Community Highlights

Congratulations to University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) Assistant Professor of Practice Lisa DuRussel, a lead on a project selected for a 2025 Engage Detroit Workshops grant. The program supports U-M faculty, staff, students and community partners in organizing...

Congratulations to University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) Professor Michaela Zint for leading one of five faculty projects to receive the Provost's Teaching Innovation Prize. The prize honors faculty projects that use innovative approaches to improving student...

Congratulations to University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) doctoral candidates Malu Castro, Congyi Dai and Charlotte Probst for being awarded Rackham Predoctoral Fellowships. The fellowship supports outstanding doctoral candidates working on dissertations that are...

Ivette Perfecto, a professor at the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS), has been selected to serve on the Status of Insects in North America ad hoc study committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. The study committee will conduct a...

Congratulations to University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) Professor Maria Carmen Lemos! Lemos was recognized by the American Association of Geographers (AAG) Human Dimensions of Global Change group for her many years of leadership in the field of human dimensions and...

Congratulations to Michelle Martinez, who has received the American Association of Geographers (AAG) Energy and Environment Speciality Group's 2025 Powershift Award. She, alongside four other award recipients, will be recognized for their work during the 2025 AAG Annual Meeting in Detroit, Michigan...

Adam Kaminsky and Ruth Kazmerzak have been named University of Michigan Wyss Scholars for 2024-2026. Both are students at the School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS). The Wyss Scholars program, funded by the Wyss Foundation, supports environmental and law students who are interested in...

Congratulations to Vianey Rueda, who was selected to participate in the 2025 Christine Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Graduate Fellowship Program from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. The fellowship is a full-time, hands-on training and educational program that...

Congratulations to SEAS Professor Pamela Jagger, who has been selected as a Wilson Center Fellow. As a fellow in residence, Jagger will work on a project entitled, "Weathering Africa’s Climate Traps.” The prestigious international competition offers 9-month residential fellowships to conduct...

Congratulations to Chandler Sachs, a SEAS PhD student affiliated with the Center for Sustainable Systems, for being awarded a Department of Defense (DoD) National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship. The U.S. government fellowship was awarded through the Air Force Office of...

The Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) announced their 2024 scholarship winners, awarding $174,000 to 28 students. One of the awardees is SEAS MLA candidate Daniel Lim, who received $5,000 in the LAF Honor Scholarship for Inclusive Community Design category. The LAF scholarships recognize the...

Three University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) PhD students have been honored for their work. All are members of SEAS Associate Professor Bilal Butt’s Critical Environmental Geopolitics Research Group. Marlotte de Jong (MS ’18, PhD ’25) is the recipient of the National...

Congratulations to the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) Michigan Renewable Energy Development Initiative (MI REDI) master's capstone project team for receiving the American Planning Association Sustainable Communities Division's (APA SCD) Award for Excellence...

Tim Wallington, research specialist with the Center for Sustainable Systems, was appointed as a member of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Environmental Effects Assessment Panel (EEAP). The panel informs the Parties to the Montreal Protocol on matters arising from ozone depletion. The...

University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability Lecturer Kimberly Smith has authored a book, “ Making Climate Lawyers: Climate Change in American Law Schools, 1985-2020” (University Press of Kansas, 2024). The book explores “how American environmental law professors have addressed...

Chandler Sachs and Martha Christino, PhD students at the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS), have been awarded grants from the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Science for Public Good Fund. The fund supports projects focused on advocating for policy grounded in...

Sara Soderstrom, associate professor of environment and sustainability in the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability and director of the Program in the Environment, is one of five U-M faculty members who have been named Arthur F. Thurnau Professors in recognition of their extraordinary contributions to undergraduate education.

Three University of Michigan students, including two from the School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS), have been named Wyss Conservation Scholars for 2023-2025. Funded by the Wyss Foundation, the program supports students at six universities who seek to become future leaders in nonprofit...

Congratulations to Lisa DuRussel (BS '02, MLA '06), an assistant professor of practice at the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability, who was named a 2024 award winner by the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA). DuRussel, one of 13 faculty and student...

Six master's students from the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) have been selected as 2024 Dow Sustainability Fellows. They are among 32 students from 12 U-M schools and colleges who will receive tuition and funding to develop sustainability leadership. The...

A project focused on renewable energy deployment in Nepal and led by University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) researchers has been chosen as a Catalyst Grant recipient by the Graham Sustainability Institute. SEAS Professor Pam Jagger is the principal investigator and...

The Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) announced the second cohort and finalists for LAF Ignite, their scholarship-internship-mentorship program for BIPOC students. One of the five awardees is SEAS MLA student Kaia McKenney The multi-year program provides participants with an annual $10,000...

William (Bill) Banzhaf (B.S.F. '67), was inducted into the Wisconsin Forestry Hall of Fame on October 11, 2023. Bill, who has served on the SEAS External Advisory Board since 2007, has worked in the field of forestry since graduating from SEAS in 1967. After graduation, Bill joined his father...

Congratulations to SEAS Professor Kyle Whyte, who has been invited to serve as a Senior Fellow in the Michigan Society of Fellows. The Society of Fellows is an interdisciplinary community in which postdoctoral fellows at the beginning of their careers are joined by senior fellows to share their...

The Environmental Council of the States (ECOS) has awarded Liesl Eichler Clark, U-M’s Director of Climate Action Engagement, with the 2023 ECOS Founders Award for exemplary past leadership of ECOS initiatives. The award recognizes the impacts of Clark's contributions while serving in Gov. Gretchen...