From ecological resilience to public policy to sustainable rural livelihoods, the 2026 Wyss scholars, including three from the Yale School of the Environment, are tackling conservation challenges across the U.S.
The Wyss Foundation has named four Yale students as part of the 2026 cohort of Wyss Scholars. Caitlyn Castleberry ’27 MF, Claire Potter ’27 JD, Jackson Newman ’27 MEM, and Paige Wagar ‘27 MF/JD will receive tuition stipends, internships, and continuing career support through the Wyss Foundation, a private, charitable foundation dedicated to strengthening connections to the land, empowering communities, and improving lives.
“Meeting today’s conservation challenges will require a new generation of leaders that are prepared to work across disciplines and across divides to find novel approaches to the issues we face on the ground,” said Indy Burke, the Carl W. Knobloch, Jr. Dean of the Yale School of the Environment. “These four students demonstrate this precise ability and will each draw on their unique backgrounds to shape the future of U.S. land conservation. I am deeply grateful for the Wyss Foundation’s generous investment in these talented students as they hone their skills at Yale.”
These four students demonstrate this precise ability and will each draw on their unique backgrounds to shape the future of U.S. land conservation. I am deeply grateful for the Wyss Foundation’s generous investment in these talented students as they hone their skills at Yale.”
Castleberry’s work focuses on balancing human needs with ecological protection and resilience. Prior to becoming a Master of Forestry student at YSE, she interned with the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Natural Resources. That experience strengthened her dedication to facilitating partnerships among policymakers, conservation scientists, and the public, she said.
“Through my experience in the House Subcommittee on Federal Lands, I’ve seen firsthand how intricate the strategies to manage them are,” Castleberry said. “We need strategies to support ecological resilience within federal landscapes, but rural economies rely on natural resources, so it’s important to work on balancing those priorities.”
At YSE, her work is centered on developing public policy to enhance the sustainability of working forests under a changing climate while supporting communities that rely on their natural resources. The Wyss Foundation will support her summer internship with the National Alliance of Forest Owners.
Potter, a second-year law student at Yale Law School, has worked as a climate and environment reporter. In 2020, she became a fellow with the Pulitzer Center, a journalism nonprofit that supports international reporting on underrepresented issues. For her fellowship, she investigated the water crisis in Mexico City, where unsustainable development and withdrawals from underground aquifers threaten to leave the city without running water. She reported on activists and urban planners who envisioned transformative solutions, worked on scalable local projects, and struggled to convince the city to act.
As a reporter in New England for the Valley News in West Lebanon, New Hampshire, she developed an understanding of debates that divide people committed to conservation issues — clean energy versus habitat disruption, land conservation versus housing, and recreation versus environmental protection.
“I covered a range of conservation controversies over the management of public lands, the challenges of sustaining small working farms, and the construction of renewable energy,” she said.
Her reporting inspired an interest in building consensus around state and local solutions. She said she is excited to use litigation and policy to advance clean energy goals and protect public land.
Potter is co-president of the Yale Environmental Law Association, a fellow at the Law, Environment & Animals Program, and an articles editor on The Yale Law Journal. This summer, she will intern with the Conservation Law Foundation in Boston.
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“The Wyss Scholars Program is a transformative opportunity that has enabled me to focus on the work that brought me to law school,” she said,
Before coming to YSE, Newman spent three years as a community organizer at the Northern Plains Resource Council in Montana, a grassroots conservation and family agricultural group. There he successfully worked to prevent utilities rate increases and halt a controversial industrial carbon dioxide injection project. This summer, he will assist in the development of conservation programming for the Montana Cattlemen’s Association.
At times, private lands conservation can be overlooked and underfunded, yet it is critical for maintaining resilient ecosystems and the communities that depend on them, he said.
“Grassland prairies are some of our few remaining intact ecosystems, and they’re threatened by development. I would like to preserve them while maintaining rural livelihoods," he said.
Wagar is studying how the legal system can both facilitate and hinder enjoyment of public lands. She said camping trips in her youth and her work in the National Park and U.S. Forest Services solidified her interest in people’s relationships with landscapes.
While public lands may allow recreational access, they can also prohibit certain activities like foraging or removing timber. It is important to explore how better to include tribal communities in the decision-making process, she said.
This summer, Wagar will intern with Parks California, a nonprofit that helps to strengthen amenities, resources and programming at state parks. She will be supporting California State Parks' work integrating Tribal knowledge into park management. After graduating, she plans to return home to California to work as a public sector attorney protecting public lands and community access to them.
“My first job was in wilderness management, and I saw how the law dictates our relationships with public lands. I believe it can do so in ways that protect both communities and landscapes,” she said.
