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MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative
Sustainability Courses
Build your knowledge and grow your skills
Below is a collection of MIT graduate level sustainability courses that count towards the Sustainability Certificate elective requirements. While course details are provided, please be sure to verify course dates, times, and credits in the MIT course registration system, as updates may occur that are not immediately reflected on this page.
Approved courses from academic year 2024 and 2025:
Course Title
1.076
Carbon Management
Fall
| 12 Cr.
Carbon Management
Fall
12 Cr.
Fall 2023 | Introduces the carbon cycle and "climate solutions" + provides specialized knowledge to manage and offset carbon emissions for government entities and large corporations through nature-based solutions and technology.
Faculty: C Terrer
MW1-2.30 + Lab: F2-4
1.713J
12.834J
Land-Atmosphere Interactions
Spring
| 12 Cr.
Land-Atmosphere Interactions
Spring
12 Cr.
12.834J
Spring 2025 | Topics include the exchange of mass, heat and momentum between the soil, vegetation or water surface and the overlying atmosphere; flux and transport in the turbulent boundary layer; and coupled balance of moisture and energy.
Faculty: D. Entekhabi
MW 3:00 - 5:30 PM
1.760
Carbon Management
Spring
| 12 Cr.
Carbon Management
Spring
12 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Introduces the carbon cycle and "climate solutions." Provides specialized knowledge to manage and offset carbon emissions for government entities and large corporations through nature-based solutions and technology. Students prepare a mini-project simulating the assessment of practices and technologies for removing carbon dioxide from the air for a specific organization, which prepares them to become professionals with the skills to help evaluate and manage carbon emissions.
Faculty: C. Terrer
MW 1:00 - 2:30 PM; Rec F 2:00 - 4:00 PM
1.800
Chemicals in the Environment
Spring
| 12 Cr.
Chemicals in the Environment
Spring
12 Cr.
Spring 2025 |*Pre-Req of Chemistry* Introduction to environmental chemistry, focusing on the fate of chemicals in both natural and engineered systems. Covers equilibrium reactions (e.g., partitioning, dissolution/precipitation, acid-base, redox, metal complexation), and kinetically-controlled reactions (e.g., photolysis, free radical oxidation). Specific environmental topics covered include heavy metals in natural waters, drinking water, and soils; biogeochemical cycles; radioactivity in the environment; smog formation; greenhouse gases and climate change; and engineering for the prevention and remediation of pollution. Students taking the graduate version complete additional assignments.
Faculty: STAFF TBA
MF 1 - 2:30 PM
1.834J
2.834J
Exploring Sustainability at Different Scales
Fall
| 12 Cr.
Exploring Sustainability at Different Scales
Fall
12 Cr.
2.834J
Fall 2024 | Develops environmental accounting tools including energy, carbon, materials, land use, and possibly others, from small scales (e.g., products and processes) to larger scales, (e.g., companies, nations and global) to reveal how reoccurring human behavior patterns have dominated environmental outcomes. Involves visiting experts and readings in areas such as ethics, economics, governance, and development to frame core issues in human relationship to the environment and future societies. Explores how local actions, including engineering interventions and behavior change, play out at larger scales associated with the concept of sustainability, and how local actions may be modified to realize sustainability. Class is participatory and includes an exploratory project. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments. Limited to 25.
Faculty: T. Gutowski
MW 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm
1.845
Introduction to the Terrestrial Carbon Cycle and Ecosystem Ecology
Spring
| 12 Cr.
Introduction to the Terrestrial Carbon Cycle and Ecosystem Ecology
Spring
12 Cr.
Spring 2024 | Introduces the terrestrial carbon cycle in a climate change context, with a focus on ecosystem ecology and biogeochemistry. Discussion-based seminars followed by practical classes to solve climate-related questions.
Faculty: C. Terrer
MF 2:30PM - 4:00PM, LAB 1:00PM - 3:00PM
1.878J
22.78J
Nuclear Energy and the Environment: Waste, Effluents, and Accidents
Spring
| 12 Cr.
Nuclear Energy and the Environment: Waste, Effluents, and Accidents
Spring
12 Cr.
22.78J
Spring 2025 | Introduces the essential knowledge for understanding nuclear waste management. Includes material flow sheets for nuclear fuel cycle, waste characteristics, sources of radioactive wastes, compositions, radioactivity and heat generation, chemical processing technologies, geochemistry, waste disposal technologies, environmental regulations and the safety assessment of waste disposal. Covers different types of wastes: uranium mining waste, low-level radioactive waste, high-level radioactive waste and fusion waste. Provides the quantitative methods to compare the environmental impact of different nuclear and other energy-associated waste. (Also offered in the Fall)
Faculty: H. Wainwright
MW 1:00 - 2:30 PM
1.C51
1.C01
Machine Learning for Sustainable Systems
Spring
| 6 Cr.
Machine Learning for Sustainable Systems
Spring
6 Cr.
1.C01
Spring 2025 | Students learn to leverage heterogeneous data from urban services, cities, and the environment, and apply machine learning methods to evaluate and/or improve sustainability solutions
Professor: S. Amin
Lecture: F 11:00 AM, Lab: F 12:00PM
10.817
1.84
Atmospheric Chemistry
Fall
| 12 Cr.
Atmospheric Chemistry
Fall
12 Cr.
1.84
Fall 2024 | Provides a detailed overview of the chemical transformations that control the abundances of key trace species in the Earth's atmosphere. Emphasizes the effects of human activity on air quality and climate. Topics include photochemistry, kinetics, and thermodynamics important to the chemistry of the atmosphere; stratospheric ozone depletion; oxidation chemistry of the troposphere; photochemical smog; aerosol chemistry; and sources and sinks of greenhouse gases and other climate forcers.
Faculty: J. Kroll
T Th 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
10.986
Seminar in Energy Systems
Fall
| 6 Cr.
Seminar in Energy Systems
Fall
6 Cr.
Fall 2024 | Seminar series on current research on energy systems modeling and analysis.
Faculty: R. C. Armstrong
T 12:30 - 2:30 PM
11.255
Negotiation and Dispute Resolution in the Public Sector
Spring
| 12 Cr.
Negotiation and Dispute Resolution in the Public Sector
Spring
12 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Investigates social conflict and distributional disputes in the public sector. While theoretical aspects of conflict and consensus building are considered, focus is on the practice of negotiation and dispute resolution. Comparisons between unassisted and assisted negotiation are reviewed along with the techniques of facilitation and mediation.
Faculty: L. Susskind
T;Th 3:30-5:30 PM
11.258
Sustainable Urbanization Research Seminar
Fall
| 3 Cr.
Sustainable Urbanization Research Seminar
Fall
3 Cr.
Fall 2024 | Reviews the seminal as well as latest research on the driving forces of urbanization, real estate markets, urban sustainability in both developed and developing economies. Examines the tensions as well as synergies between urbanization and sustainability, and designs and evaluates policies and business strategies that can enhance the synergies while reduce the tensions. Covers various research topics under the umbrella of urbanization under three modules (sustainable urbanization; sustainable real estate; urbanization in emerging economies) where students study the initiation of an idea to its publication, including but not limited to, analyzing, framing, writing and critiquing as parts of the process. Sessions are organized as a semi-structured dialogue.
Faculty: S. Zheng
M 12:30 pm - 2:00 pm
11.265
Topics on Housing Finance and Social Equity
Spring
| 6 Cr.
Topics on Housing Finance and Social Equity
Spring
6 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Examines the challenges facing communities of color around home-buying opportunities and access to quality rental housing. Introduces the central institutions in the field of housing finance, provides a review of past housing finance policy, and explores how future policy could advance social equity and climate resilience. Guest speakers include leaders in the field from government, nonprofits, and industry.
Faculty: J. Steil, E. Golding
T;Th 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
11.268
Laws of the Land: Land Use and Environmental Law and Policy
Fall
| 6 Cr.
Laws of the Land: Land Use and Environmental Law and Policy
Fall
6 Cr.
Fall 2024 | H1 Environmental justice and climate change are pressing contemporary concerns. Crucial dimensions of the exposure of households to environmental harms and benefits are determined by land use and environmental laws. Land use and environmental laws are also central to reducing carbon emissions and building environmentally sustainable and resilient communities. Introduces students to the legal and social science dimension of these two crucial areas of law that is well-covered in the current curriculum. Enrollment limited to 30.
Faculty: J. Steil
T TH 1:30 pm - 3:00 pm
11.271
Indigenous Environmental Planning
Spring
| 12 Cr.
Indigenous Environmental Planning
Spring
12 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Examines how Indigenous peoples' relationships to their homelands and local environments has been adversely affected by Western planning. Explores how these relationships have changed over time as American Indians, Alaska Natives, and other groups indigenous to North America and Hawai'i have adapted to new conditions, including exclusion from markets of exchange, overhunting/overfishing, dispossession, petrochemical development, conservation, mainstream environmentalism, and climate change. Seeks to understand current environmental challenges and their roots and discover potential solutions to address these challenges.
Faculty: L. Susskind, J. Knox-Hayes, J. Pierite
W 9:30 AM - 12:30 PM
11.308J
4.213J
Ecological Urbanism Seminar
Spring
| 12 Cr.
Ecological Urbanism Seminar
Spring
12 Cr.
4.213J
Spring 2024 |Examines the urban environment as a natural phenomenon, human habitat, medium of expression, and forum for action
Faculty: A. Spirn
M 2:00 - 5:00PM
11.350
Sustainable Real Estate: Analysis and Investment
Spring
| 12 Cr.
Sustainable Real Estate: Analysis and Investment
Spring
12 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Offers insight into tension and synergy between sustainability and the real estate industry. Considers why sustainability matters for real estate, how real estate can contribute to sustainability and remain profitable, and what investment and market opportunities exist for sustainable real estate products and how they vary across asset classes. Lectures combine economic and business insights and tools to understand the challenges and opportunities of sustainable real estate. Provides a framework to understand issues in sustainability in real estate and examine economic mechanisms, technological advances, business models, and investment and financing strategies available to promote sustainability. Discusses buildings as basic physical assets; cities as the context where buildings interact with the built environment, policies, and urban systems; and portfolios as sustainable real estate investment vehicles in capital markets.
Faculty: S. Zheng
T;Th 9:30 - 11:00 AM / Rec W 6:30 - 8:00 PM
11.367
Land Use Law and Politics: Race, Place, and Law
Spring
| 12 Cr.
Land Use Law and Politics: Race, Place, and Law
Spring
12 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Explores conceptions of spatial justice and introduces students to basic principles of US law and legal analysis, focused on land use, equal protection, civil rights, fair housing, and local government law, in order to examine who should control how land is used. Examines the rights of owners of land and the types of regulatory and market-based tools that are available to control land use. Explores basic principles of civil rights and anti-discrimination law and focuses on particular civil rights problems associated with the land use regulatory system, such as exclusionary zoning, residential segregation, the fair distribution of undesirable land uses, and gentrification. Introduces basic skills of statutory drafting and interpretation.
Faculty: J. Steil
Th 3:30 - 5:00 PM
11.368
Environmental Justice: Law and Policy
Fall
| 12 Cr.
Environmental Justice: Law and Policy
Fall
12 Cr.
Fall 2023 | Introduces frameworks for analyzing and addressing inequalities in the distribution of environmental benefits and burdens, particularly by race and by class.
Faculty: Steil
Th 2-5
11.371J
1.818J
Sustainable Energy
Fall
| 12 Cr.
Sustainable Energy
Fall
12 Cr.
1.818J
Fall 2023 | Assessment of current and potential future energy systems. Covers resources, extraction, conversion, and end-use technologies, with emphasis on meeting 21st-century regional and global energy needs in a sustainable manner.
Faculty: Golay, Friedberg
11.382
Water Diplomacy: The Science, Policy, and Politics of Managing Shared Resources
Spring
| 12 Cr.
Water Diplomacy: The Science, Policy, and Politics of Managing Shared Resources
Spring
12 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Examines the history and dynamics of international environmental treaty-making, or what is called environmental diplomacy. Emphasizes climate change and other atmospheric, marine resource, global waste management and sustainability-related treaties and the problems of implementing them. Reviews the legal, economic, and political dynamics of managing shared resources, involving civil society on a global basis, and enforcing transboundary agreements. Focuses especially on principles from international relations, international law, environmental management, and negotiation theory as they relate to common-pool resource management.
Faculty: L. Susskind
11.449
Decarbonizing Urban Mobility
Spring
| 12 Cr.
Decarbonizing Urban Mobility
Spring
12 Cr.
Spring 2024 | Focus on measuring and reducing emissions from passenger transportation, primarily in urban areas, using multidisciplinary approaches.
Faculty: Salzberg
W 2:00PM-5:00PM
11.474
EC.715
D-Lab: Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene
Spring
| 12 Cr.
D-Lab: Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene
Spring
12 Cr.
EC.715
Spring 2024 | Focuses on disseminating Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) innovations in low-income countries and underserved communities worldwide. Structured around project-based learning, lectures, discussions, and student-led tutorials. Emphasizes core WASH principles, appropriate and sustainable technologies at household and community scales, urban challenges worldwide, culture-specific solutions, lessons from start-ups, collaborative partnerships, and social marketing. Mentored term project entails finding and implementing a viable solution focused on education/training; a technology, policy or plan; a marketing approach; and/or behavior change. Guest lecturers present case studies, emphasizing those developed and disseminated by MIT faculty, practitioners, students, and alumni. Field trips scheduled during class time, with optional field trips on weekends. Limited to 20.
Faculty: S. E. Murcott, S. L. Hsu
T 12:00PM - 3:00PM
11.474
EC.715
D-Lab: Water, Sanitation and Hygiene
Spring
| 12 Cr.
D-Lab: Water, Sanitation and Hygiene
Spring
12 Cr.
EC.715
Spring 2025 | Focuses on disseminating Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) innovations in low-income countries and underserved communities worldwide. Structured around project-based learning, lectures, discussions, and student-led tutorials. Emphasizes core WASH principles, appropriate and sustainable technologies at household and community scales, urban challenges worldwide, culture-specific solutions, lessons from start-ups, collaborative partnerships, and social marketing. Mentored term project entails finding and implementing a viable solution focused on education/training; a technology, policy or plan; a marketing approach; and/or behavior change. Guest lecturers present case studies, emphasizing those developed and disseminated by MIT faculty, practitioners, students, and alumni. Field trips scheduled during class time, with optional field trips on weekends.
Faculty: S. Murcott, S. Hsu
T 12:00 - 3:00 PM
11.477J
1.286
Urban Energy Systems and Policy
Fall
| 12 Cr.
Urban Energy Systems and Policy
Fall
12 Cr.
1.286
Fall 2024 | Examines key issues in the current and future development of urban energy systems, such as technology, use, behavior, regulation, climate change, and lack of access or energy poverty.
Faculty: M. Harkavy
M 5:30 pm - 8:30 pm
11.526J
1.251J
Comparative Land Use and Transportation Planning
Spring
| 12 Cr.
Comparative Land Use and Transportation Planning
Spring
12 Cr.
1.251J
Spring 2025 | Focuses on the integration of land use and transportation planning, drawing from cases in both industrialized and developing countries. Highlights how land use and transportation influence the social organization of cities, assigning privileges to certain groups and segregating or negating access to the city to other groups. Covers topics such as accessibility; the use of data, algorithms, and bias; travel demand and travel behavior; governance; transit-oriented development; autonomous vehicles; transportation and real estate; and social, environmental, and health implications of land use and transportation. Develops students' skills to assess relevant policies, interventions, and impacts.
Faculty: F. Duarte
M 9:00 - 12:00 PM
11.540
Urban Transportation Planning and Policy
Fall
| 12 Cr.
Urban Transportation Planning and Policy
Fall
12 Cr.
Fall 2024 | Examines the tensions and potential synergies among traditional transportation policy values of individual mobility, system efficiency and “sustainability”
Faculty: J. Aloisi
F 2:00 - 5:00 PM
11.547J
SCM.287J
Global Aging & the Built Environment
Spring
| 12 Cr.
Global Aging & the Built Environment
Spring
12 Cr.
SCM.287J
Spring 2025 | Combines classroom lectures/discussion, readings, site visits, and field study to provide students with experience in various research techniques including stakeholder analysis, interviewing, photography and image analysis, focus groups, etc. Students examine the impacts of global demographic transition, when there are more older than younger people in a population, and explore emerging challenges in the built environment (e.g., age-friendly community planning, public transportation access, acceptance of driverless cars, social wellbeing and connectivity, housing and community design, design and use of public and private spaces, and the public health implications of climate change and aging).
Faculty: J. Coughlin
F 2:00 - 5:00 PM
11.592
Renewable Energy Facility Siting Clinic
Spring
| 12 Cr.
Renewable Energy Facility Siting Clinic
Spring
12 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Presents methods for resolving facility siting disputes, particularly those involving renewable energy. After completing four modules and a competency exam for MITx certification, students work in teams to help client communities in various cities around the United States. Through direct interactions with the proponents and opponents of facilities subject to local opposition, students complete a stakeholder assessment and offer joint fact-finding and collaborative problem-solving assistance. The political, legal, financial, and regulatory aspects of facility siting, particularly for renewable energy, are reviewed along with key infrastructure planning principles.
Faculty: L. Susskind, J. Chun
F 3:00 - 5:00 PM
11.601
Intro to Environmental Policy and Planning
Fall
| 12 Cr.
Intro to Environmental Policy and Planning
Fall
12 Cr.
Fall 2024 | Basics of international development from planning perspective. Integrated socio-economic and environmental approach.
Faculty: Susskind
T Th 3:00 - 4:30 pm
11.701
Intro to International Development Planning
Fall
| 12 Cr.
Intro to International Development Planning
Fall
12 Cr.
Fall 2024 | Studies interactions between planners and institutions at different scales, from local to global/transnational. Emphasizes historical and institutional approaches to development planning.
B. Rajagopal
T, Th 2:30 - 4:00 pm
11.S187
11.S954
Social Carbon Economy
Fall
| 12 Cr.
Social Carbon Economy
Fall
12 Cr.
11.S954
Fall 2024 | The course explores the emerging basis of a social carbon economy and focuses on the understanding of how to integrate technology and social considerations into carbon management and emissions reduction strategies within urban areas. In an urban social carbon economy, the course will focus on efforts to reduce carbon emissions and will explore methodologies to design solutions and generate value with a focus on social equity, community well-being, and inclusive development within urban contexts.
Faculty: R. Almeida, R. Chin
T 2:00 pm - 5:00 pm
11.S938
11.S195
A Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Urban Transport Planning
Fall
| 6 Cr.
A Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Urban Transport Planning
Fall
6 Cr.
11.S195
Fall 2024 | Urban analytics draws upon statistics, visualization, and computation to better understand and ultimately shape cities. This course emphasizes telling stories about cities and neighborhoods covering a set of fundamental concepts of descriptive approaches, quantitative and spatial analysis in R, and principles of reproducible data analysis. Students learn to communicate the results of visualization and analysis for use in decision-making and policy development and to critique those processes.
Faculty: Cong
MW 10:00 - 11:30 AM
11.S941
Green Finance
Fall
| 12 Cr.
Green Finance
Fall
12 Cr.
Fall 2024 | Addressing climate change and the transition to a net zero economy will require large scale financing across multiple sectors and for a diverse set of projects. Deploying this scale of capital in a manner that also promotes greater economic and racial equity will require skilled practitioners who have the knowledge and experience to craft financing solutions at multiple scales: government policy; institutional design; program and project implementation; and advancing financial and development system change.
Faculty: J. Phillip Thompson, H. Harriel, K. Kaeufer K. Seidman
M 2:00 - 3:30 PM W 2:00 - 4:00 PM
11.S951
Joint Urban Design Workshop in China
Fall
| 6 Cr.
Joint Urban Design Workshop in China
Fall
6 Cr.
Fall 2023 | Will teach you how to evaluate a development project and practice socially responsible real estate yourself by applying SIA, EIA, and consultation methods.
Faculty: Susskind
T Th - 12:30
12.586
Modeling Environmental Complexity
Fall
| 12 Cr.
Modeling Environmental Complexity
Fall
12 Cr.
Fall 2023 | This course provides an introduction to the study of environmental phenomena that exhibit both organized structure and wide variability.
Faculty: DH Rothman
T Th 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
12.740
Paleoceanography
Spring
| 12 Cr.
Paleoceanography
Spring
12 Cr.
Spring 2024 | Studies the basic principles of techniques for reconstructing the history of ocean climate from marine sediment cores, corals, ice cores, and other paleoclimate archives. Examines this data in the light of proposed climate change mechanisms. Micropaleontological, isotopic, geochemical, and mineralogical changes are used to infer changes in seawater composition, atmospheric chemistry, and climate. Observations are interpreted as consequences of changes in ocean temperature, circulation, and chemistry, and are used to evaluate theories proposed to account for glacial/interglacial cycles. Focuses on the past two million years, but major processes and events from the past 100 million years are also included.
Faculty: E. Boyle
MWF 2:00PM
12.812
The General Circulation of the Atmosphere and Climate Change
Fall
| 9 Cr.
The General Circulation of the Atmosphere and Climate Change
Fall
9 Cr.
Fall 2024 | Pre-Req 12.810 or Permission of Instructor Describes the general circulation of Earth's atmosphere and its maintenance. Second half of the course explores the response of the general circulation to climate change.
Faculty: T. Tamarin-Brodsky
MW 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm
12.849
Mechanisms and Models of the Global Carbon Cycle
Spring
| 12 Cr.
Mechanisms and Models of the Global Carbon Cycle
Spring
12 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Addresses changes in the ocean, terrestrial biosphere and rocks modulation of atmospheric carbon dioxide on timescales from months to millions of years. Includes feedbacks between carbon cycle and climate. Combines hands-on data analysis with the formulation of simple models rooted in basic physical, chemical and biological principles. Students create individual "toy" global carbon cycle models. Students taking graduate version complete different assignments.
Faculty: M. Follows
12.860
Climate Variability and Diagnostics
Fall
| 12 Cr.
Climate Variability and Diagnostics
Fall
12 Cr.
Fall 2024 | Pre-Req Permission of Instructor Explores climate variability and change, focusing on the atmosphere and ocean, while building experience applying diagnostic analyses to a range of modern observations and models. Provides practical insight, from regional to global scale, with applications to past and future climates. Emphasizes salient features of the mean climate system and modes of natural variability, as well as observed and projected manifestations of anthropogenic climate change. Students gain experience accessing, analyzing, and visualizing a wide range of gridded observational-based datasets, as well as output from global climate model simulations. Develops the tools necessary to apply climate diagnostic analysis to one's own research, as well as the interdisciplinary edge to critically assess and interpret the observational and model results underpinning the Fifth Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Faculty: C. Ummenhofer, A. Gonzalez
T TH 2:30 pm - 4:00 pm
12.860
Climate Variability and Diagnostics
Spring
| 12 Cr.
Climate Variability and Diagnostics
Spring
12 Cr.
Spring 2024 | Explores climate variability and change, focusing on the atmosphere and ocean, while building experience applying diagnostic analyses to a range of modern observations and models. Provides practical insight, from regional to global scale, with applications to past and future climates. Emphasizes salient features of the mean climate system and modes of natural variability, as well as observed and projected manifestations of anthropogenic climate change. Students gain experience accessing, analyzing, and visualizing a wide range of gridded observational-based datasets, as well as output from global climate model simulations. Develops the tools necessary to apply climate diagnostic analysis to one's own research, as well as the interdisciplinary edge to critically assess and interpret the observational and model results underpinning the Fifth Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Faculty: M. Bittrich
Time TBA
12.885
11.373
Science, Politics and Environmental Policy
Fall
| 9 Cr.
Science, Politics and Environmental Policy
Fall
9 Cr.
11.373
Fall 2024 | Examines the role of science in US and international environmental policymaking.
Faculty: Solomon, Knox-Hayes
F 2:00-5:00 pm
14.003
Microeconomic Theory and Public Policy
Fall
| 12 Cr.
Microeconomic Theory and Public Policy
Fall
12 Cr.
Fall 2024 | Students master and apply economic theory, causal inference, and contemporary evidence to analyze policy challenges. These include the effect of minimum wages on employment, the value of healthcare, the power and limitations of free markets, the benefits and costs of international trade, the causes and remedies of externalities, the consequences of adverse selection in insurance markets, the impacts of labor market discrimination, and the application of machine learning to supplement to decision-making. Class attendance and participation are mandatory. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.
Faculty D. Autor
MW 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
14.475
Environmental Economics
Spring
| 12 Cr.
Environmental Economics
Spring
12 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Discusses theory and evidence on environmental externalities and regulatory, tax, and other government responses to problems of market failure.
Faculty: J. Moscona, B. Olken
T;Th 4:00 - 5:30 PM, F 9:00 - 10:30 AM
15.014
15.012
Applied Macro- and International Economics II
Spring
| 6 Cr.
Applied Macro- and International Economics II
Spring
6 Cr.
15.012
Spring 2025 | 15.012 (fall) 15.014 (spring) establishes understanding of the development processes of societies and economies. Studies several dimensions of sustainability (environmental, social, political, institutional, economy, organizational, relational, and personal) and the balance among them. Explores the basics of governmental intervention, focusing on areas such as the judicial system, environment, social security, and health. Builds skills to determine what type of policy is most appropriate. Considers implications of new technologies on the financial sector: internationalization of currencies, mobile payment systems, and cryptocurrencies. Discusses the institutional framework to ensure choices are sustainable across all dimensions and applications.
Faculty: R. Rigobon, A. Makarin
MW 8:30 - 10:00 AM
15.016J
Climate and Energy in the Global Economy
Spring
| 12 Cr.
Climate and Energy in the Global Economy
Spring
12 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Provides students with a comprehensive understanding of the challenges, opportunities, and policy responses to the global climate and energy crises. Discusses the role of energy in world economies, paying particular attention to low- and middle-income countries, as well as the impacts of climate change on those economies. Considers how access, cost, reliability, and environmental harm drive or hinder economic growth, the political influences on the energy sector, the impacts of climate change on low- and middle-income countries, and the role of energy in mitigating future impacts of climate change. Also discusses global climate solutions, including the role of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change process, trade policy, climate finance, business strategies to reduce emissions, and business strategies to help people adapt to a changing climate.
Faculty: C. Wolfram
MW 2:30 - 4:00 PM
15.018
Current Debates of Macroeconomics and Public Policy
Spring
| 6 Cr.
Current Debates of Macroeconomics and Public Policy
Spring
6 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Concentrates on debates about current policy challenges. Students debate and vote on policy actions on current issues in developed and developing nations. Subjects include industrial policy, macroeconomics, poverty, social safety net, labor practices, immigration and labor markets, international economics, human rights, civil rights, democracy, environmental policy, regulation, and crypto assets. Topics change from year to year.
Faculty: R. Rigobon
W 4:00 - 7:00PM
15.029J
United States Energy Policy: Lessons Learned for the Future
Fall
| 6 Cr.
United States Energy Policy: Lessons Learned for the Future
Fall
6 Cr.
Fall 2023 | Students will have the opportunity to compare the working of U.S. policies confronting a wide range of energy issues.
Faculty: J. Deutch
TF 9:30 am - 11:00 am
15.035
Energy Market Dynamics in a Decarbonizing Economy
Spring
| 6 Cr.
Energy Market Dynamics in a Decarbonizing Economy
Spring
6 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Explores how energy markets function, what changes as the world decarbonizes, and the role of new technologies in this change. Examines how market outcomes are influenced by policies, with a focus on environmental policies. Uses economic tools to analyze efficiency and public policy challenges in interconnected energy and environmental markets. Topics include how electricity markets are shaped by large-scale renewable penetration, how decarbonization policies affect different regions and socio-economic groups, measuring the social costs of climate change, and the role of critical minerals in a decarbonizing world. Students gain experience in linking theory to real-world policy problems, particularly through a team-based electricity market simulation that mirrors decision-making by market participants.
Faculty: C. Knittel
T;Th 2:30 - 4:00 PM; REC F 11:00 - 12:00 PM
15.232
Breakthrough Ventures: Effective Business Models in Frontier Markets
Spring
| 6 Cr.
Breakthrough Ventures: Effective Business Models in Frontier Markets
Spring
6 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Examines how new approaches to operations, revenue, marketing, finance, and strategy enable improved social outcomes in resource-limited settings across Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Draws on system dynamics, design thinking, and strategic analysis. Explores success and failure in attempts to innovate and scale in product and service delivery. Analysis of novel business models draws on case studies, videos, industry reports, research, and guest speakers. Students present their assessments of innovative base-of-the-pyramid enterprises that aim to do more with less. Students who have not taken at least three management or business classes must apply to the instructor for permission to enroll before the first day of class
Faculty: A. Sastry
T;TH 1:00 - 2:30 PM
15.268
Choice Points: Thinking about Life and Leadership through Literature (Restricted to Sloan Fellow MBAs)
Spring
| 9 Cr.
Choice Points: Thinking about Life and Leadership through Literature (Restricted to Sloan Fellow MBAs)
Spring
9 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Explores decision making and leadership. Analyzes the dilemmas and decisions characters face in a selection of plays, stories, and films. Provokes reflection on what constitutes effective and moral reasoning in critical moments of both life and leadership. Restricted to Sloan Fellow MBAs.
Faculty: C. Turco
F 10:00 - 12:00 PM
15.270
Ethical Practice: Leading Through Professionalism, Social Responsibility, and System Design
Spring
| 6 Cr.
Ethical Practice: Leading Through Professionalism, Social Responsibility, and System Design
Spring
6 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Introduction to ethics in business, with a focus on business management. Students explore theoretical concepts in business ethics, and cases representing the challenges they will likely face as managers. Opportunity to work with guest faculty as well as business and other professional practitioners. Individual sessions take the form of moderated discussion, with occasional short lectures from instructor.
Faculty: L. Hafrey
MW 1:00 - 2:30 PM
15.308
Leading the Way: Individual and Organizational Strategies for Advancing DE&I
Spring
| 9 Cr.
Leading the Way: Individual and Organizational Strategies for Advancing DE&I
Spring
9 Cr.
Spring 2024 | Opportunity to address both individual skills and organizational strategies for advancing equity and inclusion.
Faculty: Blackburn, Kelly
T 4:00PM-7:00PM
15.335
Organizations Lab: Leading with Impact
Spring
| 9 Cr.
Organizations Lab: Leading with Impact
Spring
9 Cr.
Spring 2024 | Experiential study of the organizational change process within the larger context of the community in which the organization resides. Exposes students to leadership exemplars in the for-profit, nonprofit, and public sectors. Examines cases of complex social dynamics in areas of housing, employment, credit, education, and criminal justice. Centers around a semester-long action learning project in which students assist a local nonprofit organization in achieving sustainable social justice objectives. Through a project identified with the nonprofit leaders, students apply their knowledge of systems and their practice of leadership to recommend an operational change that advances the mission of the organization
Faculty: Bridget Akinc
M 4:00PM - 7:00PM
15.366
Climate and Energy Ventures
Fall
| 12 Cr.
Climate and Energy Ventures
Fall
12 Cr.
Fall 2024 | Project-based approach to innovation and venture creation in the energy sector and sectors that can mitigate climate change. Explores how innovation and entrepreneurial concepts apply (or do not apply) to the significant opportunities in these industries. Working in teams, students create new ventures specifically for the energy sector or to address climate change. Lectures guide teams through key elements of their projects. 15.390 is recommended as a prerequisite.
Faculty: Hynes, O'Sullivan, Wayman, Pless
Th 5:30-8:00pm
15.376
AI for Impact: Solving Societal-Scale Problems
Spring
| 9 Cr.
AI for Impact: Solving Societal-Scale Problems
Spring
9 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Examines internal and external entrepreneurship driven by artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, aiming to utilize digital innovations that lead to societal change. Probes a range of AI-generated business models and opportunities, exploring challenges in key sectors such as digital health, sustainability, fintech, and the decentralization of society and commerce by developing sustainable and economically viable solutions. Content includes blockchain, privacy technology, data markets, and AI advancements like Web3 and distributed machine learning. Cases illustrate examples of both successful and failed businesses, as well as difficulties in deploying and diffusing products. Guest speakers provide real-world insights into entrepreneurship. As a final project, students work in teams to develop a business plan executive summary for one of the featured technologies. Enrollment is limited; please see subject website for details.
Faculty: J. Bonsen, S. Pentland, R. Raskar
Th 10:00 - 12:00 PM
15.379J
11.529J
Mobility Ventures: Driving Innovation in Transportation Systems
Fall
| 12 Cr.
Mobility Ventures: Driving Innovation in Transportation Systems
Fall
12 Cr.
11.529J
Fall 2024 | Explores technological, behavioral, policy, and systems-wide frameworks for innovation in transportation systems, complemented with case studies across the mobility spectrum, from autonomous vehicles to urban air mobility to last-mile sidewalk robots. Students interact with a series of guest lecturers from CEOs and other business and government executives who are actively reshaping the future of mobility. Interdisciplinary teams of students collaborate to deliver business plans for proposed mobility-focused startups with an emphasis on primary market research. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.
Faculty: J. Zhao, J. Moavenzadeh
M W 11:30 am - 1:00 pm
15.385
Innovating for Impact
Fall
| 6 Cr.
Innovating for Impact
Fall
6 Cr.
Fall 2024 | Provides a structured approach to innovation and entrepreneurship that creates business value while solving social and environmental problems. Covers physical domains of sustainability, e.g., waste, water, food, energy, and mobility, as well as social and human capital domains, such as health and education. Students explore case studies of critical decisions made in the early stages of an enterprise that help determine its impact. Considers perspective and tools applicable to the startup context or to new lines of business in existing enterprises.
Faculty: J. Jay
MW 2:30 - 4:00 PM
15.389
Global Entrepreneurship Lab
Fall
| 12 Cr.
Global Entrepreneurship Lab
Fall
12 Cr.
Fall 2024 | Experiential study of the climate for innovation and determinants of entrepreneurial success. Students work in teams of four with the top management of a company to address real-world business challenges. Students gain insight as to how companies build, run, and scale a new enterprise. Focuses primarily on scale-ups operating in emerging markets. Restricted to MBA students; all other graduate students by permission of instructor only. *Project must be related to sustainability to be counted as an elective for the certificate.
Faculty: Johnson
TR 2:30-4:00PM
15.399
Entrepreneurship Lab
Fall
| 12 Cr.
Entrepreneurship Lab
Fall
12 Cr.
Fall 2024 | Project-based subject, in which teams of students from MIT and surrounding colleges work with startups on problems of strategic importance to the venture. Provides an introduction to entrepreneurship, and the action learning component allows students to apply their academic knowledge to the problems faced by entrepreneurial firms. Popular sectors include software, hardware, robotics, clean technology, and life sciences. Meets with 15.3991 when offered concurrently. Expectations and evaluation criteria differ for students taking graduate version; consult syllabus or instructor for specific details. *Project must be related to sustainability to be counted as an elective for the certificate.
Faculty: K. Hickey
M 5:30 - 8:30 PM
15.410
Finance Ethics & Regulation
Fall
| 3 Cr.
Finance Ethics & Regulation
Fall
3 Cr.
Fall 2024 | Explores a range of ethical issues and challenges that arise in organizations and financial practice. Provides fundamental theories typically used to evaluate ethical dilemmas and references both real situations and hypothetical examples. Highlights the importance of ethical values and their impact on financial regulation for professional practice. Discusses the various factors that influence ethical behavior, such as family, religious values, personal standards and needs, senior leadership behavior, norms among colleagues, organizational expressed and implicit standards, and broader community values. Restricted to students in the Master of Finance Program.
Faculty: J. Cohen, E. Golding
Th 6:30 - 8:00 PM
15.499
Practice of Finance: Climate and Social Impact Investing
Spring
| 9 Cr.
Practice of Finance: Climate and Social Impact Investing
Spring
9 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Deep dive into social impact investing – an approach intentionally seeking to create financial return and positive social impact that is actively measured. Imparts a solid analytical framework for evaluating the spectrum of social impact investments, including mission related investing. Includes a project which provides practical experience in evaluating an impact enterprise or a public markets ESG strategy. Students gain experience in structuring different types of investments, and critically compare and contrast these investments with traditional mainstream investments, with a view to understanding structural constraints. Designed for students interested in the intersection of finance and social impact. Provides career guidance and networking opportunities.
Faculty: G. Rao
T;Th 4:00 - 5:30 PM
15.655
IDS.435
Law, Technology and Public Policy
Fall
| 12 Cr.
Law, Technology and Public Policy
Fall
12 Cr.
IDS.435
Fall 2024 | Examines the relationship between law and the development of science and technology, the ways in which law, economics, and technological change shape public policy, and compares law and economics as alternative paradigms for encouraging sustainability, growth, and employment.
Faculty: Ashford, Caldart
T/Th 3:30 - 5:00 PM
15.657
11.466
Technology, Globalization & Sustainable Development
Fall
| 12 Cr.
Technology, Globalization & Sustainable Development
Fall
12 Cr.
11.466
Fall 2024 | Lecture course on governmental policies for encouraging sustainable growth, improving the environment, and advancing employment in developed and developing countries.
Faculty: Ashford, Hall
W 4:00 - 6:30 PM
15.663J
1.811J
Environmental Law, Policy, and Economics: Pollution Prevention and Control
Spring
| 12 Cr.
Environmental Law, Policy, and Economics: Pollution Prevention and Control
Spring
12 Cr.
1.811J
Spring 2025 |Analyzes federal and state regulation of air and water pollution, hazardous waste, greenhouse gas emissions, and production/use of toxic chemicals. Analyzes pollution/climate change as economic problems and failure of markets. Explores the role of science and economics in legal decisions. Emphasizes use of legal mechanisms and alternative approaches (i.e., economic incentives, voluntary approaches) to control pollution and encourage chemical accident and pollution prevention. Focuses on major federal legislation, underlying administrative system, and common law in analyzing environmental policy, economic consequences, and role of the courts. Discusses classical pollutants and toxic industrial chemicals, greenhouse gas emissions, community right-to-know, and environmental justice. Develops basic legal skills: how to read/understand cases, regulations, and statutes.
Faculty: N. Ashford, C. Caldart
T;Th 3:30 - 5:00 PM
15.671
U-Lab: Transforming Business, Society and Self
Fall
| 6 Cr.
U-Lab: Transforming Business, Society and Self
Fall
6 Cr.
Fall 2023 | Experiential opportunity to practice new leadership skills, such as deep listening, being present (mindfulness), and generative dialogue. In weekly coaching circles, each student has one full session to present their current leadership edge and receive feedback from peer coaches. Includes an additional action learning project.
Faculty: O. Scharmer
Th 5:30 - 9:00 PM
15.677J
11.427J
Urban Labor Markets and Employment Policy
Spring
| 12 Cr.
Urban Labor Markets and Employment Policy
Spring
12 Cr.
11.427J
Spring 2024 | Discusses the broader trends in the labor market, how urban labor markets function, public and private training policy, other labor market programs, the link between labor market policy and economic development, and the organization of work within firms.
Faculty: Anna Stansbury
Th 1:00PM-4:00PM
15.679
USA Lab: Bridging the American Divides
Spring
| 9 Cr.
USA Lab: Bridging the American Divides
Spring
9 Cr.
Spring 2025 | This experiential Action Learning Lab is focused on work, community and culture in rural and urban regions of the United States. The Lab stems from concern about the economic, cultural, social and geographic issues that are tearing at the fabric of America. Students work with dynamic local leaders determined to change the trajectory of their communities. Deep discussions in the classroom combined with field-work in rural regions and urban centers throughout the U.S. aim toward understanding and transcending the American divides.
Faculty: L. Hafrey, C. McDowell
W 2:30 - 5:30 PM
15.700
Leadership and Integrative Management (Restricted to EMBA, 1st year)
Spring
| 9 Cr.
Leadership and Integrative Management (Restricted to EMBA, 1st year)
Spring
9 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Investigates the different perspectives a general manager must take, how to integrate those perspectives, and the role of leadership in setting and realizing goals. Students work intensively in teams and with multiple faculty, using a deep dive into the challenges faced by a major global firm operating in complex global markets. Restricted to Executive MBA students.
Faculty: D. Ancona, E. Kelly, G. Perakis, N. Repenning, H. Samel, J. Sterman, A. Verdelhan
15.708
Global Organizations Lab: Action Learning Project (Restricted to EMBA, 2nd Year)
Spring
| 15 Cr.
Global Organizations Lab: Action Learning Project (Restricted to EMBA, 2nd Year)
Spring
15 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Helps students discover and develop new and effective ways of managing and working together across national borders; also helps accelerate development of the context awareness and integrative management skills needed to lead in a globalized world. Involves intensive team engagement with a firm where students integrate their understanding of the relevant global and national economic and institutional contexts, industry dynamics, the firm's strategic position and capabilities, and its management organization and processes to provide the management sponsor with insight and effective recommendations. Includes a week-long site visit for research. Restricted to Executive MBA students.
Faculty: S. Krusell, H. Samel
15.723
Advanced Applied Macroeconomics and Interntaional Institutions (Restricted to EMBA, 2nd Year)
Spring
| 6 Cr.
Advanced Applied Macroeconomics and Interntaional Institutions (Restricted to EMBA, 2nd Year)
Spring
6 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Topics draw on current macroeconomic issues and events, such as modern monetary and fiscal policy; financial crisis, contagion, and currency crisis; real exchange rates, purchasing power parity, and long run sustainability; sustainable development; targeting and the new monetary policy regime; and Europe and the Euro: optimal currency areas. Restricted to Executive MBA students.
Faculty: R. Rigobon
Th 7:30 - 9:30 PM
15.736
Intro to System Dynamics (Restricted to EMBA)
Spring
| 9 Cr.
Intro to System Dynamics (Restricted to EMBA)
Spring
9 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Introduces system dynamics modeling for the analysis of business policy and strategy. Provides the skills to visualize an organization in terms of the structures and policies that create dynamics and regulate performance. Uses causal mapping, simulation models, case studies, and management flight simulators to help develop principles of policy design for successful management of complex strategies. Considers the use of systems thinking to promote effective organizational learning. Restricted to Executive MBA students.
Faculty: J. Sterman
15.737
Advanced System Dynamics (Restricted to EMBA Students and Alumni)
IAP
Independent activities period is four weeks in January for independent study.
| 3 Cr.
Advanced System Dynamics (Restricted to EMBA Students and Alumni)
IAP
Independent activities period is four weeks in January for independent study.
3 Cr.
IAP 2025 | Workshops focus on two models: the dynamics of service quality within a firm; and industry dynamics (particularly investment cycles and bubbles), including the energy and housing markets. Emphasis on formulation, analysis, use, and decision-making. Develops modeling skills.
Faculty: R. Nachtrieb, J. Sterman
15.765J
Global Supply Chain Management
Spring
| 6 Cr.
Global Supply Chain Management
Spring
6 Cr.
Spring 2025 |Focuses on the planning, processes, and activities of supply chain management for companies involved in international commerce. Students examine the end-to-end processes and operational challenges in managing global supply chains, such as the basics of global trade, international transportation, duty, taxes, trade finance and hedging, currency issues, outsourcing, cultural differences, risks and security, and green supply chains issues. Highly interactive format features student-led discussions, staged debates, and a mock trial.
Faculty: S. Willems
T;Th 1:00 - 2:30 PM
15.768
Management of Services: Concepts, Design and Delivery
Fall
| 9 Cr.
Management of Services: Concepts, Design and Delivery
Fall
9 Cr.
Fall 2024 | Explores the use of operations tools and perspectives in the service sector, including both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. Builds on conceptual frameworks and cases from a wide range of service operations, selected from health care, hospitality, internet services, supply chain, transportation, retailing, food service, entertainment, financial services, humanitarian services, government services, and others
Faculty: Z. Ton
MW 1:00 - 2:30 PM or MW 2:30 - 4:00 PM
15.769
Operations Strategy
Spring
| 9 Cr.
Operations Strategy
Spring
9 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Provides a unifying framework for analyzing strategic decisions in manufacturing and service operations. Covers decisions in technology, facilities, vertical integration, human resources, sourcing, supply chain, and other strategic areas. Examines how decisions in these areas can be made to align with business strategy, and emphasizes the concept of operations as a source of competitive advantage. Discusses operations strategy within the firm, across the supply chain, and for growth and new business models.
Faculty: K. Zheng
T;Th 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
15.783J
2.739J, 15.782
Product Design & Development
Spring
| 12 Cr.
Product Design & Development
Spring
12 Cr.
2.739J, 15.782
Spring 2025 |Covers modern tools and methods for product design and development. Includes a cornerstone project in which teams conceive, design and prototype a physical product and/or service. Covers human-centered design, agile development, product planning, identifying customer needs, concept generation, product architecture, industrial design, concept design, green design methods, and product management.
Faculty: K. Grasso, M. Sosa
T;Th 1:00 - 4:00 PM
15.847
15.8471
Consumer Behavior
Fall
| 9 Cr.
Consumer Behavior
Fall
9 Cr.
15.8471
Fall 2023 | Examines the behavior of consumers through the lens of behavioral economics, cognitive science, and social psychology (Also offered in Spring)
Faculty: David Rand
15.871
Introduction to System Dynamics
Spring
| 6 Cr.
Introduction to System Dynamics
Spring
6 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Introduction to systems thinking and system dynamics modeling applied to strategy, organizational change, and policy design. Students use simulation models, management flight simulators, and case studies to develop conceptual and modeling skills for the design and management of high-performance organizations in a dynamic world. Case studies of successful applications of system dynamics in growth strategy, management of technology, operations, public policy, product development, and others. Principles for effective use of modeling in the real world. (Also offered in Fall).
Sustainability Certificate Requirement
Faculty: V. Yang, H. Rahmandad
Multiple. MW 10:00 - 11:30 AM OR 1:00 - 2:30 PM; Rec F 1:00 - 2:30 PM
15.873
System Dynamics for Business and Policy
Spring
| 9 Cr.
System Dynamics for Business and Policy
Spring
9 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Focuses on developing the skills and tools needed to successfully apply systems thinking and simulation modeling in diverse real-world settings, including growth strategy, management of technology, operations, public policy, product development, supply chains, forecasting, project management, process improvement, service operations, and platform-based businesses, among others. Uses simulation models, management flight simulators, and case studies to deepen conceptual and modeling skills beyond what is introduced in 15.871. Exploring case studies of successful applications, students develop proficiency in how to use qualitative and quantitative data to formulate and test models, and how to work effectively with senior executives to successfully implement change. Prepares students for further work in the field. (Also offered in Fall)
Counts towards Sustainability Certificate requirements
Faculty: V. Yang
Multiple. MW 10:00 - 11:30 AM OR 1:00 - 2:30PM; Rec F 1:00 - 2:30 PM
15.874
12.387
Environmental Governance and Science
Fall
| 9 Cr.
Environmental Governance and Science
Fall
9 Cr.
12.387
Fall 2024 | Introduces governance and science aspects of complex environmental problems and approaches to solutions. Introduces quantitative analyses and methodological tools to analyze environmental issues that have human and natural components. Demonstrates concepts through a series of in-depth case studies of environmental governance and science problems.
Faculty: A. Siddiqi
F 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
15.878
Sustainable Business Lab (S-Lab)
Spring
| 9 Cr.
Sustainable Business Lab (S-Lab)
Spring
9 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Integrative experience that explores the complex set of circumstances and choices leaders must face in light of uncertain environmental and social consequences. Drawing on academic and practical experiences, students engage in a semester-long project focused on a host organization's sustainability challenge. Peer-to-peer learning accompanies in-class cases, simulations, and role-playing to provide students with practical skills for application in projects and for careers beyond. A shared deep dive into a systemic challenge provides a chance for students across programs to reflect and engage in dialogue about the ethical landscape of business. Through personal reflection and career visioning, students clarify their own personal commitments to leadership and change.
Sustainability Certificate requirement | Co-req:15.915: Business Strategies for a Sustainable Future
Faculty: B. Patten
W 4:00 - 6:00 PM
15.910
Innovation Strategy
Fall
| 6 Cr.
Innovation Strategy
Fall
6 Cr.
Fall 2024 | Establishes a foundation for formulating, analyzing, and executing strategies to develop and commercialize new products and services in technology-intensive industries. Develops and applies rigorous frameworks to examine the interaction between patterns of technological change, market dynamics, and the development of internal firm capabilities. Topics include profiting from innovation, the role of intellectual property, platform strategy, government regulation, and innovation policy. Applies concepts in various industry and case settings with an emphasis on addressing issues most relevant for today's changing economic landscape and fostering innovation for social progress, such as clean energy, environmental management, healthcare, and digitalization.
Faculty: J. Pless
MW 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm
15.915
Business Strategies for a Sustainable Future
Spring
| 9 Cr.
Business Strategies for a Sustainable Future
Spring
9 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Develops a pragmatic, action-oriented approach to sustainability: the alignment between healthy businesses, healthy environments, healthy societies, and an economy that meets human needs. In-class simulations and role-playing provide a robust foundation for understanding sustainability challenges. Cases analyze innovative strategies for sustainable businesses and organizations. Class discussions explore how sustainability is changing existing business models and market structures, how to develop sustainable management practices, and how firms can implement those practices successfully.
Sustainability Certificate requirement | Required for 15.878: Sustainable Business Lab (S-Lab), can be taken concurrently.
Faculty: J. Jay, J. Sterman
Multiple. T;Th 10:00 - 11:30 AM OR 4:00 - 5:30 PM
15.S05
SSIM: Energy Management and AI: Strategies for a Sustainable Future
Spring
| 9 Cr.
SSIM: Energy Management and AI: Strategies for a Sustainable Future
Spring
9 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Explores Consumer-centric Energy and Climate Innovations; such as technologies and services that strategically enhance building efficiency and electrification; incorporate site solar, battery storage, and electric vehicles; and are enabled to integrate with today's increasingly renewable electric grids. Such innovations provide a foundation for a New Era for Energy Management.With enabling support from the instructors, materials, and assignments, class members examine emerging New Era of Energy Management technology, analytic, business, and policy innovations.
Faculty: H. Michaels
T;Th 1:00 - 2:30 PM
15.S08
SSIM: Optimization of Energy Systems
Spring
| 12 Cr.
SSIM: Optimization of Energy Systems
Spring
12 Cr.
Spring 2024 | Opportunity for group study by graduate students on current topics related to management not otherwise included in curriculum.
Faculty: Andy Sun
MW 2:30PM - 4:00PM
15.S09
SSIM: Optimization of Energy Systems
Fall
| 12 Cr.
SSIM: Optimization of Energy Systems
Fall
12 Cr.
Fall 2024 | The course will first introduce the big picture of energy system transition, then go into details of the key decision-making problems in electric power systems, and study the couplings between power and other infrastructure systems, and finally assess energy system transition in an integrated fashion. This course aims to lead PhD or advanced master students to the forefront of energy system research.
Faculty: A. Sun
MW 2:30 pm - 4:00 pm
15.S13
SSIM: Identifying Opportunities in Climate Tech
Spring
| 6 Cr.
SSIM: Identifying Opportunities in Climate Tech
Spring
6 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Opportunity for group study by graduate students on current topics related to management not otherwise included in curriculum.
Faculty: B. Soltoff
T;Th 10:00 - 11:30 AM
15.S21
SSIM: Building and Using Imagined Futures: Thinking Forward in a Post-Global World (Restricted to MIT Sloan Fellows, EMBA Students, and Alumni)
IAP
Independent activities period is four weeks in January for independent study.
| 3 Cr.
SSIM: Building and Using Imagined Futures: Thinking Forward in a Post-Global World (Restricted to MIT Sloan Fellows, EMBA Students, and Alumni)
IAP
Independent activities period is four weeks in January for independent study.
3 Cr.
IAP 2025 | Group study of current topics related to management not otherwise included in curriculum.
Faculty: H. Samel
15.S22
SSIM: Pursuing Happiness and a Meaningful Life (Restricted to Sloan Fellows & 2nd year MBAs)
Spring
| 6 Cr.
SSIM: Pursuing Happiness and a Meaningful Life (Restricted to Sloan Fellows & 2nd year MBAs)
Spring
6 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Opportunity for group study by graduate students on current topics related to management not otherwise included in curriculum. Restricted to Sloan Fellows & 2nd year MBAs.
Faculty: S. Neal, R. Pozen
T 4:00 - 7:00 PM
15.S56
SSIM: ESG Disclosure, Measurement, and Impact (Restricted to MIT Sloan Fellows, EMBA Students, and Alumni)
IAP
Independent activities period is four weeks in January for independent study.
| 3 Cr.
SSIM: ESG Disclosure, Measurement, and Impact (Restricted to MIT Sloan Fellows, EMBA Students, and Alumni)
IAP
Independent activities period is four weeks in January for independent study.
3 Cr.
IAP 2025 | Group study of current topics related to management not otherwise included in curriculum.
Faculty: F. Berg, R. Verdi
15.S62
SSIM: Management of Services (Restricted to MIT Sloan Fellows, EMBA Students, and Alumni)
IAP
Independent activities period is four weeks in January for independent study.
| 3 Cr.
SSIM: Management of Services (Restricted to MIT Sloan Fellows, EMBA Students, and Alumni)
IAP
Independent activities period is four weeks in January for independent study.
3 Cr.
IAP 2025 | Group study of current topics related to management not otherwise included in curriculum.
Faculty: Z. Ton
15.S65
SSIM: Smarter Together…But How: Leveraging DEI to Amplify Opportunities (Restricted to MIT Sloan Fellows, EMBA Students, and Alumni)
IAP
Independent activities period is four weeks in January for independent study.
| 3 Cr.
SSIM: Smarter Together…But How: Leveraging DEI to Amplify Opportunities (Restricted to MIT Sloan Fellows, EMBA Students, and Alumni)
IAP
Independent activities period is four weeks in January for independent study.
3 Cr.
IAP 2025 | Group study of current topics related to management not otherwise included in curriculum.
Faculty: B. Thomas
15.S70
Impact Ventures: A Practical Perspective for Entrepreneurial Leaders Moving Ideas to Impact in the Developing World
Fall
| 12 Cr.
Impact Ventures: A Practical Perspective for Entrepreneurial Leaders Moving Ideas to Impact in the Developing World
Fall
12 Cr.
Fall 2024 | A practical perspective - must be an effort linked to sustainability. (Only available to Legatum Fellows)
Faculty: L. Lamb, D. Sherif
M 5:30 - 8:00 PM
2.760
Global Engineering
Fall
| 12 Cr.
Global Engineering
Fall
12 Cr.
Fall 2023 | Combines rigorous engineering theory and user-centered product design to create technologies for developing and emerging markets.
Faculty: Winter
MW 1-2.30
2.83
Energy, Materials and Manufacturing
Spring
| 12 Cr.
Energy, Materials and Manufacturing
Spring
12 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Introduction to the major dilemma that faces manufacturing and society for the 21st century: how to support economic development while protecting the environment. Subject addresses industrial ecology, materials flows, life-cycle analysis, thermodynamic analysis and exergy accounting, manufacturing process performance, product design analysis, design for the environment, recycling and ecological economics. Combines lectures and group discussions of journal articles and selected literature, often with opposing views.
Faculty: T. G. Gutowski
MW 1:00PM - 2:30PM
2.S985
Exploring Sustainability at Different Scales
Fall
| 12 Cr.
Exploring Sustainability at Different Scales
Fall
12 Cr.
Fall 2023 | Provides an introduction to the concept of sustainability from various perspectives using the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the MIT campus and research.
Faculty: Gutowski, Newman
MW 1:00-2:30PM
21A.155
Food, Culture, and Politics
Fall
| 12 Cr.
Food, Culture, and Politics
Fall
12 Cr.
Fall 2023 | This course explores connections between what we eat and who we are through cross-cultural study of how personal and collective identities, social relations.
Faculty: H. Paxson
TR2.30-4
22.780
1.878
Nuclear Waste Management
Fall
| 12 Cr.
Nuclear Waste Management
Fall
12 Cr.
1.878
Fall 2024 | Introduces the essential knowledge for understanding nuclear waste management. Includes material flow sheets for nuclear fuel cycle, waste characteristics, sources of radioactive wastes, compositions, radioactivity and heat generation, chemical processing technologies, geochemistry, waste disposal technologies, environmental regulations and the safety assessment of waste disposal. Covers different types of wastes: uranium mining waste, low-level radioactive waste, high-level radioactive waste and fusion waste. Provides the quantitative methods to compare the environmental impact of different nuclear and other energy-associated waste. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.
Faculty: C. Forsberg
MW 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM
24.634
Global Justice, Gender, and Development
Fall
| 12 Cr.
Global Justice, Gender, and Development
Fall
12 Cr.
Fall 2024 | Addresses challenges in working towards global justice including poverty, food and water insecurity, healthcare disparities, human rights violations, violence and dislocation, and environmental risk. Focuses on gender and identity, locating the root causes of inequality within cultural, political and economic contexts. Designed to give a framework to understand gender dynamics. Teaches how to integrate gender sensitive strategies into development work. Classes, readings, and final projects illustrate how design and implementation of international development strategies can provide capacity building and income generation opportunities. Meets with EC.798 when offered concurrently. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments. Limited to 20 total for versions meeting together.
Faculty: S. Haslanger, L. McDonald
W 9:30 AM - 12:30 PM
3.088
EC.988
Social Life of Materials
Spring
| 12 Cr.
Social Life of Materials
Spring
12 Cr.
EC.988
Spring 2024 | This course focuses on the social and historical context of materials science design decisions with an emphasis on both regrettable and beneficial materials substitutions, learning from the past to foster more equitable and sustainable materials futures. This course will explore the scientific and sociotechnical context of applied and industrial case studies of critical materials replacements such as bisphenol A (BPA), poly(vinyl chloride (PVC), asbestos, lead-free brass, and per- and polyfluorinated Substances (PFAS). Course assignments will be customized to students' areas of interest and have potential for development into dissertation/thesis chapters and peer-reviewed publications.
Faculty: C. Ortiz and E.F. Spero
MW 12pm-1:30pm (RM 16-275)
3.372
Lightweighting and Structural Optimization
Spring
| 12 Cr.
Lightweighting and Structural Optimization
Spring
12 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Presents modern processes, technologies, and methods used to develop lighter vehicular structures critical to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and lowering costs. Explores how materials design, solid mechanics, mechanical engineering, manufacturing technologies, joining technologies, and numerical optimization are all brought to task to effect real-world lightweighting of both primary and secondary vehicle structures. Additionally, since important lessons are in past designs, the evolution of lightweight design in aerospace, automotive, and bicycles are presented and defining aspects from milestone designs are critically assessed.
Faculty: D. Baskin
TWF 9:00 AM
3.70
Materials Science and Engineering of Clean Energy
Spring
| 12 Cr.
Materials Science and Engineering of Clean Energy
Spring
12 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Develops the materials principles, limitations and challenges in clean energy technologies, including solar, energy storage, thermoelectrics, fuel cells, and novel fuels. Draws correlations between the limitations and challenges related to key figures of merit and the basic underlying thermodynamic, structural, transport, and physical principles, as well as to the means for fabricating devices exhibiting optimum operating efficiencies and extended life at reasonable cost.
Faculty: H. Tuller, I. Abate, Y. Chiang
Th 1:30 - 3:00 PM
4.227
Landscapes of Energy
Spring
| 12 Cr.
Landscapes of Energy
Spring
12 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Spatializes large technological systems of energy, analyzes existing and speculative energy visions, and imagines energy futures in relation to concerns of ecology, politics, and aesthetics. Identifies different scales of thinking about the territory of energy from that of environmental systems, to cities, regions, and global landscapes. Readings and students' research projects draw on critical geography, history of technology, environmental history to synthesize energy attributes within the design disciplines. Limited to 10.
Faculty: R. Ghosn
W 2:00PM - 5:00PM
4.228
Contemporary Urbanism Proseminar: Theory and Representation
Fall
| 12 Cr.
Contemporary Urbanism Proseminar: Theory and Representation
Fall
12 Cr.
Fall 2024 | Critical introduction to key contemporary positions in urbanism to the ends of researching, representing, and designing territories that respond to the challenges of the 21st century. Provides an overview of contemporary urban issues, situates them in relation to a genealogy of urban precedents, and constructs a theoretical framework that engages the allied fields of architecture, landscape architecture, political ecology, geography, territorial planning, and environmental humanities. Comprised of three sections, first section articulates a framework on the urban as both process and form, shifting the emphasis from city to territory. Second section engages a series of related urban debates, such as density/sprawl, growth/shrinkage, and codes/exception. Third section calls upon urban agency in the age of environment through the object of infrastructures of trash, water, oil, and food. Limited to 25.
Faculty: R. Ghosn
W 2:00 - 5:00 pm
4.255J
11.304J
Site and Environmental Systems Planning
Spring
| 15 Cr.
Site and Environmental Systems Planning
Spring
15 Cr.
11.304J
Spring 2025 | Introduces a range of practical approaches involved in evaluating and planning sites within the context of natural and cultural systems. Develops the knowledge and skills to analyze and plan a site for development through exercises and an urban design project. Topics include land inventory, urban form, spatial organization of uses, parcelization, design of roadways, grading, utility systems, off-site impacts, and landscape strategies.
Faculty: E. Ben-Joseph, M. Ocampo
MW 2:30 - 5:30 PM
4.329
Climate Visions
Fall
| 12 Cr.
Climate Visions
Fall
12 Cr.
Fall 2024 | Presents artistic intelligence and modes of creative production as ways to contribute to and critically engage with climate science. In conversation with local stakeholders, students develop hybrid projects of art and design that negotiate between pragmatics and fiction to envision solutions to the climate crisis. Case studies and class participation examine dialectics between aesthetics and scientific knowledge related to environmental care and repair. Includes prototyping and publishing spatial, digital, and material experimentations to generate new work individually and/or collaboratively by way of diverse media explorations. Visiting speakers and field trips accompany lectures, readings, class discussions, and presentations. Additional work required of students taking the graduate version. Lab fee required.
Faculty: Consult G. Urbonas
MW 9:30 am - 12:30 pm
4.464
4.401
Environmental Technologies in Buildings
Fall
| 12 Cr.
Environmental Technologies in Buildings
Fall
12 Cr.
4.401
Fall 2024 | Introduction to the study of the thermal and luminous behavior of buildings. Examines the basic scientific principles underlying these phenomena and introduces students to a range of technologies and analysis techniques for designing comfortable indoor environments. Challenges students to apply these techniques and explore the role energy and light can play in shaping architecture. Additional work required of students taking the graduate version.
Faculty: Reinhart
MW 11:00-12:30
4.481
Building Technology Seminar
Fall
| 3 Cr.
Building Technology Seminar
Fall
3 Cr.
Fall 2024 | Fundamental research methodologies and ongoing investigations in building tehnology to support the development of student research projects. Topics drawn from low energy building design and thermal comfort, building systems analysis and control, daylighting, structural design and analysis, novel building materials and construction techniques and resource dynamics. Organized as a series of two- and three-week sessions that consider topics through readings, discussions, design and analysis projects, and student presentations.
Faculty: Consult L. R. Glicksman, C. Mueller, C. Reinhart, L. K. Norford, J. Ochsendorf
Th 3:00 - 5:00 PM
4.624
Dwelling & Building: Cities in the Global South
Fall
| 12 Cr.
Dwelling & Building: Cities in the Global South
Fall
12 Cr.
Fall 2024 | Examines the contemporary challenges and history of city planning on three continents - Africa, Asia, and South America. Students study a number of city plans, from the 'informal' settlements of Delhi and Nairobi, the modernist master plans of Brasilia and Baghdad, to climate action plans in various cities. Explores the relationship between dwelling and building in the design of cities, in conjunction with the environmental, social, political, and intellectual environments at the time of their planning. Open to both undergraduate and graduate students.
Faculty: H. Gupta
T 10:00 am - 1:00 pm
5.82J
Principles of Innovation
Spring
| 6 Cr.
Principles of Innovation
Spring
6 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Presents the key elements required for new technical ideas and business practices to be successfully deployed in an open economy, subject to international trade and external environmental costs. Examines the challenges of climate change and increased international competitiveness as they relate to innovation. Offers recommendations for major policy changes to how innovation is encouraged in the United States and the global economy. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.
Faculty: J. Deutch
TF 9:30 - 11:00 AM
6.7121
6.7120
Principles of Modeling, Computing and Control for Decarbonized Electric Energy Systems
Fall
| 12 Cr.
Principles of Modeling, Computing and Control for Decarbonized Electric Energy Systems
Fall
12 Cr.
6.7120
Fall 2024 | Introduces fundamentals of electric energy systems as complex dynamical network systems. Topics include coordinated and distributed modeling and control methods for efficient and reliable power generation, delivery, and consumption; data-enabled algorithms for integrating clean intermittent resources, storage, and flexible demand, including electric vehicles; examples of network congestion management, frequency, and voltage control in electrical grids at various scales; and design and operation of supporting markets. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.
MW 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
EC.701
EC.781
D-Lab: Development
Fall
| 12 Cr.
D-Lab: Development
Fall
12 Cr.
EC.781
Fall 2023 | Issues in international development, appropriate technology and project implementation addressed through lectures, case studies, guest speakers and laboratory exercises. Enrollment limited by lottery; must attend first class session.
Faculty: S. L. Hsu, B. Sanyal
MW3.30-5, F 3:30-5
EC.782
2.652
D-Lab: Applications of Energy in Global Development
Fall
| 12 Cr.
D-Lab: Applications of Energy in Global Development
Fall
12 Cr.
2.652
Fall 2024 | Issues in international development, appropriate technology and project implementation addressed through lectures, case studies, guest speakers and laboratory exercises. Enrollment limited by lottery; must attend first class session.
Faculty: Staff
T Th 3:00 - 5:00 PM
EC.782
EC.712
Applications of Energy in Global Development
Fall
| 12 Cr.
Applications of Energy in Global Development
Fall
12 Cr.
EC.712
Fall 2023 | Engages students through practical, project-focused and community-based approaches to advance the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 7, which seeks to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy.
EC.789
EC.719
D-Lab: Water, Climate Change and Planetary Health
Spring
| 12 Cr.
D-Lab: Water, Climate Change and Planetary Health
Spring
12 Cr.
EC.719
Spring 2025 | Examines the current state and future projections of climate change and its effects on human, ecosystem, and planetary health, and develops solutions for these challenges. Class is project-based, student-focused, experiential, and transdisciplinary. Emphasizes nature- and community-based solutions, both local and global, with a focus on environmental and climate justice. Participation and teamwork are fundamental, as are experiential activities such as field trips to zero-carbon buildings and to sites undergoing rapid transformation. Working individually or in teams, students develop a term project on a climate change or planetary health solution.
Faculty: S. Murcott
Th 12:00 - 3:00 PM, Lab time TBA
EC.791
Introduction to Energy in Global Development
Spring
| 12 Cr.
Introduction to Energy in Global Development
Spring
12 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Surveys energy technologies including solar, wind, and hydro power; cooking; indoor heating; irrigation; and agricultural productivity through an international development context to impart energy literacy and common-sense applications. Focuses on compact, robust, low-cost systems for meeting the needs of household and small business. Provides an overview of identifying user needs, assessing the suitability of specific technologies, and strategies for implementation in developing countries. Labs reinforce lecture material through activities including system assembly and testing. Team projects involve activities including connecting with pre-selected community partners, product design and analysis, and continuing the development of ongoing projects.
Faculty: D. Sweeney
Lecture: MW 1:00 - 2:30 PM, Lab: F 1:00 - 3:00 PM
EC.988
The Social Life of Materials
Spring
| 12 Cr.
The Social Life of Materials
Spring
12 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Students carry out projects on a material of their choice and study its technical, humanistic, and environmental origins and trajectories of development through historical methods; evaluate its current status within a social and humanistic context; and then imagine and evaluate potential futures. Projects supported by topics and scholarship in sociotechnical systems, social innovation, environmental history and justice, equity-based human-centered design, and futures literacy.
Faculty: C. Ortiz, E. Spero
MW 12:00 - 1:30 PM
IDS.521
1.670
Energy Systems for Climate Change Mitigation
Fall
| 12 Cr.
Energy Systems for Climate Change Mitigation
Fall
12 Cr.
1.670
Fall2024| This class explores global greenhouse gas emissions from energy systems and potential levers for reducing emissions
Faculty: J. Trancik
T Th 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
IDS.522
Mapping and Evaluating New Energy Technologies
Fall
| 12 Cr.
Mapping and Evaluating New Energy Technologies
Fall
12 Cr.
Fall 2024 | Project-based seminar reviews recent developments in energy conversion and storage technologies. Merits of alternative technologies are debated based on their environmental performance and cost, and their potential improvement and scalability. Project teams develop qualitative insights, quantitative models, and interactive visualization tools to inform the future development of technologies. Models may probe how the impact of a technology depends on assumptions about future advancements in performance, and how quantitative performance targets can be estimated to inform investment and design decisions. Other projects may develop models to inform rational investments in a portfolio of technologies based on economic and environmental performance and scalability constraints. Both information-based (e.g., software and codified practices) and physical technologies will be discussed.
Faculty: J. Trancik
W 2:30 - 5:30 pm
MAS.842
MAS.342
Safeguarding the Future
Spring
| 12 Cr.
Safeguarding the Future
Spring
12 Cr.
MAS.342
Spring 2025 | Leading experts guide discussions of how to safeguard the world against the greatest threats to our future. Topics range from the overt perils of pandemic and nuclear proliferation to the underlying coordination failures responsible for climate change, and from technological stagnation to transformative AI. Draws on the history of invention and science communication to explore which technologies are most likely to shape the future and how inventors and developers can influence outcomes, with the goal of determining how to accomplish as much good as possible. Emphasizes science writing and communication. Students write three op-eds on key issues and participate in a group project aiming to coordinate effective action.
Faculty: K. Esvelt, M. Specter
Th 1:00 - 2:30 PM
MAS.858
16.857
Asking How Space Enabled Designs Advance Justice and Development
Fall
| 12 Cr.
Asking How Space Enabled Designs Advance Justice and Development
Fall
12 Cr.
16.857
Fall 2024 | Examines theoretical and practical challenges of applying complex technology, such as space systems, to advance justice and development within human society. Proposes and critiques a concept of justice and development based on attainment of the US Sustainable Development Goals. Analyzes text by historians and economists around global patterns of uneven technology access. Teaches systems engineering tools to analyze the context, stakeholders, functions and forms of complex systems that impact society. Presents six space technologies used for specific Sustainable Development Goal. Students read several text, discuss key themes, write reflective responses, and write a research proposal on a topic of their choice. Part of two-class series on space technology and sustainable development. Limited to 15.
Faculty: D. Wood
M 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM
MAS.859J
Space Technology for the Development Leader
Spring
| 6 Cr.
Space Technology for the Development Leader
Spring
6 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Follow on to MAS.858. Introduces intersections between space technology and sustainable development by examining technical, policy and social aspects of seven space technologies: satellite earth observation; satellite communication; satellite positioning; human space flight and micro gravity research; space technology transfer; fundamental scientific space research; and small satellites. Lectures introduce the UN Sustainable Development Goals and show linkages to seven space technologies from the perspective of development practitioners. Students read scholarly papers, write weekly responses, give presentations, and write a research paper.
Faculty: K. Esvelt, M. Specter
M 9:00 - 12:00 PM
SCM.251
Supply Chain Financial Analysis
Fall
| 9 Cr.
Supply Chain Financial Analysis
Fall
9 Cr.
Fall 2024 | Explores the linkages between supply chain management and corporate finance. Emphasizes how the supply chain creates value for both the shareholders of the company and for the stakeholders affected by the company's operations. Sessions combine lectures and data-rich cases from the manufacturer, distributor, and retailer perspective. Topics include accounting fundamentals, financial analysis, activity-based costing, working capital management, cash flow projections, capital budgeting, and sustainability.
Faculty: J. Goentzel, J. Rice
T Th 2:30 PM - 4:00 PM
SCM.283
Humanitarian Logistics
Spring
| 6 Cr.
Humanitarian Logistics
Spring
6 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Explores how logistics management improves response to humanitarian crises stemming from natural disasters, armed conflicts, epidemics, and famine. Class sessions combine online and class lectures, practical exercises, case discussions, and guest speakers. Provides students from various backgrounds with knowledge of the humanitarian context and fundamental supply chain concepts, as well as practice applying new knowledge in developing and communicating plans and policies to address realistic problems.
Faculty: J. Goentzel
MW 1:00 - 2:30 PM, Rec Th 5:30 PM
SCM.290
Sustainable Supply Chain Management
Spring
| 6 Cr.
Sustainable Supply Chain Management
Spring
6 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Focuses on analyzing the environmental implications of logistics decisions in the supply chain, with special focus on the effect of green transportation, and the new trends in logistics sustainability within the context of growing urbanization and e-commerce. Studies practical alternatives on how to optimize CO2 emissions during last-mile operations by using geo-spatial analysis, and data analytics. Examines the delivery of "fast" and "green" in the new digital era, consumer relationship to sustainable products and services, and environmental costs of fast-shipping e-commerce. Covers supply chain carbon footprint, sustainable transportation, green vehicle routing, fleet assignment, truck consolidation, closed-loop supply chains, reverse logistics, green inventory management, and green consumer behavior.
Faculty: J. Velazquez
MW 10:00 - 11:30 AM
SCM.291
Procurement Fundamentals
Spring
| 6 Cr.
Procurement Fundamentals
Spring
6 Cr.
Spring 2025 | Introduces strategic procurement fundamentals to enhance both competitive advantage and resilience to supply chains. Covers frameworks and tools that managers use to elevate purchasing from an operational function to a strategic one. Includes both classic resilience- and cost-based portfolios, as well as modern perspectives, which consider sustainability and power. Combines theoretical and applied perspectives and is designed for students with or without previous procurement experience. Assessment based on case analysis and a final project.
Faculty: J. Rice
MW 10:00 - 11:30 AM
STS.432J
21H.990J
Narrating the Anthropocene: Understanding a Multi-Species Universe
Fall
| 9 Cr.
Narrating the Anthropocene: Understanding a Multi-Species Universe
Fall
9 Cr.
21H.990J
Fall 2024 | Examines human concern about the planet and how that fixation shapes concepts of time & space, knowledge-production, understandings of what it means to be human and non-human, as well as trends in scholarship, art, culture & politics. Indexes the way numerous actors and institutions came to understand, debate & narrate the Anthropocene, a geological epoch defined by human-induced climate change. Explores how it as a concept has opened up new ways of understanding relations within the planet, including care, accountability & multi-species mutualism. Considers narrative registers as well, how scholars, writers, artists & working people narrate the Anthropocene. Students undertake an original project in research &/or experimental narrative forms inspired by the reading. Limited to 12.
Faculty: K. Brown, M. Black
W 10:00 am - 1:00 pm
STS.434
Postapocalyptic Science and Technology Studies
Fall
| 9 Cr.
Postapocalyptic Science and Technology Studies
Fall
9 Cr.
Fall 2024 | Examines how science fiction is deployed as a political tool for enacting change in the present and how it has emerged as a privileged symbolic field for the expression of hopes and anxieties that drive both culture and tech industries. Explores how societies around the globe — both mainstream and in the periphery — are confronting a triple crisis that threatens not only civil order but also the very existence of certain forms of life: financial collapse which increased the awareness of mass inequality; climate change and loss of biodiversity; and the rise of ethno-nationalisms, which threaten representative democracies.