University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) master's student Francesca Governali (MS/MBA ’24) was working in Washington, D.C., when she realized she wanted to pursue a graduate degree in environmental policy. Her passion for public lands had brought her to D.C to work on federal public lands issues at The Wilderness Society. However, she quickly realized that her earth sciences and ecology undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College was not going to be enough to support the direction she envisioned her career would take into the environmental policy space. 

After considering other degree programs, Governali knew SEAS was the best fit for her because of its Environmental Policy and Planning (EPP) specialization and the opportunity to pursue a dual degree with the U-M Ross School of Business through the Erb Institute. 

“EPP is the specialization that made the most sense,” she said. “Because of my natural science focus in undergrad, I felt confident in my ecology and natural sciences background, so my gap was in the policy space for the work I want to do in the future.”

Governali was excited about the opportunity to study with SEAS Professor Steve Yaffee. 

“I was able to talk to Steve when I was in the application stage,” she said. “It was amazing how much time he was willing to give me as someone who hadn’t even applied to the program yet.”

She believes that having a strong working relationship with Yaffee was a pivotal part of her SEAS experience. Not only was Yaffee her faculty advisor, but he also was her master’s project advisor and research advisor. Governali also had the opportunity to be a graduate student instructor for Yaffee’s EAS 562: Environmental Policy, Politics & Organizations course. 

“Steve is incredibly dedicated to supporting students and teaching students,” she said. “For example, as I started to look for jobs and was reaching out to alumni, I was struck by how many people asked about Steve and talked about how Steve’s classes were some of the best parts of their SEAS experiences. It is clear that he has impacted many students. I have been lucky to learn from and work with him. He has pushed me to achieve his high standards, which has made me a better student and professional.”

Her master’s project focused on landscape conservation and irrecoverable carbon, a categorization of carbon which describes dense stores of above- and below-ground carbon, sequestered in biomass and soil, that are vulnerable to release into the atmosphere by human activities. She enjoyed working on the prioritization of high carbon landscapes, which is a current focus of the conservation field. She is working on publishing an academic paper related to the topic with another member of her project team. 

Governali also came to SEAS interested in the opportunity to be a part of the Wyss Scholars program, which provides funding and career support to graduate students interested in land conservation. She found that the Wyss Scholarship provided a professional network and support for the field of land conservation, which is less easily found at SEAS and not found at Ross. 

“It was awesome to have a network of like-minded people from across different graduate schools and with different focuses of studies,” she said. 

The scholarship funding from the Wyss Foundation allowed her to create her own internship during Summer 2023 with the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators (NCEL) and Recreational Equipment, Inc (REI). 

After working for the White House Council on Environmental Quality the previous summer on federal land conservation issues, Governali knew she wanted to continue filling her knowledge gaps, which she felt were how the private sector and state government plays a role in land conservation in the United States. 

According to Governali, NCEL and REI had a pre-existing partnership and because of her funding from the Wyss Scholarship, she was able to pitch a joint internship to the two organizations. 

“REI wanted to strengthen their partnership with NCEL, and NCEL had the goal of creating a tool for state legislators to increase equitable outdoor access,” she said. “Over the course of the 10-week internship, I created a toolkit focused on state-level outdoor equity grant programs, interviewed state legislators, nonprofit leaders, industry professionals and many others from across the county, gained insight into for-profit company operations, and understood state level policies.”

She also was able to gain more understanding of the private sector through her dual degree with Ross School of Business, which she decided to pursue after an impactful mentor in the policy space, who had an MBA herself, encouraged her to consider the degree.

“She explained that an MBA is important to build management and leadership skills, as well as an understanding of how businesses work, as there is a lot of influence from businesses in the nonprofit sector,” she said. “I felt like that knowledge would be important for me to have.”

Governali has found that her MBA has been incredibly useful in complementing her environmental policy studies at SEAS. 

“I have learned more management and leadership skills,” she said. “I was also surprised by how many business skills are applicable to the nonprofit world, like marketing, communications and accounting.”

She also believes her MBA provided a good perspective on the SEAS learning environment and how it may be different from the world she will be entering when going back into the workforce. 

“Ross offers perspectives of the world that are very different from those I had in previous academic and professional environments and taught me how to better communicate environmental issues to a broad audience,” she said.

Governali feels her dual degree enhanced her SEAS experience, providing her exposure to a new learning environment, peer community and atmosphere that made her appreciate the smaller, more personal relationships of SEAS. 

“Erb in particular has provided a strong sense of community,” she said. “These people span the gap between SEAS and Ross and have provided an extension and expansion of the SEAS community.” 

After graduating from U-M, Governali will be moving back to Washington, D.C., to work for the League of Conservation Voters on government affairs for conservation policy. She said that she is excited to apply the skills she has gained from SEAS and Ross, as well as her past internships, to work on policy informed by state and local interests and voices on the ground at the federal level.  

“I get to use my background with state-level policy and collaboration with nonprofits and industry partners, as well as apply the skills that I learned in EAS 562 and other courses,” she said. 

After reflecting on her three years in Michigan, Governali has feelings of gratitude and appreciation for the SEAS community. “The people and community here are just so great.”