E-IPER's PhD in Environment and Resources degree program is designed to enable students to become first-rate interdisciplinary researchers and acquire the knowledge and skills to succeed in both academic and non-academic careers.

E-IPER's core courses engage diverse faculty and expose students to current environmental challenges, research design, and a range of qualitative and quantitative methods. Beyond the core courses, the program's course requirements are structured to be rigorous yet flexible, accommodating the needs of a tremendous range of students' interests and skills while serving the principal goal of creating top-notch interdisciplinary researchers. Students obtain expertise in two distinct Fields of Inquiry, the central focus of students’ dissertation research, while also demonstrating a breadth of interdisciplinary understanding related to environment and resources.

Through their research and participation in a variety of workshops, conferences, policy-making proceedings, public education events, entrepreneurial ventures, and other activities, E-IPER students are seeking new knowledge, discoveries, and tools to address some of society's most intractable environmental and resource challenges.