The Center for Environmental Studies (CES) is a university research center established in July 1994 by the Florida State University System's Board of Regents. The Center is housed in the College of Science at Florida Atlantic University (FAU). The Center’s original mission was to facilitate environmental research, information, and training between FAU and Florida’s universities, state, national and international agencies, including the public and private sectors. CES has historically been a national leader in terms of community engagement: the Center regularly convened high-profile and well-received scientific meetings on topics relating to wetlands ecology and to sea-level rise. The Center’s original thematic goal was to promote the use of scientifically sound information concerning tropical and subtropical freshwater, estuarine and coastal ecosystems.
CES’ Founding Director Dr. Leonard Berry retired in 2014. Dr. Colin Polsky was then hired as CES director and appointed as professor of geosciences with tenure. Dr. Polsky served as CES director from 2014-2024. Dr. Polsky oversaw CES while in the role of founding director of the FAU School of Environmental, Coastal and Ocean Sustainability (ECOS) starting in fall 2023 through spring 2024. Beginning in the summer of 2024, Dr. Polsky transitioned to serving as the FAU Associate Vice President of Broward Campuses. Kimberly Vardeman currently serves as CES' Interim Director.
In 2014, the Center headquarters were relocated from the FAU Jupiter campus to the FAU Davie campus. The Center’s mission evolved to reflect Dr. Polsky’s background in climate social science, which was also an area of growing demand in both the university and the local community. In this way, the move to Davie brought additional strategic value for the university, as that campus is located in the geographic heart of the greater Miami metropolitan area, where concern over mounting urban flood risk from sea-level rise was generating rapidly growing local demand for university thought-leadership, both within and beyond academia.
At that time, the Center's mission expanded and has since focused on improving Florida's sustainability through research, education, and community engagement activities related to coastal resilience, wetlands ecology, and energy innovations, including developing community-wide strategies for adapting to social and environmental changes.
Like most U.S. university centers, CES undertakes three sets of activities: research, education, and community engagement. In 2014 CES immediately started investing in FAU faculty and graduate students, via the new Director’s existing extramural grants transported from his previous university, and new start-up funds. These investments had the desired outcome of stimulating grant proposals each year with FAU (and other) colleagues, with a good number of successes, leading to the desired increase in active research sponsored/supported by the Center. In addition, the heightened scholarly visibility of the Center helped CES acquire a $1 million philanthropic gift to support FAU research in sustainable energy, distributing $50,000 (all direct costs) annually, in perpetuity.
When FAU ECOS was launched in the fall of 2023, CES became a partner center within the School. ECOS is the environmental hub at FAU and serves as an umbrella school for numerous academic offerings in departments and interdisciplinary program areas.
Click on the links to the left to learn more about the CES team and the Center’s locations at which we operate.
MISSION: To improve Florida's sustainability through research, education, and community engagement, on wetlands ecology, coastal resilience, and energy innovations.
