Through the Institute's research and education centers, leading scholars from throughout Yale explore complex environmental issues, which include an understanding of the relationship between the environment and human health. The Institute also sponsors two undergraduate degree-granting majors: Studies in the Environment, and Organismal Biology.

The mission of the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies' Center for Computational Ecology is to develop mathematical and computational tools for the simulation, analysis and validation of ecological models, with the ultimate goal of developing software tools that may be actively used in the formulation of public policy and in the process of environmental management.

The Center is also committed to the training mission of the Institute. The Center's computational infrastructure is used extensively in graduate research and will provide a foundation for undergraduate education in ecology, population, genetics, and organism biology through a revised laboratory curriculum in which students will explore simulations to discover the principles of these sciences.