Committees

Committee on Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science

The Committee on the Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science (CHSS) is a graduate program at the University of Chicago that offers students the opportunity to work toward the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in areas concerned with the history, philosophy, and social relations of science. Though faculty interests range broadly, CHSS has particular strengths in the history and philosophy of biology and psychology, history of medicine and psychiatry, history of statistics and probability, sociology and anthropology of science, and history of communication and the book. CHSS has a special focus on the history of the human sciences. In collaboration with the Max Planck Institute for History of Science in Berlin, CHSS has established an exchange program; this program offers graduate students opportunity to conduct research abroad in the history of the human sciences (broadly conceived).

Committee on Education

The Committee on Education is rooted in two basic tenets. The first is that scholars studying aspects of education within their disciplines will benefit from interdisciplinary interchange. The second is that a well-orchestrated interplay between researchers and practitioners will foster outstanding new scholarship.More specifically, the Committee sponsors an ongoing workshop on Education; administers training grants in educational research; and fosters connections among education-related programs in existing departments and schools, including SSA’s Community Schools Program, the Urban Teacher Education Program, and courses in educational psychology, educational sociology, economics of education, social work, and educational policy.The Committee enables scholars throughout the University to explore these implications, deepening the work in each domain, uncovering new questions, and intensifying interdisciplinary scholarship in education.

Committee on Environment, Geography and Urbanization

Based in the Division of Social Sciences, CEGU was established in 2022. It is as a robust interdisciplinary platform for critical thinking, advanced research, and innovative pedagogy on the societal and spatial dimensions of climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental transformation. Its faculty and students seek to investigate and respond to the environmental crises of our time not only by advancing climate change awareness and environmental literacy, but by actively centering questions about climate change and socio-environmental interdependencies in the epistemologies, conceptual frameworks, analytic methods, data sources, and normative foundations of social research at large.

Committee on International Relations

The Committee on International Relations at the University of Chicago, the nation's oldest graduate program in international affairs, combines intellectual diversity and analytical rigor to provide an especially stimulating environment for students. The small size and scholarly intensity of the Committee ensure that students with differing perspectives will challenge each other and come to a more sophisticated understanding of the complicated interaction between the realities of international politics and the requirements of a global morality. The sharp analytical and critical skills the program fosters provide excellent preparation for students, whether they choose to continue their graduate studies in leading doctoral programs, or decide to work in government or the private sector.

Committee on Quantitative Methods in Social, Behavioral, and Health Sciences

The Committee on Quantitative Methods in Social, Behavioral, and Health Sciences is a university-wide interdisciplinary group of distinguished scholars who share the intellectual focus on developing innovative methods and incorporating new technology for advancing theory-driven and data-informed rigorous research on populations, societies, and behavior. Committee members include faculty from departments in the Division of the Social Sciences (Comparative Human Development, Economics, Political Science, Psychology, and Sociology), Biological Sciences (Human Genetics, Medicine, and Public Health Sciences), the Harris School of Public Policy, and the Department of Statistics. The Committee seeks to create an intellectual niche, exchange research ideas, facilitate research collaborations, share teaching resources, enhance the training of students, and generate a collective impact on the University of Chicago campus and beyond.