Bill Lane Center for the American West, Stanford University

Bill Lane Center for the American West, Stanford University Visit us on our home page at http://west.stanford.edu

Every year we underwrite a journalist investigating crucial issues facing the American West - its land, its people, its ...
09/04/2026

Every year we underwrite a journalist investigating crucial issues facing the American West - its land, its people, its history, and the impact of the forces that power its economies.

This year's awardee of the Bill Lane Center Western Media Fellowship was Michael Stoll, who looked at San Francisco's stalled implementation of curbside EV charging in spite of the city's ambitious climate goals. Why does San Francisco have just two plugs when Los Angeles has nearly 1,000?

Apartment-living and limited garage access makes the lack of convenient charging a substantial barrier to going electric. By all accounts an environmentally progressive city, San Francisco has pledged to reach 100 curbside chargers by 2030. But a complex permitting process, competing demands for curb space and limited public funding have led to stagnation.

Read Stoll's full investigation from San Francisco Public Press here: https://brnw.ch/21x5rZA

Anna Fisher Lopez spent her summer interning at Blue Forest building an interactive database to quantify the impacts of ...
09/02/2026

Anna Fisher Lopez spent her summer interning at Blue Forest building an interactive database to quantify the impacts of wildfires on water utilities. What does active forest resilience work look like? In our Out West student blog, Anna shares her perspective: https://brnw.ch/21x5o09

📸: The Caldor Fire burn scar in Eldorado National Forest. Photo by Anna Fisher Lopez.

From the editors of our online magazine, & the West, we bring you a curated collection of recent reporting from across t...
09/01/2026

From the editors of our online magazine, & the West, we bring you a curated collection of recent reporting from across the region. This series is known as & the Best, and our latest post includes stories on the following:

Deadly flash floods in the Grand Canyon; why lower basin states are suing over Colorado River cuts; the plan to open 45 million acres of national forest to logging; border wall construction threatens a 4,000-year-old Indigenous mural in Texas; Trump’s push to dismantle California’s climate rules; and more environmental news from around the West.

Read more: https://brnw.ch/21x5mAU

In our Out West student blog, Alana Okonkwo reflects on the privilege of serving as Yellowstone's museum intern during t...
08/27/2026

In our Out West student blog, Alana Okonkwo reflects on the privilege of serving as Yellowstone's museum intern during the summer of 2026:

"Working with a museum collection at a National Park has reaffirmed my commitment to service and solidified my dream of pursuing a public service career. These objects have taught me that Yellowstone’s land runs deep with significance. From the petrified wood, I learned that Yellowstone was once a rainforest sprouting above active volcanoes during the Eocene Epoch over 50 million years ago. From examining an obsidian projectile point marked with coyote, fox, and wolf blood, I was reminded of the geothermal importance of the Yellowstone landscape to Indigenous peoples for millennia. When I looked at Thomas Moran’s 1871 Romantic paintings of geysers, waterfalls, and mountain ranges, I saw early white Americans’ fantasies of conserving Yellowstone’s land at the expense of the Native Americans who had inhabited the region for over 13,000 years and were ultimately displaced from it. When I saw a horn and drums used during the 1995 ceremony of the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park, I learned to have hope – that through collaboration, cultural empathy, and a deep-rooted care for the land, we can collectively work to restore Yellowstone’s health and serve the interests of Tribal Nations."

Read her full post: https://brnw.ch/21x5gu5

📸: 1) Alana Okonkwo holds a 50 million year-old chunk of petrified wood at the Yellowstone Heritage and Research Center in Gardiner, Montana. Photo by Alana Okonkwo; 2) Alana Okonkwo examines a painting of Yellowstone's Lower Falls by Thomas Moran at the Yellowstone Heritage and Research Center. Photo by Hayley Tubble.

The John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships Program at Stanford has announced its 2026 Knight-Risser Prize winner: Sam Sch...
08/26/2026

The John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships Program at Stanford has announced its 2026 Knight-Risser Prize winner: Sam Schramski, a freelance journalist and special projects editor at the Earth Journalism Network. The Bill Lane Center for the American West is a proud co-sponsor of this award. Schramski will use the fellowship to investigate how a push to fast-track critical mineral development is exposing public lands across the West to a new wave of mining claims with little oversight. Read the full story: https://brnw.ch/21x5em0

📸: Top: Sam Schramski. Photo courtesy of Sam Schramski; Bottom: Gila River at a high flow. Photo courtesy of Gila National Forest; Uploaded by Albert Herring to Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. https://brnw.ch/21x5elZ

In a blog post written in an only slightly apocalyptic register, summer intern Ella Dolan details her caterpillar-huntin...
08/19/2026

In a blog post written in an only slightly apocalyptic register, summer intern Ella Dolan details her caterpillar-hunting adventures across the American West. You can find her reflections, "The caterpillar hunter’s guide to roadtripping at the end of the world," in our Out West student blog: https://brnw.ch/21x53sA

📸: Ella Dolan collecting caterpillars in Wilson, Wyoming, photo by Chantal Dolan.

In today's & the Best, a collection of news stories from around the region, our editors bring you curated reporting on t...
08/18/2026

In today's & the Best, a collection of news stories from around the region, our editors bring you curated reporting on the forced evacuations from British Columbia's explosive wildfires; a debate surrounding use of the recycling symbol; how Utah is killing the Great Salt Lake; severe drought and water cuts in rural Colorado; the power grid grants worth $24 million that were frozen over political loyalty; and more environmental news from around the West.

Find these stories and more in our online magazine, & the West: https://brnw.ch/21x51SP

"This summer I’ve developed practical skills measuring river flow, electrofishing, cleaning datasets, and even becoming ...
08/18/2026

"This summer I’ve developed practical skills measuring river flow, electrofishing, cleaning datasets, and even becoming a licensed drone pilot. But the most important skill I refine every day at Cal Trout is my ability to challenge my comfort zone, both intellectually and physically. When out in the field I constantly encounter new, unpredictable situations and do my best to adapt accordingly. Whether I’m climbing over a barbed wire fence covered with wasp nests, catching fish at five in the morning, or falling face-first into a patch of stinging nettles, I never know what a new day will bring."

Katie Klein describes the many lessons of working with California Trout this summer as a Bill Lane Center intern. Her reflections can be found in our Out West student blog: https://brnw.ch/21x51JS

📸: 1) Katie Klein and Travis James at the Iron Canyon construction site. Cal Trout is restoring the narrow gorge to improve fish passage. Photo by Holly Swan; 2) Big Springs Creek with Mt. Shasta in the distance. Photo by Katie Klein.

Introducing Bill Lane Center intern Anna Fisher Lopez (she/her)Major: Physics, '25; MS Computer Science, '26Hometown: T...
08/14/2026

Introducing Bill Lane Center intern Anna Fisher Lopez (she/her)
Major: Physics, '25; MS Computer Science, '26
Hometown: Takoma Park, Maryland,
Internship: Blue Forest

"I wanted to work at an impact-driven organization operating at the intersection of multiple methods of approaching conservation. Blue Forest combines science, finance, and community partnerships, giving me the opportunity to explore multiple avenues for work in the conservation space.

As an intern, I'm on the science team, building an interactive database to quantify and map the economic and environmental impacts of wildfires on water utilities. This enables the science and project development team to identify potential beneficiaries for new projects, and will also be used externally as a decision support tool for water utility employees and partners.

In my free time, I've enjoyed hiking, running, line dancing, and exploring San Francisco!"

Learn more about our internship program: https://brnw.ch/21x4Wxr

📸: 1) Anna exploring during a site visit to the Upper Mokulemne River Basin. Photo by Eric Ericson; 2) Views from an overlook above a coffee and pastries meetup during a site visit; 3) Meeting with project partners including forestry services companies, UMRWA, and corporate partners like Pepsi and Amazon; Photo by Ann Fisher Lopez; 4) Hearing from Washoe tribe representatives about their work on forest restoration projects in the Upper Mokulemne River Basin. Photo by Anna Fisher Lopez.

Here's something you don't see every day...unless you're Judith Gomez, a Bill Lane Center intern spending her summer at ...
08/12/2026

Here's something you don't see every day...unless you're Judith Gomez, a Bill Lane Center intern spending her summer at the Konza Prairie Biological Station in Manhattan, Kansas. As a "Grassland Insect Community Ecology Intern," Gomez has been tagging grasshoppers with fluorescent markers during the day and searching for them at night.

In addition to catching grasshoppers, other internship activities have included soil sampling, bagging wildflowers and weighing bison pies. Back in the lab, Gomez has sorted captured bugs by family, aided in heat tolerance experiments, and even dissected female grasshoppers to count their ovarioles.

Gomez shares more reflections about her summer on the Kansan prairie in our Out West student blog: https://brnw.ch/21x4Sgo

📸: A tagged grasshopper found at night at KPBS in Manhattan, Kansas. Photo by Judith Gomez.

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