The Environmental Science and Engineering Institute (ESEI) established in 2008, has focused its initial activities on remote sensing of the environment, an area where CUNY’s research has become increasingly multidisciplinary and collaborative. ESEI provides an effective and existing multi-disciplinary platform for fostering CUNY wide interactions and collaborations between science and engineering disciplines which can leverage, capitalize and exploit the strength of CUNY research in these areas, which has achieved increasingly widespread international recognition. Much of this research strength, in particular the multi-disciplinary team approach which environmental research mandates, was initially built up on long term funding from NOAA and NASA. The collaborations and scope of activities have now greatly expanded. They continue to exploit CUNY strengths in environmental remote sensing, with work on the atmospheric, oceanic and terrestrial environments, and anthropogenic, climate, weather and pollution impacts on these, in conjunction with Local, State and other Federal agencies, including EPA, DOD and NSF (and continuing with NOAA and NASA) as well as collaborations with other universities and international agencies.