Hilton Simmet Joins the Yale Environmental Studies Faculty

We are thrilled to announce that Hilton Simmet will be joining the Environmental Studies (EVST) faculty this fall as a Lecturer.

Hilton is an interdisciplinary scholar whose research explores the comparative politics of environmental governance, economic policy, and sustainable development. His work examines how publics and their governing institutions navigate complex global challenges of climate change, environmental justice and sustainability across political cultures.

He earned his Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard University, where he specialized in Science, Technology, and Policy Studies, and Development Economics. He also holds an M.A. in Political Science from Yale University and an A.B. from Harvard College in Social Studies and Physics. Most recently, he served as a Postdoctoral Associate at the Research Institute for Sustainability in Potsdam, Germany.

His scholarship focuses on how societies imagine and govern environmental futures, with particular attention to knowledge politics and democratic contestation around inequality, energy transitions, and sustainable growth. This fall, Hilton will teach two new Environmental Studies courses: EVST 0070 Technology, Environment and Society is a first-year seminar that explores the societal dimensions of promising and/or controversial, environmentally significant technologies, including AI data centers, biotechnology, gene drives, geoengineering, nuclear and renewable energy; while EVST 3000 Comparative Environmental Governance looks at the role of political culture in attempts to address and collectively solve global environmental problems.

His scholarship and teaching embody EVST’s interdisciplinary approach to environment. By connecting science and technology to politics, policy, and society, his courses will help students examine both global challenges and the institutions shaping sustainable solutions.

Please join us in welcoming Hilton to the Environmental Studies community. We look forward to the insights, mentorship, and global perspective he will bring to our students.