About

Daniel C. Esty is the Hillhouse Professor of Environmental Law and Policy.  As a professor at Yale since 1994, he holds faculty appointments in both Yale’s Environment and Law Schools and directs the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy and serves on the Board of the Center for Business & Environment at Yale, which he founded in 2006. He has an BA from Harvard College, an MA from Balliol College at Oxford University where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and a JD from Yale Law School.

Lillie Steinhauser (they/she) is a graduate of UT Austin and the Administrative Director at YCELP.

Rong Bao is the Project Coordinator for the “Remaking Trade for a Sustainable Future” project. She coordinates partnerships and events, as well as conducting research on the interface of trade and sustainability. Rong graduated from Yale School of the Environment with a Master of Environmental Management (MEM) degree, focusing on international climate change governance and policy.

Dr. Yumeng Gao is the Research Director and a Postdoctoral Associate at Yale Initiative on Sustainable Finance (YISF). Her research revolves around sustainable finance and focuses on the financial implications of corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices. 

Sebastian is an environmental data scientist specialized on climate change and biodiversity protection. He uses a range of data-driven analytic and modelling approaches to quantify sustainability issues, from biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation to climate change emissions and air pollution. He derives insights from data to help guide environmental policy and maximize the performance of sustainability investments.

Professor Kasturi Das is 2024-2025 Fulbright-Kalam Climate Fellow for Academic & Professional Excellence (Research) and Visiting Fellow at the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy (YCELP), Yale School of the Environment at the Yale University. Professor Das’ research project at Yale explores the role of the global trading system in supporting industrial decarbonization and just transition in hard-to-abate sectors in developing countries, with a particular focus on steel industry in India. 

Renata Happle (she/her) is a research and communications assistant at YCELP, focusing on podcast production. She is a graduate of Columbia University (BC ’24) and incoming MPhil student at the University of Cambridge. 

Katie works to support the center’s research projects and Director Dan Esty’s work. 

At YCELP, Rose works on the Sustainability Thought Leaders project as well as a researcher and creator for the the YCELP podcast.

At YSE, she is building off of her diverse background in science and education to help further bridge the gap in scientific communication in the field of international conservation and energy policy.  She is seeking quantifiable analysis coursework focusing on private industry and government stakeholder interest to understand more of how natural resource management agencies can work with private interests to respond to the urgent climate crisis.  

Matias Montaldo is a research assistant at the Yale Initiative on Sustainable Finance (YISF). He recently joined the team after completing his Master of Environmental Management at the Yale School of the Environment, where he specialized in Environmental Policy Analysis. 

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