May 18, 2023
Yale Environmental Humanities is delighted to announce the six 2023 recipients of the Graduate Certificate in the Environmental Humanities sponsored by the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
The Graduate Certificate is open to Yale doctoral students and professional school students who seek to establish a strong foundation in environmental humanities topics and methodologies across the humanities disciplines. Students must take three approved graduate classes and participate in a yearlong workshop to discuss key concepts and developments in the field. Students also complete a teaching or public humanities requirement and present their scholarly research to an interdisciplinary audience.
Elena Adasheva-Klein studies human-environment relations and urban infrastructure in the Russian Arctic, as well as Arctic science diplomacy and governance. As an environmental humanities certificate student, she drew from coursework in Indigenous environmental philosophies, critical museum studies, and environmental history to explore the role of non-human entities as social and historical actors in Russian and Eurasian environments.
Kristy Ferraro’s research addresses the ecosystem contributions provided by large mammals, specifically how they impact carbon and nitrogen cycling in northern ecosystems. She also conducts research in conservation ethics, exploring and challenging the norms within the field of Conservation. With a dual background in ecology and philosophy, Kristy used her certificate coursework to explore philosophy and literature classes relevant to ecological theory and to advance her work in ethics. She describes this environmental humanities toolkit as “instrumental” to her work as a scientist fighting for environmental protections and animal conservation.
Charlotte Leib researches histories of the built environment, landscape architecture, and the perceptions, representations and repercussions of environmental and technological change in North America during the seventeenth through twentieth centuries. Coming from a professional background in architecture, Charlotte notes that the environmental humanities were a “revelation” in helping her discover a set of methods and academic communities for her research on the landscapes of the New Jersey Meadowlands.
Kaggie Orrick studies the human-wildlife interface: how humans, wildlife and livestock impact one another across the landscape. As a certificate student, she designed a concentration titled “Social-Ecological Concepts and Understanding” to better understand the social, cultural, and ethical dimensions of conservation problems. For Kaggie, the environmental humanities are “crucial” in understanding the interdependence of ecological and social processes.
George’s current research focuses on the overlaps of environmental management and the hospitality industry in Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean, studying how tourism stakeholders get involved in conservation and the production of environmental science. His certificate coursework spanned social theories of environments and power, histories of environmental science, and ethnographic studies of corporations. George also notes that he was inspired by the program’s emphasis on public-facing work, which led to his 2023 Public Humanities grant project on the Cyclades islands, titled Horizons After Tourism, to be pursued in collaboration with the Athens based publishing initiative kyklàda.press.
Miklós Veszprémi’s dissertation focused on “double function form” works, in which musical form unfolds on multiple, mutually exclusive hierarchical levels simultaneously. A former concert pianist, Miklós discovered a passion for climate change as he progressed through his music theory PhD program and pursued courses in environmental law, climate change policy, and international relations. He cites the arts and humanities as providing something crucial in the fight against climate change: “visions worth living and fighting for.”