Staff

Omar Malik

Omar is a second-year master’s student at the Yale School of Forestry, where he focuses on environmental policy and climate change issues. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a degree in Integrative Biology and was driven to take action when learning about the global biodiversity crisis. He has conducted research at the UC Berkeley Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, has worked as a community organizer for the Sierra Club, and has done rare flower surveys on government lands. He hopes to share scientific information with the public.

Jennie Miller

Jennie Miller is a PhD Candidate researching tiger and leopard livestock depredation in Kanha Tiger Reserve, central India. She is interested in the role of top carnivores in shaping prey resource use and using ecological relationships to understand and mitigate human-wildlife conflict. Jennie is an editor for American Journal Experts and a guest writer for the international nature magazine Sanctuary Asia.

Urs Dieterich

Urs is a first-year Master of Environmental Management candidate at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. His focus is on international forest governance and the role of forests in climate change mitigation. During his undergraduate studies in forest science and resource management at the Technische Universität München human dimensions of today’s environmental challenges caught his interest. Since the beginning of college he has been actively involved in the International Forestry Students’ Association (IFSA), which promotes forest education and youth participation in enviropolitical processes. Currently he is a focal point to the Major Group Children and Youth at the United Nations Forum on Forests. Being convinced of the power of communication, he aims at reaching out to the public to enhance environmental and political awareness.

Elizabeth Babalola

A first year Masters student at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Elizabeth is passionate about environmental education, tropical forest reforestation and municipal waste management. Before coming to Yale, she worked on mangrove reclamation in Nigeria where she also worked as a peer educator. As a peer educator, she taught high schools boys about sexual and reproductive health and helped them gain social skills to reduce their exposure to HIV & STDs.

Lynette Leighton

Lynette is a first-year Master of Environmental Management candidate at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.  Her interests are in industrial ecology, with emphases on supply chain management and hazardous waste management.  Prior to Yale, Lynette worked as a research entomologist for a private firm, using integrated pest management and developing state-approved training curriculum for continuing education.  Lynette double majored in Conservation & Resource Studies and Society & Environment at the University of California, Berkeley.

Howe Wang

Howe Wang is a second-year Master of Environmental Management candidate focusing on economics. Besides energy related economic research, he is interested in global technology investment, diffusion and policy. He spend 2011 to 2012 as a Yale Fox Fellow working in Tel Aviv in a cleantech venture capital firm while researching technology investment policy. Prior to Yale, he was working at the New Yorker Magazine's China Bureau.

Matthew Kotchen — Faculty Advisor

Professor Kotchen’s research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of environmental and public economics. With the use of both theoretical and empirical methods, much of his work focuses on voluntary approaches to environmental policy. Kotchen’s research is published in leading economics journals, interdisciplinary journals and the popular press, and it has been reported on widely in major media outlets.

Recent projects investigate the effect of “green” markets on the provision of environmental public goods, participation in green-electricity programs, and voter referenda for open-space conservation. Ongoing research considers climate and energy policy, daylight saving time, management of common-pool resources, corporate social responsibility, charitable fundraising and applied game theory. Several projects involve interdisciplinary collaborations with ecologists and political scientists.

Kotchen is a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and has held previous positions at Williams College, University of California (Santa Barbara and Berkeley), Stanford University and Resources for the Future (RFF).

2011-2012 Team

Kathryn Siegel
Omar Malik
Dylan Walsh
Jesse Burkhardt
Leigh Whelpton
Liz Thomas
Rich Press