School Notes: School of the Environment
November/December 2008

Yale prize will support eco-ventures

An annual $25,000 Sabin Environmental Venture Prize at Yale has been established to stimulate entrepreneurial environmental ventures by faculty and students. The Sabin Prize will support the creation of nonprofit and commercial organizations, business models, or other innovations that address pressing environmental challenges -- such as a new technology for desalination, or a startup aimed at distributing existing technologies such as solar-powered lanterns to rural villages lacking electricity. The first Sabin Prize will be awarded next April by the Center for Business and the Environment at Yale. It was made possible by a gift from the Andrew Sabin Family Foundation.

Student to live in tiny 'green' house

Figuring that it would cost $14,000 annually to live in New Haven, Elizabeth Turnbull, a first-year student at the environment school, built an 8-foot-by-18-foot environmentally friendly home and plans to live in it while she pursues a master's degree for the next two years. The tiny house, which includes a sleeping loft, kitchen area, living room, study, and bathroom with composting toilet, was towed to New Haven from the grounds of the Governor's Academy in Byfield, Massachusetts, where it was constructed on a flatbed trailer. The house will be heated with propane gas, and three solar panels on the roof will provide electricity to illuminate the space and power Turnbull's laptop computer. The house also contains soy-based insulation, environmentally friendly paint, and recycled glass for a countertop.

New professors include international scholars

The environment school has added several new faculty for the 2008–2009 academic year. Karen Seto, associate professor in the urban environment, will teach a course on urbanization, global change, and sustainability. Mark Bradford, an assistant professor in terrestrial ecology, researches soil ecology, biogeochemical processes, and global change.  Gerald Torres ’77JD will be the Dorothy McCluskey Fellow during the spring 2009 semester. He is jointly appointed with the Law School and will teach classes on Native American law and on social movements and the environment. Simon Tay, chair of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, will teach an environmental law course on global concerns and Asian challenges. Gary Yohe ’75PhD, one of the first researchers to study the economic impacts of sea level rise, will teach courses on the economics of climate change and environmental economics. Helga Weisz, head of the research area on social metabolism at the Institute for Social Ecology, Kalgenfurt University, in Vienna, will teach ecology of the society-industry interface this fall. Nick Robinson, Distinguished Professor of Environmental Law at Pace University School of Law, will teach international environmental law and policy, the environmental diplomacy practicum, and comparative environmental law in global legal systems -- this last course in concert with Lye Lin Heng, a top legal scholar from Singapore.