Summer 2026 Faculty Masterclass and Student Experience Workshops

We are living through a great transition. From the climate emergency and geopolitical tensions to the disruption of generative AI, the future is no longer a predictable extrapolation of the past. Business strategies and innovations often lead to negative unintended consequences. These are not just business issues: they are market-breaking, systemic risks associated with increasingly radical interdependence. The old playbook is broken, and yet we struggle to get out of the doom loop of short-term thinking and "go-it-alone" strategizing. This talk explores how forward-thinking leaders are meeting the moment—catalyzing cross-sector ecosystems to "work" the problems that no single entity can solve alone. We will look at real-world examples of businesses, regulators and stakeholders coming together to co-create better futures. We’ll discuss the skills, relationships and strategies needed to stop reacting to the future and start creating it together, turning future systemic risks into collaborative opportunities.

The potential global scale of Indigenous peoples ecological stewardship continues to emerge as a source of inspiration and as am effective lever for environmental protection. But many people are not aware of the potential for scale that Indigenous practices have for driving transformation. The master class offers an introductory primer for how Indigenous scale work, and will discuss some cases at the intersection of conservation, climate change, and food systems.

To learn more about Professor Kyle Whyte, please visit this link.

Professor Sam Stolper will share insights and lessons from his experience serving on Michigan's advisory Council on Climate Solutions as well as advising a student masters project focused on funding and financing the implementation of the MI Healthy Climate Plan.

Open research is about making your work, such as data, code, and publications, accessible and reusable by others. These practices help support reproducibility, foster collaboration, and make it easier for your work to be used in new ways, across disciplines and sectors. In environmental science, where the problems we tackle are often complex and multi-faceted, sharing our work openly can help others build on it, adapt it to specific needs, or integrate it into policy and planning. More and more, researchers are being encouraged or even required to follow open practices. This workshop is designed to help students understand what that means in practice and how to get started. In this skills-focused session, SEAS students will:

- Learn the basics of computational reproducibility and why it matters
- Get introduced to tools and strategies for managing data and sharing code
- Explore ways to document their work clearly and use project organization tools to make collaboration easier

By the end of the workshop, students will be able to apply reproducible practices in their own research, laying the groundwork for open, trusted, and collaborative science.

This masterclass offers an introduction to the growing role of machine learning in studying interconnected Earth systems, with a focus on oceanic, atmospheric, and cryospheric processes. We’ll look at how ML can support scientific research through techniques like gap-filling, sensor placement, forecasting, and unsupervised classification, while also considering the importance of domain knowledge and physical context. Students will gain familiarity with key approaches, assumptions, and current research directions.

To learn more about Dani Jones, please visit this link.