About Us

The Yale Environment Review brings environmental research to life by making it compelling, accessible, and relevant to a wide audience. Our work empowers people with a deeper understanding of peer-reviewed research and the most pressing issues facing our planet. 

The Yale Environment Review is a student-run publication that aims to increase access to the latest developments in environmental studies. We aim to shed light on cutting-edge environmental research through summaries, analysis, and interviews. We do this through three types of content:
 
  • Focus articles explore one recent peer-reviewed article and connect its findings to our everyday lives. 
  • Feature pieces build a story around a central theme using multiple recent peer-reviewed articles.
  • Spotlights profile the people behind the latest research in the environmental field.
The Yale Environment Review helps students sharpen their writing skills, familiarize themselves with science communication, and provides a platform to showcase their expertise.
 

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Staff

Zack Steigerwald-Schnall

editor-in-chief, writer

Zack is a second-year Master of Environmental Management student at the Yale School of the Environment, specializing in Environmental Policy Analysis and Climate Change Science and Solutions. He is interested in the structural mechanisms by which inequality is legitimized, as well as policy mechanisms to redress environmental and species injustice. Prior to YSE, Zack worked on numerous projects in the Greater Boston area strengthening youth voices through critical thinking and civic action. He spends his free time making music and ice cream.

 

 

Mara MacDonell

communications and outreach director, writer

Mara is a second year Masters of Environmental Science student interested in rural communities, transitioning economies, and environmental justice in the American West. From her experiences growing up in rural, remote northern Minnesota to working in social services policy and programming on the Western Slope of Colorado, she is passionate about the ways in which effective science communication helps facilitate community well-being. Mara holds a BA in geology from Carleton College. In her free time, Mara enjoys backcountry skiing, running rivers, and painting.

Amma Asantewaa Agyei Boakye

writer

 

Amma is a doctoral student in Industrial Ecology & Sustainable Systems at the Yale School of the Environment. She has a background in Chemical Engineering and Environmental Management and five years of professional experience in green manufacturing and design, corporate sustainability, and renewable energy. Amma leverages data and effective stakeholder engagement to inform multi-scale sustainable design, efficient resource utilization, and policy development across different global regions. Her current research focuses on Life Cycle Assessments of emerging technologies.

Kaley Casenhiser

writer

 

Kaley Casenhiser is a second-year joint degree candidate at Yale School of the Environment (MEM) and Yale Divinity School (M.Div.). A scholar-activist, she specializes in ethics, political ecology, and the arts. Their work and activism counter-maps body-land relations and traces the interstices of environmental racism, sacred ecologies, and land sovereignty. Kaley practices critical participatory action research (CPAR) so their work originates with the lived experiences of communities most impacted by land loss and the climate crisis. She views the repertoire and archival materiality of the lives of those dispossessed by colonialism and racism as critical sources for environmental ethics, participatory action, climate resiliency.

Kaley also works as a performance artist where she explores how bodies and lands are shaped by memory and place in motion. Across each of these mediums, Kaley excavates gendered and raced geographies and epistemologies believing this multi-media work will deepen the capacity of all persons to witness one another and advocate for environmental, economic, and cultural justice in their home-places. 

Ajay Culhane-Husain

writer

 

Ajay is a final year Master of Environmental Management student at Yale, specializing in Business and the Environment. He works as a Tobin Research Fellow with the Yale Initiative on Sustainable Finance, working alongside Dr. Todd Cort and Professor Dan Esty. He focuses his studies and research on how to support asset managers as they take on their biggest sustainability challenges.
 
 

Charly Frisk

writer

 

 

Charly is a climate storyteller and environmental studies researcher hailing from the Rocky Mountain West, advocating for the protection of biodiversity and cultural diversity. Through integrative multi-media storytelling -- writing, podcasting, photography, and film -- climate change communications offer a source of persuasive inspiration. Within this vein, she has worked as a manager of a social media team for the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (YPCCC) on climate data science communication and as a documentary film-maker working to creatively bridge natural and social sciences -- which has found her in the middle of rural Danish farm-lands and in the polar bear zones of the Arctic.

Lily Fillwalk

writer

Lily is a first-year Master of Environmental Science candidate at the Yale School of the Environment. They are conducting their thesis research on urban agriculture and carbon sequestration potential of soil on green roofs in New York City. Fillwalk also working with their advisor, Dr. Dorceta Taylor, in the Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Sustainability Initiative Laboratory. Prior to YSE, Fillwalk worked with Robert Redford Conservancy of Southern California Sustainability on issues relating to sustainable agriculture, environmental justice, and food security. In their free time, Fillwalk knits, reads, and loves to cook.

Gabriella Mickel

writer

Gabriella Mickel is a joint degree student pursuing a JD at the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University and an MEM at the Yale School of the Environment.

 

Elisse Roche

writer

 

 

Elisse is a third-year MBA/ MEM candidate at the Yale School of Management and Yale School of the Environment, specializing in Ecosystem Management & Conservation and People, Equity, and the Environment. Elisse's research is focused on the intersection of carbon markets and climate justice, where she has engaged in community-driven indigenous carbon management. Through SOM, Elisse is a Consortium Fellow and Forté Fellow in recognition of her community activism, professional experience, and potential for business leadership. Elisse worked at Google prior to Yale where she launched Google Cloud's inaugural Data for Good program and established partnerships with the United Nations Foundation, the World Bank, and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Elisse continues to bring her passion for storytelling from her being a once-upon-a-time English major at Columbia University to her career in environmental marketing. When not living and breathing carbon (work-wise, anyway), Elisse is vegan baking, sitting with the trees in East Rock Park, and singing folk music.

Jayson Velazquez

writer

Jayson (he/him) is a second-year Master of Environmental Science candidate at Yale School of the Environment (YSE) researching community-based organization responses to colonial and climate disasters in Puerto Rico. He intends to pursue a career that drives equitable funding for bold climate action to frontline Black, Indigenous, and Person of Color-led power-building organizations. Jayson is a Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Sustainability Initiative Fellow at YSE. Before YSE, Jayson earned his BS in Environment and Natural Resources from The Ohio State University. In his free time, you can find Jayson building LEGOs, exploring new music, and trying fresh tea.

Yu Suzuki

writer

 

 

Yu Suzuki is a second-year Masters of Environmental Management student at the Yale School of the Environment, focusing on climate policy and finance to accelerate decarbonization. Prior to Yale, Yu worked for six years at one of Japan’s largest governmental funding agencies, the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), which finances high-risk innovative technologies to address global energy and environmental problems. As Chief Officer of the International Affairs Department, he implemented several international climate mitigation projects in Asia, established a joint R&D scheme with Germany, and participated in the UN COP22 to COP25 to organize several side events with international agencies. Yu holds a Master of Public Policy from Kyoto University and a Bachelor of International Liberal Arts from Yokohama City University.