We build tangible, replicable, and inclusive environmental solutions so that people and nature can thrive
Who We Are
DSE is a team of dedicated data scientists, software engineers, program managers, communicators, and designers. We work hand in hand with UC Berkeley faculty and students along with policymakers, officials, Tribes, Indigenous and local communities, community leaders, and more to help address pressing local, national, and global climate challenges.
What We Do
The powerful combination of modern data and environmental science offer transformative opportunities to create a healthy planet where people and nature thrive. At DSE we:
- Leverage cutting-edge methodologies in data and environmental science to help address climate change, the biodiversity extinction crisis, and other urgent environmental challenges.
- Co-create solutions with decision makers and communities who are most knowledgeable about and most directly impacted by these problems.
- Work to ensure our findings are accessible to and usable by audiences with and without formal programming, data science, or other scientific backgrounds.
We help further the open science and open source movement by providing community-owned tools, data, and methodologies so that our collaborators can better understand, interrogate, and build upon this research. At the same time we adhere to data sovereignty and data privacy principles when working with Indigenous communities in particular.
Home at UC Berkeley
DSE is proud to operate at the intersection of UC Berkeley's Rausser College of Natural Resources and the College of Computing, Data Science, and Society with the financial support of Eric and Wendy Schmidt. A key ingredient our success is drawing from these world class programs to achieve our mission. At UC Berkeley, DSE:
Help train the next generation of leaders by hosting undergraduate and graduate internships and postdoctoral researchers on our team.
Lead EcoTech Connect: an open discussion series on technical methods and coding best practices for environmental scientists.
Teach relevant courses to students, including Interactive Data Science & Visualization in Spring 2025.
Projects
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Eric and Wendy Schmidt
Eric and Wendy Schmidt have been active philanthropists since 2006, when they started the Schmidt Family Foundation to address challenges facing communities around the world, working for clean renewable energy, healthy food systems, healthy oceans and the protection of human rights. They also founded Schmidt Ocean Institute to advance oceanographic research by offering access to the world’s first year-round philanthropic research vessel in exchange for making their findings publicly available. In 2017, the couple founded Schmidt Futures, a philanthropic initiative that invests in exceptional people making the world better and brings them together in interdisciplinary networks to solve problems in science and society.
Eric Schmidt led Google as CEO for a decade and as executive chairman for four years. He also served as executive chairman of Alphabet for three years and as technical advisor. A journalist early in her career, Wendy Schmidt also worked in marketing communications in Silicon Valley and since 2006 has led the couple’s philanthropy as president of the Schmidt Family Foundation and Schmidt Ocean Institute.
Eric Schmidt
Received his Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from UC Berkeley in 1982
Wendy Schmidt
Received her Master of Journalism from UC Berkeley in 1982
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging
The DSE is committed to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. We aim to foster an environment that is safe and open to all work together with Rausser College of Natural Resources, College of Computing, Data Science, and Society, and UC Berkeley to continually learn and grow in our ability to do so.
Our Values
At DSE we value accessibility, transparency, and data sovereignty.
Ohlone Land
DSE recognizes that UC Berkeley sits on the territory of xučyun (Huichin), the ancestral and unceded land of the Chochenyo speaking Ohlone people, the successors of the sovereign Verona Band of Alameda County. This land was and continues to be of great importance to the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe and other familial descendants of the Verona Band.
We recognize that every member of the Berkeley community has benefitted, and continues to benefit, from the use and occupation of this land since the institution’s founding in 1868. Consistent with our values of community, inclusion and diversity, we have a responsibility to acknowledge and make visible the university’s relationship to Native peoples. As members of the Berkeley community, it is vitally important that we not only recognize the history of the land on which we stand, but also, we recognize that the Muwekma Ohlone people are alive and flourishing members of the Berkeley and broader Bay Area communities today.
This acknowledgement was co-created with the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe and Native American Student Development and is a living document.