Departmental Unit № 1
Department of Environmental Sciences
PhD in Environmental Sciences
100% Full Funding Guaranteed (5 Years)
Funding Package: Full tuition and fee remission + 12-month living stipend (~$36,000–$40,000/yr) + comprehensive UC Student Health Insurance Plan (UC SHIP) guaranteed for 5 years through Dean's Fellowships, GSR, and TA lines.
Fall Priority Deadline: January 5 (Fall Priority)
GRE Policy: Not required / Waived
English Minimums: TOEFL iBT 80 or IELTS 7.0
MS in Environmental Sciences (Thesis Track)
Eligible for GSR/TA Funding (Target PhD for Guaranteed Multi-year)
Funding Reality: Faculty with active federal grants regularly support thesis MS candidates as Graduate Student Researchers (GSR).
Application Deadline: January 5
Admissions Advisory: If full funding is required and MS is self-funded, students are strongly advised to apply directly to the PhD track.
Vetted Matched Scholars (2 Profiles)
Prof. Jay Gan
Distinguished Professor of Environmental Chemistry
In Plain Terms · What This Scholar Does:
He measures how poisonous pesticides and microplastics travel from farm soil into irrigation water and crops, finding natural biochar charcoal treatments that absorb the toxins.
Core Research Topics: Environmental chemistry, pesticide fate and transport, emerging organic contaminants, microplastics pollution, biochar water remediation.
Recent 2024–2026 Works & Grants: Quantifying the environmental fate, plant uptake, and bioaccessibility of PFAS, synthetic pyrethroids, and microplastic-associated additives in agricultural soils and recycled irrigation water (USDA NIFA / NSF 2024–2026).
Laboratory Instruments & Methods: Solid-phase microextraction (SPME), HPLC-MS/MS, GC-MS/MS, radioactive isotope tracers, sorption-desorption isotherms.
Recruiting Context: Distinguished Professor, AAAS Fellow, highly cited world leader in environmental organic chemistry.
Candidate Match:
Environmental PollutionWater QualityWet Lab Environmental TestingSoil & Groundwater Contamination
Tailored Cold-Email Opening Hook:
"Discussing your interest in emerging contaminant environmental fate, pesticide bioavailability, and analytical mass spectrometry in the Gan Lab."
Prof. Hoori Ajami
Associate Professor of Groundwater Hydrology
In Plain Terms · What This Scholar Does:
She uses supercomputers to build 3D virtual models of mountain ranges to calculate how much snowmelt soaks deep into underground aquifers versus how much evaporates into the sky.
Core Research Topics: Catchment hydrology, integrated hydrologic modeling, mountain block groundwater recharge, semi-arid water resources, remote sensing of soil moisture.
Recent 2024–2026 Works & Grants: Developing physics-based integrated surface-subsurface hydrologic models (ParFlow-CLM) to evaluate how multi-year California megadroughts deplete mountain bedrock groundwater storage and reduce downstream river baseflow (NSF Hydrologic Sciences 2024–2026).
Laboratory Instruments & Methods: ParFlow, CLM, HydroGeoSphere, Python, High-Performance Computing (HPC), GIS, satellite soil moisture (SMAP).
Recruiting Context: Expert in catchment hydrologic modeling and groundwater recharge in water-scarce regions.
Candidate Match:
HydrologyEnvironmental ModelingGISWater Quality
Tailored Cold-Email Opening Hook:
"Discussing your interest in integrated surface-subsurface hydrologic modeling, mountain recharge dynamics, and ParFlow simulations in the Ajami Lab."