As YSE’s Senior Associate Director of Career and Professional Development, Kathy has been a counselor, strategist, and cheerleader for students, and a home base for alumni near and far. Saron Ayahlu from the CPD team spoke with her to reflect on 18 years of paying attention, showing up, and turning career development into an art.
Saron: Kathy, take us back to your first day at YSE. What was it like? How did you get here, and what kept you showing up for 18 years?
Kathy: On my first day at YSE, 2007, I worked half a day at Yale Graduate School of Arts & Sciences then headed right over to Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (F&ES) for the afternoon fall orientation session. The transition from welcoming PhD candidates to welcoming F&ES masters candidates was seamless, as I already knew the F&ES career office team through collaborative programming across the university. I immediately jumped into MODS sessions at Yale Myers, Great Mountain, and New Haven, where I learned the value of having grounding in forestry and the natural world — no matter what field one might go into.
Several years in, I got to hear the debut of Sam Miller’s famous Quercas Rubra tree talk, and so there is at least one species name I will never forget. With Gus Speth as Dean when I arrived, the mission statement of the school included “a commitment to the long-term health of the biosphere”— words I have kept as a compass and frame for working with students, alumni and faculty who, in one form or another, share similar concerns and are dedicated to developing and implementing solutions and creating new knowledge.
What has kept me showing up for 25 years?
Through my work with students, I find myself both up-to-date on the “gloom and doom” of a breadth of climate and environmental issues in real time, AND inspired by smart, creative, systems thinkers working towards and achieving solutions. Learning from, supporting, guiding and developing lasting and truly meaningful relationships with changemakers nationally and across the globe is one of the top reasons I have kept showing up.
Access to knowledge and continued professional and intellectual growth — at Yale School of the Environment (YSE, formerly F&ES!) and more broadly, Yale — is another reason I have kept showing up. The opportunity to stroll across campus or simply walk up to Kroon Auditorium on my lunch break to hear researchers, poets, Nobel Laureates — such as Wangari Maathai, Rebecca Solnit, Andrea Gibson, Ocean Voung, and the Minister of Environment of the Republic of Uzbekistan (hosted by a student) — has been extraordinary. As was working with colleagues in similar programs at the Nicholas School at Duke University, across YSE, in all of the Ivy League schools, in career offices across Yale, and through national and regional professional associations.
Saron: After working with so many students over the years, what have you learned about building a career in the environmental field, networking, growth, and everything in between?
Kathy: I think the pathway to a meaningful environmental career starts with several elements: Defining a problem or problems to solve that really interest you; exploring, identifying, building, and learning how to articulate what you are good at; gaining a solid feel for what you enjoy doing; and determining how you want to address your problem. Moving forward from your next career move after YSE, I think it’s important to remain open to opportunities, new interests, clarification and re-adjustment of goals. In other words, create and keep a growth mindset. Keep working towards work that provides extended periods of time spent fully utilizing all of your skills on challenging tasks — i.e. be in flow. Be present, but also think longer term. If you realize the lever you are working isn’t meeting your personal goals or getting traction on your target solutions, pivot. Strategically. Inside your role or out.
Networking is a key part of the job search, as well as an important professional practice and aid for growth. It is key to building a career in the environmental field — any field. In my Bennington writing program, director Liam Rector welcomed new classes with this advice: “Find the people with whom you have rapport, and proceed.” At YSE there is such a great opportunity to find like-minded peers and mentors. YSE/F&ES alumni are among the most generous people I know; in my time here, they have consistently been ready and willing to support the career and academic development of current students, offering advice, leads, and hosting students in their workplaces. Nurture these relationships. The larger YSE and Yale alumni networks are also key to develop — thousands of people who are already part of your network even if you haven’t met them yet. Introduce yourself. Be curious. Humanize everyone (Daniel González). And remember that the currency of real networking is not greed but generosity (Keith Ferrazzi).
Saron: You’re also a poet and artist. How has that creative side of you influenced the way you approach your work and the way you see people’s career journeys?
Kathy: Perhaps the kind of deep noticing involved in writing poetry and critical thinking necessary for creative nonfiction influence the way I see individuals — complex selves with multiple identities, assonance, criss-crossing plot lines, works in progress that might use a little editing. Students just happen to initially present in the ‘student’ form, but I’m genuinely interested in the whole person, the longer story, all of the wisdom already gained before arrival–and am especially lucky when I get to engage with y’all intellectually and culturally. I am always learning — about all of the great work you are doing and hoping to do. And it is amazing and fulfilling seeing your passions and dedication to creating a cleaner, better world manifest in your careers.
I think a lot about how to build careers that align interests and passion with a specific kind of professional or academic work. A favorite quote on the notion of having an aligned career from Robert Frost’s “Two Tramps in Mudtime” sums this up nicely:
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight
My art and writing background has also enabled me to participate in the creative life of the school—as a proofreader and first reader for Sage Magazine, first screener for the Environmental Film Festival at Yale, and through volunteering to design two editions of “Through Her Eyes,” a publication by Yale Environmental Women. I have been able to apply my writing and design skills fully by publishing several employer marketing brochures (featured in my LinkedIn profile) — collaborative ventures with faculty, staff, and students that gave me the opportunity to take deep dives into current student work. I have also been able to apply my technical and digital skills through three iterations of the school website, serving as a content editor/wrangler, and most recently, re-created the entire CPD website section, enabling the office to provide current and targeted resources.
Saron: As you leave YSE, what’s one piece of advice you would give to students just starting out and those about to graduate and step into the job world?
Kathy: I’ve already mentioned networking as a key practice for continued professional growth, and can’t emphasize this kind of intentional community-building enough. At YSE and Yale, students have access to leading thinkers across environment/climate spaces, including faculty, peers, staff, alumni, guests. I highly recommend being intentional about building and maintaining these connections going into (and back into) the job world. This is basically the same advice I received from Liam Rector, and his words have served me well — as a writer, career professional, member of this university community: “Find the people with whom you have rapport, and proceed.”
Saron: What’s a YSE moment that really stuck with you?
Kathy: One of my favorite experiences at YSE/F&ES was sitting in front of Kroon Hall on a spring day with two students having coffee. One student was from Burkina Faso, and the other from Saudi Arabia. We discussed tipping customs in our respective countries — in Burkina Faso, tipping is totally optional, up to the customer; in Saudi Arabia, tipping is not customary, because there is an expectation that staff will just do a good job (and I believe the pay scale is better!); in the U.S., 15-25% is customary, and is based, in part, on how good a job the staff does. I went home that night and looked up our respective country statistics — GDP, migration, infant mortality rates, land area, life expectancy. Such contrasts!
One of the things I treasure about my time at YSE/F&ES is just this — having the privilege of the world coming to me in these ways. A casual coffee break can be this amazing opportunity to sit in a common ground where cultures intermingle with curiosity and genuine respect.
Leadership Task Force Colleagues National Association of Colleges and Employers Conference 
With YSE Custodian Izzy Cordero 
Ethical Practices Task Force 2025 National Conference Presentation 
With Gordon Geballe in Kroon before a talk with Terry Tempest William, seen in background with former F&ES Dean, Sir Peter Crane 
Celebrating Commencement with CPD team
To borrow from NASA astronaut Christina Koch’s remarks about her crew and the Earth-as-crew on her return from a trip around the moon: I know I haven’t learned everything that this journey has yet to teach me. But there’s one thing I do know: Yale School of the Environment, The Forest School, Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies—Y’all are an extraordinary crew.
We’re grateful to Kathy for sharing her story and wish her all the best in what’s ahead!
