Al Lim, Botao Zhao, and Yuefei You
Anthropology and Environment Program Students Earn Prizes for Research
Three YSE doctoral students — Al Lim, Botau Zhao, and Yuefei You — were recognized for their research during the American Anthropological Association in New Orleans.
Lim won the H Russell Bernard Student Paper Prize from the Society for Anthropological Sciences for his paper on how taxes and fiscal design shape subjects in AI-crypto ecosystems.
Zhao received the Nancy Abelmann Prize from the East Asia Society for best graduate student paper. The paper examines the decline of horse caravans in Yanjing, Markham, Tibet.
You earned the 2025 best student film prize from the Society for Visual Anthropology Festival of Film and Media for her documentary “What Do Ghosts Think?” The film examines how various communities in East Kalimantan respond to displacement, supernatural tales, and political censorship surrounding the construction of the new city of Nusantara.
Lim, Zhao, and You work in the lab of Michael Dove, the Margaret K. Musser Professor of Social Ecology and co-director of the Combined Doctoral Program in Anthropology.
January 26, 2026
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What makes extreme heat so deadly?
In the latest Rose Walk and Talk, YSE's Jennifer Marlon explains why extreme heat poses a growing threat to human health — and it’s not just about the temperature.
August 26, 2026
Jennifer Marlon
Senior Research Scientist, Lecturer, and Director of Data Science; Executive Director, Yale Center for Geospatial Solutions; Lecturer, Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology
Anthony Leiserowitz Named American Psychological Association Fellow
Anthony Leiserowitz, professor of climate communication, has been elected an American Psychological Association Fellow, effective January 1, 2027. Fellow status is awarded to those who have made outstanding and sustained contributions to the field of psychology.
Leiserowitz, the director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, was recognized for his work on climate and environmental psychology, which has helped shape how the public and policymakers understand the human dimensions of the climate crisis.
“I’m so honored to be named a Fellow of the American Psychological Association. Environmental and conservation psychology are more important to solving our shared global challenges than ever before, and I’m just glad I’ve had the opportunity to help advance the field,” Leiserowitz said.
August 11, 2026
Anthony Leiserowitz
JoshAni-TomKat Professor of Climate Communication; Director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (YPCCC)
Satellites Can Track Amazon Forest Resilience — But Timing Matters
A new study led by Kexin Song, a postdoctoral associate at YSE, offers field-based evidence that satellite data can detect meaningful differences in how well Amazon forests recover from drought stress, rather than merely reflecting glitches caused by clouds, sensor quirks, or measurement timing. By cross-checking geospatial observations with physiological measurements from more than 342 trees representing 114 species, researchers confirmed that a satellite-derived resilience indicator capture real ecological signals. This finding strengthens the case for using satellites as early-warning tools for ecosystem transitions across hard-to-access regions such as the Amazon.
An important caveat that the study found, however, is that the observation timing must align with natural recovery rhythms. For instance sampling too frequently can hide recovery dynamics, but sampling too infrequently risks missing them. The study suggests that some earlier satellite-based resilience assessments warrant re-examination.
The paper, "Physiological fidelity of a satellite-derived forest resilience indicator in the Amazon," was published in Nature Ecology & Evolution.
July 21, 2026
