School Notes: School of the Environment
May/June 2025

YSE celebrates 125 years of leadership, innovation, and impact

As YSE marks its 125th anniversary this year, it will commemorate the far-reaching impact its alumni, faculty, staff, and students have had and continue to have on every dimension of environmental science. Since its founding in 1900, more than 5,800 graduates of the Yale School of the Environment have taken on leadership roles in a wide array of sectors and disciplines, from shaping sustainable forestry to industrial ecology to ecosystem management and conservation.

“From our founding in 1900 as the Yale Forest School to our present as the Yale School of the Environment, our strength is rooted in our interdisciplinary approach to developing solutions to meet some of society’s greatest global challenges and educating the next generation of environmental leaders,” said Indy Burke, the Carl Knobloch Jr. Dean. “We are looking forward to celebrating 125 years of ‘leadership, innovation, and impact’ throughout the year, as well as looking at the many opportunities and challenges ahead.”

Rapid urbanization could increase spread of zoonotic diseases

Nearly 3.5 billion people live in the messy transition zone between cities and wild places, where agriculture abuts homes; suburbs sprawl into the forest; and humans, wildlife, and livestock readily intermix. This wildland-urban interface (WUI) covers just 5 percent of Earth’s land surface, but it could provide prime habitat for the transmission of zoonotic diseases from their wildlife hosts to people, according to a new study led by the Yale School of the Environment.

The study, published in Global Change Biology, is the first to look at how rapid urbanization into the WUI could influence the likelihood of disease spillover, and highlights how important limiting animal exposure and wildland encroachment is for disease management—especially as urban populations soar, the researchers said.