Our Mission

CERC's two-part mission is to build environmental leadership and to solve complex problems, in order to stem the loss of biological diversity and achieve environmental sustainability. CERC is a consortium of five world-renowned scientific institutions. It is headquartered at Columbia University and is part of the Earth Institute.

Letter from the Directors,
Shahid Naeem and Nancy Degnan

In January 2007, CERC's governing board agreed to a joint management model for CERC's education, training and research programs. The governing board supported Shahid Naeem becoming the newly created director of science (stepping down from his role as interim executive director) and Nancy Degnan becoming the executive director (stepping up from her role as associate director).  [more]