This July, Professor John Wargo will step down as Chair of the Environmental Studies major after more than two decades of dedicated leadership. During his tenure, he shaped the program into the rigorous and interdisciplinary major it is today.
Dean Lewis has announced that Professors Craig Brodersen and Paul Sabin will serve as the new co-chairs of the Environmental Studies major, effective July 1, 2025, for a three-year term. Their joint appointment reflects the interdisciplinary foundation of the major.
Professor Paul Sabin is a historian whose work bridges the fields of environmental history, energy politics, and U.S. political, legal, and economic history. He holds a primary appointment in the Department of History, with secondary appointments in American Studies and the Yale School of the Environment. Professor Sabin teaches several Environmental Studies core humanities courses, including EVST 1120: American Environmental History and EVST 1199: American Energy History. He has previously served as director of undergraduate studies and as a Senior Colloquium instructor and plans to rejoin the colloquium team this year.
Beyond the classroom, Professor Sabin is an active leader in the environmental humanities. He coordinates the Yale Environmental History Working Group and the Yale Environmental Humanities Program. A Yale alumnus, he earned his B.A. in History and Studies in the Environment, followed by a Ph.D. in American History from the University of California, Berkeley. He also completed a postdoctoral fellowship as the Harvard-Newcomen Fellow in business history at Harvard Business School and co-founded and directed the national nonprofit Environmental Leadership Program.
Professor Sabin is the author of several influential books. Crude Politics: The California Oil Market, 1900–1940 (University of California Press, 2005) explores the legal and political dynamics behind California’s petroleum industry. The Bet: Paul Ehrlich, Julian Simon, and Our Gamble Over Earth’s Future (Yale University Press, 2013) examines the long-running debate between environmentalists and their critics. His most recent book, Public Citizens: The Attack on Big Government and the Remaking of American Liberalism (W.W. Norton, 2021), traces the evolution of the public interest and environmental movements since the 1960s.
Professor Craig Brodersen is a plant ecophysiologist in the Yale School of the Environment with a secondary appointment in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. He teaches EVST 1191: Trees: Environmental Biology, a core science course for the major, along with several graduate-level courses in YSE.
Professor Brodersen holds a Ph.D. in botany from the University of Vermont and earned his M.S. and B.S. degrees in biology from Wake Forest University. He completed postdoctoral research at the University of California, Davis, and the University of California, Santa Cruz.
His research focuses on plant structure and function, with particular emphasis on how plants respond to environmental stresses related to water and light availability. Professor Brodersen has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed articles, contributing significantly to the fields of plant hydraulics and xylem function, especially in the context of drought adaptation and climate change.
The Environmental Studies major is fortunate to have two co-chairs with such deep expertise and complementary perspectives in the environmental humanities and natural sciences. Professors Sabin and Brodersen will continue to enrich the major and foster a dynamic and interdisciplinary learning environment for all EVST students.