The major and minor in climate and environmental studies prepares students for a wide range of career options including law, business, public health, urban planning, public policy, green finance, consulting, the media, arts, education, research, and more.
Law and policy. One prominent pathway is to pursue a career in environmental law and policy. Jobs include working in law firms, in government and regulatory positions, in elected offices, and on the staff of elected officials. Vanderbilt’s Law School has a strong group of environmental law and policy faculty, and there are events every semester that are open to undergraduates.
Business and management. Another prominent pathway is to work in environmental management in the private sector. Many businesses, even if they are not in the green sector, have environmental management offices and sustainability initiatives. There are also green businesses, which need employees in all areas of the enterprise, from marketing and personnel to finance and strategy. Green businesses are particularly prominent in the renewable energy, energy efficiency, food, recycling, transportation, and finance industries. There are also many consulting companies focused on environmental issues. Students interested in this area often join the organization Net Impact.
Health. Some students choose to work at the interface of environment and health. This career can go in the direction of the natural sciences, such as the study of toxicology, or toward public health careers, such as a Master of Public Health degree.
Advocacy and education. Students interested in advocacy may end up in the nonprofit sector working for an environmental organization, or they may work in secondary or college education. Vanderbilt’s Peabody College has a number of resources for students interested in an education career.
Alumni Stories
Ellie Crone works as a Research Associate at the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) in Washington, DC. At ELI, Ellie’s work spans a range of environmental law and policy research topics, including judicial education on climate science, plastics and toxics, nature-based solutions in the Mississippi River Basin, and state and local environmental governance. She previously interned at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions.
Ellie’s passion for environmental policy was shaped during her time at Vanderbilt, where she worked as a Research Assistant at the Vanderbilt Drinking Water Justice Lab and the Vanderbilt Climate, Health, and Energy Equity Lab and completed an honors thesis on youth-led climate litigation.
Jason Hwong was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship towards his doctoral research on sodium-ion batteries. Jason is pursuing this work as a member of Professor Will Chueh’s Materials Science & Engineering Lab at Stanford University, where his research is motivated by both intellectual curiosity and the renewable transitions potential of his work.
Sodium-ion batteries present a potentially more affordable grid-scale and EV complement to current lithium-ion batteries. After graduating from Vanderbilt, and before starting at Stanford, Jason spent six months as a visiting researcher at the University of Sydney studying zero-carbon polymers and plasma electrochemical synthesis to replace some of the most polluting industrial chemical processes.
Danait Issac was awarded a full-tuition scholarship as an AnBryce Scholar at NYU Law School. There, she will prepare for a career in public interest environmental law, focusing on community-driven climate solutions and advocating for sustainable policies that support communities in building healthier, more self-determined futures. Her upcoming legal work is deeply informed by her two years as a community manager at Girl +Environment, a grassroots nonprofit dedicated to empowering Black and Brown women to take climate action.
Sophie Lopez works for the Alabama-based startup Nyad, where she is helping build practical, operator-focused tools to help wastewater treatment plant operators better understand the microbiology of their systems. This current work builds on her work at Vanderbilt, where she conducted glacial geology research in Professor Dan Morgan’s lab, research that took her to both Colorado and Antarctica, served as a teaching assistant for Professor Zee Tzankova, and travelled to Zambia as a Nichols Humanitarian Service Project Scholar, where she assisted communities in developing waste reduction programs through ecobricking and other innovative approaches.
Hannah Testa is embarking on the next step in her environmental career at the Yale School of the Environment, where she is starting master's work in fall 2026. While visiting Yale, Hannah was delighted to reconnect with Vandy alum and current YSE student Davis Recht, who showed her around New Haven, and answered all of Hannah's questions about the master’s program.
Hannah’s upcoming work will build on knowledge and commitments she built at Vanderbilt, where she served in the student environmental group SPEAR, co-founded a Vanderbilt chapter of a nationwide food waste reduction organization, and also actively engaged in climate and environmental advocacy and activism through an internship with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, where she conducted environmental justice research on waste management systems, and through thousands of environmental volunteer hours in her role as a Vanderbilt Ingram Scholar.