Eric Nyquist
Once upon a time, back in 2020, there was something called the Yale Planetary Solutions Project. Its goal was to find ways to draw on Yale’s resources to address the staggering challenges that lie ahead, as we face the consequences of climate change. But recently, the word “project” was removed. This is not a short-term endeavor, says Sara Smiley Smith ’07MESc/MPH, ’16PhD, the assistant provost for planetary solutions. “You’re certainly not alone in wanting a noun. Everyone would like us to have a word there,” she says with a laugh. “We don’t have one—yet.” The goals are too expansive, so far, to set limits.
Last May, YPS’s steering committee set up a broad vision of what Planetary Solutions is meant to be for the university, and President Maurie McInnis ’96PhD summed it up in her letter for this magazine last fall: “Yale Planetary Solutions (YPS) is the north star for the university’s efforts—generating discoveries and translating them into action and impact.” Grants and guidance from YPS are helping members of the Yale community investigate solutions for the problems that face us globally, using Yale and New Haven as test beds and starting-off points for expansive ideas.
The program has a heavy emphasis on getting together researchers from different fields, says Smiley Smith. An anthropologist and a chemist, say, might have their own ideas of how to solve a climate problem. But if they worked together, something remarkable might emerge—something that has a better chance of success than if they’d worked alone.
So far, the most visible symbol of what YPS intends to be over the long term has been its seed grant program, in which faculty members can apply for funding to help develop ideas that might not be explored otherwise. Here are ten of the dozens of groundbreaking projects made possible by Yale Planetary Solutions in the first three years of its existence. Together, they provide a snapshot of the vibrancy of the work going on at Yale, right now, to address what’s coming.
loading
Print
Email