Yale School of the Environment

We love seeing what our alumni are up to in Canopy's Class Notes. Read up on your fellow alums in Canopy. https://environment.yale.edu/canopy/2026/class-notes

"There is a whole world under our feet from the past that we're not aware of."

That's how Sam Blair '26 MESc describes what he set out to reveal with the New Haven Digital Atlas, an interactive map letting users explore what the city's shoreline looked like before industrialization, where historic mills once stood and what they left behind, and how neighborhoods like City Point looked in 1846, when they were still farm fields and open water.

Explore the atlas and the story behind it:

Building maps to connect New Haven’s past with the present The New Haven Digital Atlas, an interactive map created by Yale’s New Haven Environmental History Project, invites users to explore how the city’s historical landscape has changed over time.

Microsoft just bought 2.85 million carbon credits. Netflix signed a 15-year deal for 4.8 million more. But how much can we actually trust what a carbon credit promises?

YSE scientists are working to close the "evidence gap" behind nature-based carbon markets — building more rigorous ways to measure how much carbon soils and forests really capture, and how long it stays there.

"If you likened the situation to your retirement account, the difference should really matter to you," says Mark Bradford, the E.H. Harriman Professor of Soils and Ecosystem Ecology. "You'd much rather be building that balance up [than just slowing the losses]."

Read more in the new issue of Canopy. 🔗 Link in comments.

“These longtime educators exemplify the intellectual rigor and public purpose that define the Yale School of the Environment. Through their teaching, research, and leadership, they modeled what it means to engage with real-world environmental challenges while inspiring students to think boldly, ethically, and collaboratively," says Dean Indy Burke.

Join us in congratulating Senior Lecturer Carol Carpenter, and Professors Marian Chertow, and Brad Gentry on their retirements. https://yse.to/nq

The field of environmental justice has never had a single reference text of its own. Researchers, advocates, and scientists have had to piece together information on cancer clusters, chemical spills, and pollution from scattered sources that rarely connected the threads. The Sage Encyclopedia of Environmental Justice, edited by YSE Professor Dorceta Taylor, now brings those threads together in one place, with contributions from more than 300 authors across 26 countries.

"The scope of the project reflects that environmental justice is not a regional or even national issue. It’s a global phenomenon, but there was no one place where you could find information on all these events," says Taylor.

The encyclopedia is available now. Learn more at

Landmark Encyclopedia Documents Environmental Justice Issues Worldwide YSE Professor Dorceta Taylor led a four-year effort to produce the first comprehensive reference work on environmental justice issues across 26 countries and six continents.

Jackson Newman MEM ’27 has been spending his summer crisscrossing Montana with the Montana Cattlemen's Association, talking to producers at rodeos and fairs about livestock market policy — because for grasslands conservation to work on private lands in the West, ranchers need to be able to make a sustainable living selling cattle.

YSE wildlife expert Nyeema Harris explains why bears, coyotes, and birds aren’t “encroaching” on our lives — and how smarter habits and a little respect can help people and wildlife coexist.

Where the wild things are: Staying safe as human-wildlife encounters increase Yale wildlife expert Nyeema Harris explains why bears, coyotes, and birds aren’t “encroaching” on our lives — and how smarter habits and a little respect can help people and wildlife coexist.

For nearly two decades, a staff you could fit in a phone booth has produced some of the most consequential environmental journalism in the world. Yale Environment 360, founded in 2008 with a small team led by editor Roger Cohn, has published more than 1,700 stories, drawn 4 million+ annual readers, and helped spur real-world action: new international protections for trafficked hornbills, a halted canal project in South Sudan, the eviction of illegal miners from Yanomami lands in Brazil, and an Oscar-nominated documentary.

As Cohn steps down after 18 years, the need for independent, rigorous environmental reporting has never been greater. Read the full story on E360's history and impact: https://yse.to/np

When did New Haven's trees last get counted? For some neighborhoods, the answer is 1999, or never. Eve Cooke '27 MF is spending the summer changing that, working with the New Haven Parks Department's Tree Division, Tree Warden Annie Mixwell, and the Urban Resources Initiative to conduct street tree inventory work in East Shore, Annex, Fair Haven Heights, and Quinnipiac Meadows.