Current Bass Environmental Scholars

Stanley Ambrose Research Description: Stanley Ambrose is a paleoanthropologist conducting research on early hominid origins and evolution in Africa, and modern human origins, adaptations and expansions out of Africa during the last three ice ages. He uses archaeological and geological methods, and environmental isotope biogeochemistry of modern and fossil plants, animals, and soils to reconstruct past habitats, climates, diets, residential life histories, and human social interaction networks. Fossil tooth enamel and ostrich eggshell are highly resistant to alteration over time. Their carbon and oxygen isotope ratios preserve environmental information with high fidelity. He is developing new methods to improve reliability of stable and radiometric dating analyses. His ultimate goal is to understand the evolution of human cooperation in variable ice age and stable interglacial environments. Appointment Date: Spring 2024

Timothy Lyons Research Description: Timothy Lyons (Yale, PhD, 1992), a distinguished professor at the University of California, Riverside, will work with Yale colleague Noah Planavsky in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences to study the many environmental and ecological challenges linked to shrinking lakes in arid regions around the world. In the face of intense droughts, increased evaporation with warming temperatures, and greater demand on water resources, lakes throughout the world are drying, exposing surrounding regions to diverse consequences that include threats to human health from increased dust loads. Initially focusing on the largest lake in California, the Salton Sea, the two biogeochemists will use traditional and novel readily extrapolatable methods to explore the cycling of potentially toxic metals, microbial pathogens, and pesticides/herbicides and the pathways by which these contaminants once airborne can impact communities and ecologies near and far. Appointment Date: Spring 2024

Past Bass Environmental Scholars

---

About Edward P. Bass

Mr. Bass, ’67 (’68 BS), is active in business, conservation, and ranching and is a committed environmentalist. He co-founded Biosphere 2, an environmental research and conservation project near Tucson, Arizona. He is chairman of the Executive Committee of the World Wildlife Fund and founding trustee of the Philecology Trust. He serves on the executive committees of the New York Botanical Garden and the Botanical Research Institute of Texas and has been a leader in the decade-long redevelopment of downtown Fort Worth. In addition to graduating from Yale College, Mr. Bass studied at Yale’s School of Architecture from 1968-70. His service to Yale includes co-chair of the Leadership Council of the Yale School of the Environment, member and former founding chair of the YIBS External Advisory Board, and former member of the University Council and former chair of the Council Committee on the Peabody Museum. He was named Successor Trustee in 2001.