Teaching and researching how humans and the environment shape each other, you train students to tackle real ecological problems, blending science, policy, and ethics. Where the environment becomes a field of study.
Your work splits between teaching across disciplines, advising students, and research, fieldwork, publishing, and grants, on the academic calendar. The interdisciplinary breadth is a real challenge, science to policy to ethics, and research and teaching compete constantly for your hours, with service on top.
What's harder than expected is the tight job market and tenure pressure, plus a subject that can be politically charged. Publishing is slow, funding competitive, and teaching across so many fields is its own stretch. How teaching weighs against research varies by institution, reshaping the daily work.
It tends to fit someone curious, interdisciplinary, and patient with academia. If you want fast, applied impact or a lucrative path, academia's pace and pressures can frustrate. But if you care about the environment and shaping students who'll work on it, the work tends to stay meaningful across a career.
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Roles like this one sit within a broader occupational category. The numbers below reflect that full landscape — helpful for context, but your specific experience will depend on level, specialty, and where you work.
Teaching and researching how humans and the environment shape each other, you train students to tackle real ecological problems, blending science, policy, and ethics. Where the environment becomes a field of study.
Median pay for an Environmental Studies Professor is about $88K nationally, with the field ranging roughly from $51K to $164K depending on experience, employer, and metro (BLS).
Core skills for this role include Reading Comprehension, Speaking, Learning Strategies, Critical Thinking, and Science.
Most people in this role hold a professional degree.
Employment in this field is projected to grow about 2.9% through 2034, with roughly 7,130 people working in it today (BLS).
Closely related roles include Environmental Studies Faculty Member, Conservation Educator, and Environmental Engineering Professor.
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