Hixon Fellowship Application 2026

Hixon Fellowship 2026

In summer 2026, the Hixon Center will fund four Fellows to pursue 10-12 week projects with its partners. Please see brief descriptions below. Fellowships are open to Yale students across all schools (including graduating students), and applications are due by Friday, February 13th at 5:00pm. Fellows will receive a $7,500 stipend.

1. Climate Mitigation & Clean Energy Fellow - Boston, MA (Advisor: Julie Curti)

This Fellow will support the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC), the regional planning agency serving the people who live and work in the 101 cities and towns of Greater Boston. Over the course of the summer, their two projects will focus on:

• Clean Energy Permitting Support: MAPC will help Massachusetts’s 351 municipalities meet new state requirements to streamline clean energy infrastructure siting and permitting by October 2026. The Fellow’s work will include developing guidance and tools, providing one-on-one municipal technical assistance, and collaborating with the other 13 regional planning agencies in the state to share best practices.
• Networked Geothermal Analysis for Municipal Utilities: MAPC will work with 41 municipal light plants (MLPs) across Massachusetts to assess the feasibility of networked geothermal systems as a fossil-fuel alternative. The Fellow’s work will include building a financial tool to examine different financing structures for MLPs, coordinating with MLPs to explore key concerns for piloting and deploying networked geothermal systems, and researching regulatory or legislative barriers to MLP ownership and operation.

2. Urban Transformation Fellow - Remote, Washington, D.C. (Advisor: Jen Shin)

Since 2018, the WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities has spotlighted trailblazing initiatives for sustainable and inclusive urban transformation, selecting five finalists from hundreds of applicants every eighteen months. The Prize seeks to inspire urban changemakers across the globe by amplifying lessons and telling impactful stories of sustained, scaled change. On April 22, 2026, the Hixon Center will convene a Practitioner Workshop with WRI and the finalists of its fifth Prize cycle. In additional to supporting the event, the Fellow will collaborate with Hixon and WRI’s teams to develop workshop proceedings and edited finalist interviews. They will also work with WRI’s team to update the Prize Database, which captures insights on shortlisted projects for each cycle. Finally, the Fellow will support the Hixon team in creating resources for the Center's Practitioner Toolbox and disseminating key findings on urban transformation.

3. OASIS Green Schoolyards Fellow - Mexico City, Mexico (Advisor: Jeannette Ickovics and Celia Toché)

The OASIS Schoolyard model – named for its principles of Openness, Adaptation, Sensitisation, Innovation, and Social ties – addresses both environmental and social needs by providing shade and stormwater management while engaging students and residents in co-design. Green schoolyards reduce urban heat and have the potential for social, cognitive, and health co-benefits for students and the broader community. In collaboration with the Resilient Cities Network, Mexico City Sustainability Office, TEC de Monterrey, and Yale colleagues, the Hixon Fellow will work to integrate health into OASIS design; consider cultural and climate adaptations for implementation in Mexico City; co-develop metrics and a research agenda to measure implementation processes as well as climate, health and equity outcomes; identify sources for funding and contribute to one or more grant proposals. Depending on the status of the project in June, the Fellow may also explore potential community partnerships, conduct site visits, and initiate baseline data collection including thermal imaging and health metrics. Preferred: bilingual in English and Spanish.

4. Freetown the Treetown Fellow -  Freetown, Sierra Leone (Advisor: Karen Seto)

In 2020, Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr launched Freetown the Treetown, an ambitious "pay-to-grow" scheme to plant, grow, and digitally track trees across Sierra Leone’s capital city. Over the past five years, the project has been co-developed with communities and grown in scope for a target of 5 million trees by 2028. This Fellow will work with the Mayor's Delivery Unit to support the continued growth of the Freetown the Treetown Initiative. This will include analyzing heat data to guide future tree planting, furthering the Initiative's community engagement strategies, and conducting outreach to identify priority neighborhoods.