PhD

YSE Class of ’23: From drawing to exploring trees, doctoral student Megan Sullivan focuses on logging impacts on tropical forest ecology in Africa.

Gabriel Gadsden’s doctoral research on “social-ecological landscapes of fear” wins the 2023 F. Herbert Bormann Prize. The study published in BioScience examines how negative human histories can limit scientific lines of inquiry and challenges environmental scholars to reckon with biases.

As cities come under increased heat stress with rising global temperatures, a new study by Yale School of the Environment scientists finds that urban humid heat can add additional heat risks to urban areas.

Researchers at YSE examined machine learning’s role in promoting the sustainable design of biomass and biomass-derived materials and found few studies applied machine learning to their entire lifecycle. They say that when applied appropriately machine learning can support sustainability-informed design.

Yale researchers used machine learning techniques to study two decades of ivory trade media coverage in China, discovering some surprising shifts in public sentiment.

Scientists understand that fear of predation affects animal behavior within landscapes. Now, YSE researchers are using a similar hypothesis — which they are calling “social-ecological landscapes of fear” — to explore the need for conservationists to address negative human histories in their research.

Yale doctoral students Kristy Ferraro and Diego Ellis Soto developed a "roadmap" to quantify how the movement of animals of all shapes and sizes contribute to and remove nutrients within and across ecosystems. This work earned them the 2022 Sidnie Manton Award from the British Ecological Society.

A team of YSE-led researchers have now solved a 100-year-old paleontology mystery: How did ancient plants emerge from swamps and riverbanks to new habitats with limited access to water?

A YSE-led study details the severe degradation and deforestation caused by gold mining in tropical forests, as well as the biophysical challenges associated with effectively restoring these landscapes.

• Read more about Siria Gámez PhD

• Read more about Danica Doroski ’21 PhD

A new study, co-authored by researchers from The Forest School at YSE, examines how New Haven’s urban forest patches change over time and management strategies for mid-size urban forests.

After facing “the toughest challenge in a generation,” the YSE Class of 2022 graduated May 23 with a unique sense of community and the will to lead.

Nearly 100 graduates returned to campus with family and friends for an in-person celebration, which included ceremonies at Old Campus and Kroon Courtyard.

Andis Arietta’s doctoral research found that frogs have evolved in response to climate change in recent years, but that continued warming would likely outpace the species’s ability to adapt to extreme environmental change.