Leadership
The initiative is led by Jackson Senior Fellow Jessica Seddon, whose work on environmental governance focuses on how new sources of data can be leveraged to enable new (and more sustainable) ways of interacting with the environment around us. Her career in India and the U.S. spans academic, program leadership, and strategic advisory roles focused on institutional design for integrating science into policy and social initiatives.
Affiliated Faculty
Jackson Senior Fellow Sue Biniaz is currently the U.S. Principal Deputy Special Envoy for Climate. A former Deputy Legal Adviser at the U.S. State Department, she was the lead climate lawyer for the U.S. government from 1989 to early 2017.
Jackson Senior Fellow Deanne Criswell is an experienced emergency management professional and served as the 12th administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). She was sworn in as FEMA’s first female administrator on April 26, 2021, under President Joe Biden. As FEMA administrator, Criswell focused on making disaster response more equitable, addressing climate-related risks, and improving coordination with state, local, tribal, and territorial governments.
Jackson Senior Fellow Paul Simons has been actively engaged in global energy and climate change policymaking for more than two decades. He is the founding director of the Yale Emerging Climate Leaders Fellowship, a new program to develop a network of leading clean energy and climate change practitioners from the Global South.
2025-26 Deitz Fellows
The Deitz Family Initiative Fellows are future policy and business leaders who are part of the M.P.P. program at the Yale Jackson School. They are committed to being at the forefront of addressing our planet’s most pressing environmental challenges, incorporating policy and associated levers to move the needle forward. These individuals are chosen for their dedication and demonstrated commitment to understanding and tackling the multifaceted impacts of global environmental change, and to providing the best platform for the school to grow its influence in the space. The fellows represent the student body interests, and work with the initiative’s director to build greater student-focused programming that supports the exploration of the changing “operating environment” due to climate change.
2025-26 My Climate Risk Fellow
The My Climate Risk Fellow is a graduate student committed to working at the intersection of environmental science and public policy. He or she works with the convenor of the My Climate Risk hub to develop programming and research topics exploring ways to better connect the science of climate and ecological risk with the realities of policy, business, and community action.