Alumni

As wildfires across the U.S. and Canada continue to endanger human health and wildlife, Pete Caligiuri ’10 MF, forest strategy director for The Nature Conservancy in Oregon, is working on fire suppression.

And these efforts include setting fires. “Frequent, extreme wildfires are a threat, but fire has to be part of the solution. Fire always has been a part of these landscapes. Beneficial fire — like prescribed burns and managed wildfires — is essential to the long-term resilience of these forest landscapes into the future,” Caligiuri says.

Transitioning to clean energy is key to combating climate change. As director of policy and network at the Coalition for Green Capitol, Nenha Young ’20 MEM is targeting greenhouse gas reduction initiatives through investments in the environmental, social, and economic sectors and working to establish the National Green Bank.

“I attended YSE because of its leadership in the clean energy field,” Young says. “Through coursework, internships, and independent studies, I was able to design a career at the intersection of clean energy and economic development.”

Ashia Ajani — ’21 MEM (she/they)
“Working on the climate and science team at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation is very different from any work I’ve done before. It’s eye-opening to see how a large philanthropic organization functions in light of this moment’s equity and justice issues. Packard is stepping up to look at structural racism and try to create change, including grappling with questions like ‘How do you maximize the impact of money?’ and ‘How can we change the mindset of philanthropy so it prioritizes leadership from Black-led organizations?’”

Tiana Wilson-Blindman — ’21 MEM (she/her)
“As a biracial person raised on a reservation by an Indigenous mother, I’m sure my identity contributes to my ease in a facilitating role, professionally. I have a cultural understanding of both sides that I think is critical in serving as a go-between and bringing people together.”

Pari Kasotia ’22 MEM
“I was in the middle of my career when I decided to apply to YSE. I’ve spent the majority of my professional life working on clean energy policy in public and nonprofit spaces, but I wanted to get exposure to the private financing side of climate change discourse. When I saw that Just Climate was one of the fellowship hosts, I was excited by their mission and decided to apply. They’re one of the first investment businesses dedicated to climate-led investing, meaning they identify and invest in high-impact solutions for climate change mitigation.”

Cam Humphrey — ’21 MEM (he/him)
“Before I came to Yale, I had more of an agricultural policy background, so it was new to focus on climate policy and environmental issues. I read Dr. Taylor’s book Toxic Communities: Environmental Racism, Industrial Pollution, and Residential Mobility twice during the summer before grad school. It opened my eyes to things happening in my home state and created a deeply rooted passion within me to work on environmental justice issues in the Deep South.”

Liam Gunn — ’21 MEM
“I wanted my internship to focus on grassroots environmental justice, and WE ACT in New York City is one of more prominent groups in the U.S. They’re working on building a coalition of environmental justice leaders; for a while, I’ve felt there needs to be a network for leaders of grassroots environmental justice groups. Grassroots is hard, and being able to share resources, skills, and knowledge will help build out the movement.”

Tevin Hamilton — ’21 MEM
“I went to college in Louisiana and lived in the area between Baton Rouge and New Orleans known as Cancer Alley, a heavily polluted 100-mile stretch with over 150 chemical plants. My goal was a career in forestry, but living there changed me. I saw how Black and low-income communities are more harshly affected by environmental hazards created by companies, so I started reading about environmental justice and knew I wanted to be in a position to help. That is what led me to YSE.”

Simon Bunyan — '23 MEM (he/him)
“Prior to coming to Yale, I worked for several federal agencies on energy and environmental policy. While those experiences were great, it was eye-opening to realize how mainstream environmental organizations, like ‘the Big Greens,’ have a history and active present of working against communities of color, low-income communities, and environmental justice communities on environmental policy."

Water is fundamental to public health, food supplies, and energy production, and therefore vital to national security. Kelsey Semrod ’16 MESc, a water resilience program manager with the Office of the Assistant Secretary worked to establish the first comprehensive water security program for the Navy. Now, as a senior scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, she supports the Department of Energy (DOE) and Department of Defense (DOD) on water resilience issues, including leading water resources management training for DOD and DOE utility managers and supporting a new water and energy resilience program for DOE's Water Power Technology Office. 

Charissa Rujanavech ’13 MEM is a tech industry innovator, developing novel ways to recycle and eliminate electronic waste. Shortly after graduating from YSE, she invented Liam, an automated disassembly system that can take apart more than 1 million iPhones a year so the components can be reused. She has continued her work in the circular economy, promoting a closed-loop supply chain for major retailers, including Amazon, and is now developing new technologies and partnerships to decarbonize refrigeration, retail operations, and food waste at Albertsons Companies.

Forests help mitigate climate change because of their ability to remove and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but they become carbon emitters during wildfires. PhD student Reid Lewis '20 MF is researching how satellite data and machine learning models can help fire-prone forests become more resilient.

“When we make these forests more fire resilient, we can not only store more carbon, we can also help protect human communities, foster wildlife habitat, safeguard watersheds, and can use the process of restoration to partner with and empower Indigenous nations,” says Lewis.

In the Tibetan Plateau, Yufang Gao ’14 MESc, ’23 PhD interviews, observes, and travels with Tibetan herders and Buddhist monks. He sets up camera traps and collects scat to analyze the diet of snow leopards. And he has hiked a mountainside 15,000 feet above sea level — all in pursuit of data for his dissertation focused on the quest for harmonious coexistence between people and large carnivores. What is needed for human-wildlife coexistence is a different perspective about conflict, Gao says. “Conflict,” he has found, “is part of coexistence.”