In mathematical sciences at PSU, we encourage interdisciplinary work culminating in first-rate, original scholarship. That's why you'll choose a main concentration within the mathematical sciences as well as a secondary concentration that can draw from the natural sciences, social sciences, or engineering.

Common disciplines include computer science, engineering, physics, biology, economics, systems science, finance, urban studies and planning, and public health and medicine.

In your courses, you'll benefit from small classes and personalized attention from faculty whose areas of expertise range from computational neuroscience to numerical analysis and scientific computation for partial differential equations.

You'll have opportunities to gain hands-on experience through an internship with a Portland-area company, and collaborations with faculty and other researchers on projects with the Portland Institute for Computational Science. The PSU-supported initiative aims to promote the effective use of computational technologies to solve scientific problems, create a regional community of researchers interested in using and training others in computational technologies, and procure high-performance computing clusters.

We also offer students support through teaching and research assistantships, fellowships, and scholarships.

Earn your political science degree in Oregon’s largest and most politically active city of Portland. Studying political science in Portland presents a unique opportunity to see how a mid-sized metropolitan city addresses issues such as gentrification, homelessness, police engagement, and social justice from a public policy, legal, political theory, and American political perspective. Situated in the heart of Downtown Portland and within walking distance from multiple city, state, and federal offices, you’ll be able to easily connect with professionals actively engaged in fields such as law, politics, public policy, sustainable global development, and international justice to gain marketable skills in your field of interest, setting you up for the political science career of your dreams.

Internships prepare you for your career beyond Portland State University. Political Science students have access to signing up with a top-notch internship program that connects you with alumni and current working professionals in your field of interest. The Political Science Internship Program helps students tie together what they have learned through coursework with practical political experience. It provides them with an opportunity to earn course credits in a learning situation outside the walls of the traditional classroom.

Students have considerable flexibility in pursuing an internship position that is appropriate for their particular academic or professional needs. A variety of types of internships are acceptable for credit, be it serving as an assistant to a member of Congress or the state legislature, working in the city or county government, assisting a non-profit organization, or participating actively in an election campaign. The main criteria are that the position must be relevant to political science and it must provide the student with an opportunity to gain experience not otherwise available.

Once hired as interns, students work closely with a faculty member who provides a directed course of study to help the students to understand the work they are doing. The interaction with the professor is a major component of the internship program, providing an academic perspective.

Internship Coordinator

In this program, you'll have direct access to the Internship Coordinator Professor Richard Clucas who is the primary liaison between the student interns, the sponsoring organization, and the individual faculty instructors. Professor Clucas can help you find internships, provides advice, monitors your work within the sponsoring organization, help you handle problems that arise on the job, and maintains all internship records. Even though the coordinator handles most of the internships in the department, all regular faculty members in Political Science can oversee internships.

Past Placement

PSU Political Science students have worked as interns in a variety of organizations and positions. Here is a partial listing of some organizations and offices that have accepted interns from the Political Science department within the past few years:

• Members of the Oregon Congressional Delegation
• Oregon House of Representatives
• Oregon Senate Governor’s Office
• Portland Mayor’s Office
• Members of the Portland City Council
• National Coalition for the Homeless
• AFL-CIO summer intern program
• Campaigns for candidates at all levels of government
• The Veterans Administration
• Oregon Assembly for Black Affairs
• U.S. Humane Society
• Multnomah County Commission on Children, Families, and Community
• Portland Development Commission
• Oregon Latino Health Coalition
• Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon (APANO)
• Planned Parenthood
• NARAL
• Scottish Parliament
• State Department Mission at the United Nations

Legislative Intern Program

One of the most popular placements for PSU students has been in the State Legislative Intern Program. The Legislative Intern Program was created in 1976 to provide Oregon college students with an opportunity to work within the state legislature, learning leadership responsibilities as well as developing familiarity with the legislative process. Since the Oregon legislature has fewer professional staff members than many states, the student interns can play an important role in a variety of activities related to the legislative process. As a result, this program can be a very valuable and exciting experience. Some of the positions open to students include Legislative Office Assistant, Legislative Committee Assistant, Legislative Counsel Assistant, Information Systems Computer Assistant, and Media Production Assistant. The recommended prerequisite for the Legislative Intern Program is PS 312: Legislative Process, or PS 431: State and Local Politics.

For more information regarding internships, please feel free to contact the Internship Coordinator, Professor Clucas at (503) 725-3258 or hprc@pdx.edu.

Portland State’s unique and nationally recognized core curriculum provides the framework for the sustainability capstone project, which gives you hands-on experience putting sustainability concepts and measures into practice.

Situated in the center of a dynamic urban environment, Portland State is an excellent setting to study sustainable urban development. A transportation hub, PSU is as vibrant as the city that surrounds us. You'll have access to global companies, internships with local government and organizations, and classes taught by professionals actively working in the field of sustainable urban development.

This certificate was crafted with two main goals in mind: first, to guide students through a curriculum on leadership that is appropriate for all majors and accessible for those students that have never thought of themselves as leaders before. And second, to provide actual leadership training to our students. So in short, it's the best of both worlds: it gives students the foundation in academic research on women's leadership as well as practical skills that will help them become leaders in any field. Participants in the certificate program will also have an opportunity to learn from the members of the Center for Women's Leadership, housed in the Hatfield School of Government.

• Small seminars. The majority of classes in the MA in English program are conducted as seminars with a maximum of twelve students. The classroom environment is friendly and supportive, with an emphasis on learning collaboratively.
• Exciting topics. Faculty often teach seminars based on their current research. Recent seminar topics have included postcolonial ecology, sound and Modernism, visual rhetoric, apocryphal Shakespeare, narrative theory, poetry and politics, the Southern Gothic, Romanticism and translation, race and literary studies, and the sublime.
• Outstanding faculty. The faculty of the English Department are accomplished scholars and dedicated teachers. They will challenge and inspire you in the classroom and offer you support and mentorship during your time at the university and beyond.
• Dual degrees. Students have the option of combining the MA in English with a master’s degree in one of the department’s other graduate programs: Creative Writing, Book Publishing, and Professional and Technical Writing. An innovative and flexible curriculum allows students to share credits between programs and graduate with two degrees in a shorter time period.
• Affordable tuition. In addition to Oregon residents, residents of a number of western states (Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming) as well as the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands and Guam benefit from low in-state tuition. The department also offers a very small number of Graduate Assistantships, which include a stipend and tuition remission for two years.

The faculty at the Mark O. Hatfield School of Government are world leaders in public management, public policy, and domestic and international politics. Most students draw broadly from faculty within the School and often from faculty in partner units such as Economics and Urban Studies and Planning. Portland, Oregon is one of the most livable and vibrant cities in the U.S. and provides a welcoming environment for students. Those working part-time or with families and professional spouses find the city an ideal location for the successful pursuit of the degree.

PSU's Master's in Professional and Technical Writing has a longstanding history and strong connections to industries throughout Portland. Our faculty are industry experts in their own right and make graduate students’ professional success their priority by engaging students with the resources they need to succeed after graduation.

PSU's location in downtown Portland puts it next door to thriving industries in health and technology, which makes it possible for our students to find competitive internships that often lead to employment. And with industries constantly moving into Portland, our program’s employment resources also continue to evolve with the local jobscape.

Join our team of expert scientists right at the center of a geological paradise that will get into the field and into Portland’s science community. Our experienced faculty takes pride in providing you with quality education and mentoring that prepares you for a successful career in the geosciences.

Our location in Portland, midway between the coast and the Cascade Range, offers you unmatched opportunities to study geology, from extinct and active volcanoes to landslides, the Columbia River flood basalts, glaciers atop Mount Hood, and subduction-related events along the coast.

Our faculty excel at both teaching and research, with areas of expertise that include geochemistry and petrology, geophysics, geoscience education, hydrogeology, quaternary geology and geomorphology, urban geology, and geologic hazards, tectonics, and planetary science.

With specialized studies in hydrogeology, geomicrobiology, environmental geology, engineering geology, geomechanics, glaciology, and applied stratigraphy, you can branch out or deepen your knowledge in an area that best fits your interests and career goals.

You will also have opportunities to work closely with faculty in their research labs and on projects with local businesses, government, and regional universities.

Our student clubs, including Portland State's chapters of the Association of Environmental and Engineering Geologists and the Association of Petroleum Geologists, provide you with opportunities to network with professionals and learn about the work being done in the field.

An essential part of PSU's Masters in Environmental Management degree is applying your knowledge and skills to a real environmental problem or issue — a project that can take between six and 12 months.

Working closely with a local agency or organization and with the support of your faculty advisor, you'll identify a problem, formulate and propose a project, complete the scope of work, and document and present the results.

Projects are geared to meet the needs of the community partner and can range from addressing basic or applied research questions, identifying best practices, or making site-specific management recommendations.

Our students have worked with the City of Gresham's Environmental Services, Columbia Riverkeeper, Gifford Pinchot Task Force, Portland's Bureau of Environmental Services, Sandy River Basin Watershed Council, Tualatin Hills Parks & Recreation District, Tualatin Watershed Council, The Freshwater Trust, and Community Environmental Services.

We also offer a weekly seminar series that connects you with environmental professionals working in the field.

You'll graduate with the knowledge, skills, and experience you need to hit the ground running.

Portland State is Oregon’s urban research university. Located in the heart of Downtown Portland, within easy reach of the Willamette Valley, Oregon Coast, Cascade Mountains, and high deserts, PSU is a truly unique place to study Earth, environmental, and geospatial science. EES PhD students benefit from the diverse expertises of our faculty and students whose interests are at the heart of today's interdisciplinary solutions. At PSU, we regularly engage with local, regional, and national agencies, NGOs, and industries, with such partnerships enabled by our location in Oregon’s largest city. Additionally, the geological, ecological, and societal diversity of the region provides exceptional research opportunities for a wide range of academic and professional interests. The success of EES graduates across a wide range of disciplines and career pathways demonstrates the unique training opportunities we provide.   

Areas of PhD student research focus in the EES program include: 

• Atmospheric science
• Climate science
• Earth science
• Ecology and Ecological Restoration
• Environmental justice
• Forest, landscape, and disturbance ecology
• Geographic information and spatial data science
• Geology
• Hydrology
• Limnology
• Marine science
• Planetary science
• Political ecology
• Remote Sensing
• Resources management
• Social sciences
• Sustainability and resilience
• Wildfire and natural hazards
• Zoology

Our location in Portland, Oregon gives you access to an array of opportunities to hone your Earth, environmental, or social science skills to practice disciplinary scholarship or interdisciplinary approaches. You can also take advantage of the vibrant policy landscape of Oregon, home to the nation's first bottle bill, climate action plan, urban growth boundary, as well as innovation in many other arenas such as wildfire, plastics, watersheds, and planning. Our place and our expertise allow students to develop original research ideas that dive deep into fundamental challenges of the future while seeking applications and solutions focused on urban and cultural landscapes, socio-ecological systems, and justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion. When you graduate with a doctorate in Earth, Environment, and Society, you will be well on your way to becoming one of the world’s experts on the future challenges at the nexus people, place, and our planet.