Martha Van Rensselaer Hall

Martha Van Rensselaer Hall, honoring the pioneering home economist who was among the first female faculty members at Cornell, is home to the College of Human Ecology and the Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy.

Just outside is the PolyForm, a dazzling public-art pavilion with colorful glass walls and jewel-like stainless steel modules.

Media Gallery

Three people, seen from behind in silhouette, look at images of brain scans on monitors in front of them. In the background is an MRI machine.

A fashion exhibit in the Jill Stuart Gallery. There are several mannequins, two of which are positioned on top of small, circular pedestals that are intricately decorated.

Apparel sketches adorn the walls of the fashion design studios in the Human Ecology Building. The sketch shows a row of female subjects, each wearing a different outfit.

Closeup of a table full of various cardboard cutouts and other art-project materials. At left you can see a hand holding a blue pencil.

Two individuals walking near the PolyForm, whose exterior colored-glass walls reach about seven feet high and reflect onto nearby pavement.

Three students walk in a hallway, talking. On the wall to the left is a Cornell University seal and raised lettering that reads “Cornell Brooks School of Public Policy.”

A professor talks with a group of students, who are seated at two long lecture tables. Behind him is a projector screen; the headline “Public Policy” is visible.

Two graduate students in the Sloan Master of Health Administration program collaborate on an orientation activity. There is a whiteboard behind them, and multicolored sticky notes on the wall nearby.

A large group of college students stands in front of a brown brick building in Washington, D.C.

Two women in the foreground look at each other. The U.S. Supreme Court is in the background, slightly out of focus.

College of Human Ecology

Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy

⭐ College of Human Ecology

The College of Human Ecology (CHE) explores the complex and layered relationship between humans and our world. Collaborating across academic disciplines, Cornell Human Ecology students learn to understand the world through broader themes in human nutrition and health; design and technology; development and the life course; and economic and social well-being.

Students identify, examine, and develop solutions to local and global challenges through majors in design and environmental analysis; fashion design; fashion design management; fiber science; global and public health sciences; human biology, health, and society; and nutritional sciences.

CHE takes innovation out of the lab and into the community through community-engaged learning and the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research. Approximately 70 percent of Human Ecology undergraduates reported that they had pursued or plan to pursue research during their undergraduate time at Cornell.

⭐ Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy

Launched in fall 2021, the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy harnesses the university’s wide-ranging expertise in public policy teaching, research and engagement into a shared academic home. The school offers undergraduate majors in public policy and health care policy, as well as graduate-level programs in public administration and health administration.

With expertise in every region of the world, Brooks School faculty apply a global, interdisciplinary and problem-oriented focus to important public-policy issues in data science and technology policy; environmental and sustainability policy; global security; health policy; the politics and economics of development; race, racism and public policy; and social policy and inequality.

Students also have an opportunity to study policy and gain hands-on government experience through the Cornell in Washington program.

Martha Van Rensselaer Hall

Media Gallery

⭐ College of Human Ecology

⭐ Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy

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