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Wright-Ingraham Institute
Learning from the Ground Up and the Sky Down: Inte Learning from the Ground Up and the Sky Down: Integrative Education at the Running Creek Field Station In this month’s Integrative Futures (IF) Substack, Dylan Gauthier reports on the history of the Running Creek Field Station, the Institute’s original educational initiative. This summer, packing for our Field Workshop in the San Luis Valley, we found ourselves looking back at how that work began. In 1970, architect and systems thinker Elizabeth “Liz” Wright Ingraham founded the Running Creek Field Station on 640 acres of mixed grassland outside Colorado Springs, CO. For thirteen successive summers, students lived and studied at RCFS, joined by visiting faculty from a wide range of disciplines, all asking some version of the same question: what does it mean to learn from a place directly. The observational methods and interdisciplinary practices born at RCFS feel newly relevant — and urgent — today. Drawing on conversations with RCFS alumni and Liz’s writings, we traced the roots of this work and how it still grounds what we’re doing this month in the San Luis Valley. Link in bio to read the full piece on our Substack!
Welcome to the San Luis Valley!! This week we wel Welcome to the San Luis Valley!! This week we welcomed our twelve incredibly inspiring interdisciplinary fellows to Crestone, Colorado and kicked off the 2026 Field Workshop program, with much to report on already. We’ve had the pleasure of welcoming back Diné storyteller and filmmaker (and 2022 Field Station alumni) Sunny Dooley, who screened her short film “Ways of Knowing” about the legacy of uranium mining and resilience in the Navajo Nation, and led us on a series of reflective exercises in the landscape. Andrew Valdez took us through the deep-time formation of the San Luis Valley and Rio Grande Rift. Matthew Thomas led an observational “walkshop” that introduced landscape as both subject and participant. Kelsea Macilroy led a workshop on skills for communicating across disciplines and conflicts. Nick Saenz traced the history of Indigenous and Hispano communities and introduced the how waves of migration and settlement shaped the Valley’s relationship to land and water. Audrey Snyder introduced observational drawing as note-taking. Paul Formisano met with us to share the Salazar Center’s approach to water through science and story. Kevin Boyle introduced us to historic SLV water law and how the water market works today. Grateful for this landscape and this crew! This morning we headed to Alamosa — more soon 🌾
The Southwest’s megadrought is already shaping nat The Southwest’s megadrought is already shaping national food systems, public health, federal spending, rural economies, and the adaptation models other regions will need as climate pressures intensify. In our latest Substack, Tal Beery makes the case that Southwest drought resilience deserves national attention and support right now. This is especially urgent for the Wright-Ingraham Institute. In two weeks, twelve emerging practitioners working across environmental science, law, planning, architecture, communication, design, and the arts will arrive in Colorado’s San Luis Valley for our 2026 Field Workshop. Together, they will take up one of the defining questions of our time: how can communities adapt to prolonged drought? Read the post, share it, and support this work if you can. Substack link in bio
What does it mean to build at the speed of trust? What does it mean to build at the speed of trust? In our latest Integrative Futures (IF) post, WII Director of Research Dylan Gauthier reflects on trust as a critical but often overlooked form of infrastructure. Drawing on experiences from the Wright-Ingraham Institute's work, the essay explores how meaningful collaboration emerges not from quick solutions, but from sustained relationships built over time. As institutions, funders, and communities grapple with increasingly complex environmental challenges, there is growing pressure to move quickly. Yet many of the issues we face—from drought and water scarcity to land stewardship and climate adaptation—require forms of cooperation that cannot be rushed. This month's dispatch considers what becomes possible when we prioritize listening, reciprocity, and long-term relationship building as essential components of research and action. Link in bio!
This July, twelve graduate students and early-care This July, twelve graduate students and early-career practitioners will join us for Field Workshop 2026: Designing for Adaptation in a Time of Prolonged Drought. Over three weeks, the cohort will travel through Colorado’s San Luis Valley and northern New Mexico, engaging with local practitioners, researchers, farmers, land stewards, and community members to explore the ecological, cultural, and political dimensions of adaptation in dryland systems. Working across hydrology, law, planning, landscape architecture, communication, environmental science, design, and the arts, the fellows bring a wide range of perspectives and experiences to this year’s program. We are looking forward to learning with and from Angie Kaufman, Audrey Snyder, Cameron Blakely, Euwan Kim, Kelsey Weeks, Kethry Soares, Leah Coe, Moneer Ba-Ahmad, Noah Silber-Coats, Stephanie McMorran, Xiaodong Yan, and Ximena Diaz Velasco. More information about each fellow via link in bio.
Upcoming Webinar! Data Isn’t Enough: Community K Upcoming Webinar! Data Isn’t Enough: Community Knowledge, Visualization, and the Challenges of Science Communication Environmental data has never been more abundant, yet science consistently fails to produce necessary action. Communities facing drought, wildfire, and ecological change struggle to connect satellite imagery, sensor networks, and real-time dashboards to their own decisions and lived realities. The gap isn’t technical. Rather, it’s a problem of epistemology, narrative, and trust. The challenge is finding ways to translate complex scientific findings into something communities can understand, evaluate, and act on. Join us for an interactive conversation with Kim Fewless and Matt Ross — researchers working at the intersections of science, data visualization, mapping, and community-based environmental practice — to examine what actionable science communication looks like, and how it can help shape more grounded and responsive futures. When: June 3, 2026, 11 am MDT / 1 pm EDT Where: Zoom Registration: Link in bio A note on format: This session will take place on Zoom. Presentations and audience Q&A will run for approximately 60 minutes, followed by 30 minutes of group discussion.
We’re delighted to share that Jasmine Singh is joi We’re delighted to share that Jasmine Singh is joining the Wright-Ingraham Institute as our new Development Associate. Jasmine will help strengthen the systems and relationships that support WII’s fundraising work, including donor communications and the day-to-day development operations that help our small team stay connected with the people who make this work possible. She brings experience in nonprofit operations, stakeholder communications, CRM and data management, and project coordination. She previously worked at JUST Capital, where she supported the corporate engagement team and helped maintain systems for managing complex relationships. Jasmine is also the founder of the Shared Drafts Project, will begin a Master of Public Administration at Baruch College this fall, and is currently a fellow of Climate Futures Studio’s Climate Storytelling 2075 program. We’re excited for what Jasmine will bring to this role, and grateful to have her joining us at this important moment for the Institute. Please join us in welcoming Jasmine to WII!
What does it look like to think and act between di What does it look like to think and act between disciplines? In our latest Integrative Futures (IF) post, WII Executive Director Tal Beery reflects on the generative power of interdisciplinary space, and how working deeply at the edges of fields can shed new light on wicked problems and the crises that connect them. This month's dispatch travels through the dust storms and center-pivot irrigation systems of Colorado's San Luis Valley, the highest, largest alpine valley in the world. In the SLV, urgent questions about drought and aquifer decline are reshaping one of America's most vital agricultural regions. It's a landscape under pressure and it will be the site of WII's 2026 Field Workshop. Read the full issue for a glimpse of how integrative studies can help find solutions to the most challenging issues of the day, via the link in our bio.
In our latest issue of the Integrative Futures (IF In our latest issue of the Integrative Futures (IF) Substack, as a record-breaking heatwave grips the American West, intensifying drought conditions in the region, Frank Miller shares reflections and research from the StudyTank: Colorado River Basin Project. “The Colorado River Basin encompasses 7 U.S. states, 29 tribal nations, over five million acres of irrigated farmland, and 40 million people. The Colorado is the most over-allocated river in the world, promised to more users than it can supply. It is also at the center of what is arguably one of the most consequential environmental negotiations in American history.” Read the post via the link in our bio!
Last week, our team (ED Tal Beery & Field Workshop Last week, our team (ED Tal Beery & Field Workshop Program Director Frida Foberg) hit the road to Northern New Mexico + Colorado’s San Luis Valley and came home energized (and honestly, pretty blown away) by the generosity, insight, and care folks shared with them. In Española, they joined the 2-3-2 Cohesive Strategy Partnership, and were thankful to the leadership and vision of Lily Bruce, Cody Dems, and the Forest Stewards Guild. Santa Clara Pueblo Gov. James Naranjo opened with: “we are the unborn our ancestors prayed for.” How beautiful is that??! In Taos, conversations with Layne Jackson Hubbard (Futuros Ancestral) and J. Matthew Thomas (Paseo Project) sharpened how the Institute is weaving culture, land stewardship, and community capacity into the upcoming 2026 Field Workshop. A site visit with Darien Fernandez and Avery Blair at Taos Land Trust helped lock in some key pieces of the program development. Finally, in the San Luis Valley, the team met with our partners and presenters across soil health, water governance, and groundwater - CSU Extension-SLV, Soil Health Services, Rio Grande Water Conservation District, Mosca-Hooper Conservation District, the Salazar Center/Adams State, Rio Grande Headwaters Land Trust, and more. So much deep knowledge and long-term commitment to land and water in this region. Grateful for everyone who welcomed us. July 2026 in the SLV and Northern NM is going to be amazing. More soon. ✨
Howdy Friends, we have jumped on the Substack band Howdy Friends, we have jumped on the Substack bandwagon! Sign up (link in bio) to receive Integrative Futures every month to learn about the sticky issues and research questions animating our work at the Institute. ⁠ ⁠ Integrative Future is a space where we can reflect on the background conditions, internal questions, and unresolved tensions that shape our work. It’s where we can think in public about interdisciplinary collaboration, institutional design, intellectual risk, and the messy realities behind integrative science and practice. This substack will focus on process.⁠ ⁠ We almost called the Substack “Hard Problems Club” because that’s what keeps us going in this work. At the Institute, we focus on the complex and sticky problems that can’t be easily solved. But Integrative Futures is also about our focus on integrative studies — putting things together in a world where things may seem to be falling apart.⁠ ⁠ #integrativestudies #integrativefutures #collaboration #newsletter⁠
✨ We’re excited to announce a leadership transitio ✨ We’re excited to announce a leadership transition at Wright-Ingraham Institute. ✨ Anna Grady has been appointed President of the Board of Directors. Anna brings tremendous vision and steady leadership to this role, having served on the board for the past decade and led the Institute’s grants program from 2012–2024. With roots that reach back to the original field station in the 1970s, Anna steps into the presidency at a moment when integrative, cross-disciplinary approaches to complex environmental challenges are more essential than ever. This transition also marks a moment of deep gratitude for our outgoing President, Catherine Ingraham. During her tenure, Catherine helped reestablish WII as a meaningful contributor to integrative studies—advancing interdisciplinary approaches to drought resilience in the American Southwest, shaping StudyTank, and overseeing the hiring of the Institute’s first two Executive Directors. Her emphasis on rigorous, cross-disciplinary inquiry has been foundational to WII’s long-term vision. We’re grateful that Catherine will continue to serve as a member of the Board of Directors and as a Principal Investigator on StudyTank’s Colorado River Basin Project, alongside Frank Miller, and in close collaboration with our Executive Director, Tal Beery. With appreciation for Catherine’s leadership and genuine excitement for Anna’s new role, we look forward to what’s ahead.
🌊 Interested in the intersection of land, water, a 🌊 Interested in the intersection of land, water, and culture? 🌱 Graduate student or early-career professional? 🤝 Eager to work across disciplines and perspectives? Apply to Field Workshop 2026: Designing for Adaptation in a Time of Prolonged Drought. This three-week, immersive fellowship brings together an interdisciplinary cohort for field-based learning in the San Luis Valley and Taos Plateau, working alongside scientists, land stewards, farmers, and community partners on real, place-based challenges. 🗓️ Applications close January 22 🔗 Link in bio to apply (Photos from Field Stations 2022, Rio Grande and San Juan Watershed)
As the year comes to a close, we want to say thank As the year comes to a close, we want to say thank you. This year has asked a lot of all of us. Across the places where we work, drought pressures did not let up. Land use debates remained complicated and intractable. Funding and the political landscape kept shifting under our feet. 2025 reminded us that the challenge isn’t a lack of information, it’s building shared understanding in places shaped by uncertainty, drought, and change. As we marked 55 years of Wright-Ingraham Institute, we recommitted to sustained, place-based work rooted in relationships, care, and long-term thinking. We deepened our work in the San Luis Valley and Rio Grande, launched Field Workshop 2026, released the Dust-on-Snow publication, advanced StudyTank research across the Colorado River Basin, and grew our community of advisors, partners, and supporters. None of this happens alone. We’re deeply grateful to everyone whose work continues to inspire and inform our own. Wishing you rest over the holidays and steadiness in the year ahead. — The Wright-Ingraham Institute Team Tal, Frida, Dylan #IntegrativeStudies #PlaceBasedLearning #LongTermThinking #WaterAndLand #ClimateWork #Grateful
NEXUS issue 3: On Integration and Innovation - now NEXUS issue 3: On Integration and Innovation - now out! Follow link in bio to read and to sign up for future issues.
We are kicking off Giving Tuesday a day early (is We are kicking off Giving Tuesday a day early (is Giving Monday a thing yet?). Our board has stepped up with a special match: from right now through December 14, every gift will be matched dollar for dollar, up to $5,000. Your support will power our 2026 Field Workshop and help grow a new generation of environmental resilience leaders who can bridge disciplines and perspectives. This kind of leadership is needed now more than ever, and we truly cannot do it without you. ✨ Give now and double your gift -> Link in bio
If you’re considering applying to Field Workshop 2 If you’re considering applying to Field Workshop 2026 - or know someone who might be a strong fit - join our virtual Info Session on December 17! We’ll share an overview of the three-week program along the Rio Grande, including curriculum, field sites, expectations, and the application process, followed by a Q&A. 📅 December 17 ⏰ 12pm MT / 2pm ET 🔗 Registration link in bio We hope you’ll join us - and help share this opportunity within your networks.
Starting today: We’re raising $30,000 by Dec 31 to Starting today: We’re raising $30,000 by Dec 31 to support the 2026 Field Workshop, our flagship program training the next generation of environmental leaders. Our campaign, Fund a Fellow, ensures program costs aren’t a barrier for participants in this transformative three-week fellowship along the Rio Grande. The Field Workshop brings together scientists, artists, designers, and community leaders to work with farmers, ranchers, and water managers across the San Luis Valley and northern New Mexico - co-designing practical strategies rooted in place. Throughout the campaign, we will be celebrating the impact our alumni have made on the landscapes that sustain us all. Because the impact is clear: this program changes lives… and it changes systems. Your contribution makes this possible. Every gift brings us closer to funding 16 fellows for 2026! 👉 Donate today and help us Fund a Fellow. Link in bio
Last month we gathered online during #NYCClimateWe Last month we gathered online during #NYCClimateWeek to engage with Thinking Through Soil - a conversation about what it means to learn from and work with the ground beneath our feet. Researcher Seth Denizen shared insights from his book “Thinking Through Soil” (Harvard University Press, 2025), co-authored with Montserrat Bonvehi Rosich, reflecting on how soil holds both ecological and social relations, while artist Brooke Singer responded with stories from her soil-based “Carbon Sponge” collaborations in the Hudson Valley, exploring the tensions between regenerative agriculture, local economies, and global systems of extraction. Together, they invited us to consider soil not just as a material substrate, but as a living record of a planet in transition, and a site where questions of care, equity, politics, economics, and environmental justice take root. 🌱 Watch this 1-minute excerpt, and see the full talk at the link in bio. 
#ClimateWeekNYC #ThinkingThroughSoil #SoilJustice #RegenerativeAg #EnvironmentalArt #CollaborativeResearch
We are very excited to take part in Climate Week N We are very excited to take part in Climate Week NYC, with opportunities to learn, connect, and imagine new responses to the challenges of our time. If you’ll be in the city or joining virtually, we’d love to see you. ✨ Sept 25 | 12 PM EST | Online Thinking Through Soil - Lunchtime webinar with Seth Denizen (WII collaborator) on his new book (Harvard University Press, 2025), co-authored with Montserrat Bonvehi Rosich. Artist Brooke Singer will respond, followed by discussion and Q&A. ✨ Sept 25 | 6:15–8 PM | Pratt Institute Speaking of Environments - Evening panel convened by WII Board Chair Catherine Ingraham with Jing Liu, Greg Lynn, Michael Osman, Meredith TenHoor, and Marion Weiss, on how design disciplines are addressing today’s environmental challenges. ✨ On view through October | Governors Island Works on Water 2025 Triennial - Public art on and with water, responding to the climate crisis, featuring new works by WII Director of Research Dylan Gauthier (as part of the collective Mare Liberum.) Will you be at Climate Week NYC? Let us know, we’d love to connect. 🔗 Links in bio for event details.
We are a small non-profit registered as a 501c3 in Colorado with our head office located in New York. We undertake field work in both the American West, and elsewhere.
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