Integrative Conservation - PhD

At the beginning of the 21st century, as global environmental change proceeds at an unprecedented pace, the practice of conservation is adapting to a complex set of new challenges. The conservation community has increasingly recognized that responding effectively to these challenges will require that the next generation of practitioners and scholars not only develop expertise in specific fields but also have the conceptual tools to work across disciplines. The University of Georgia’s Integrative Conservation (ICON) Ph.D. program is designed to meet that need by ensuring you gain disciplinary depth and learn to collaborate across disciplines and fields of practice to seek integrative solutions to complex conservation challenges.

The ICON program includes four disciplinary focuses; each one ensures that you receive rigorous theoretical and methodological training in a traditional discipline, while also working integratively at the intersections of multiple disciplines. Each disciplinary focus is offered in conjunection with a home department: Anthropology, Geography, Ecology, or Forestry and Natural Resources. 

Through mechanisms such as internships and collaborative research you will work with conservation practitioners as partners and colleagues. These experiences, along with training modules led by communications experts, will ensure that you learn to communicate effectively and strategically with those from other backgrounds and disciplines as well as with lay audiences.