We are kicking off Giving Tuesday a day early. 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.
Applications are open for our 2026 Field Workshop, a three-week immersive program along the Rio Grande. The cohort follows the river from Colorado’s San Luis Valley to northern New Mexico’s Taos Plateau, learning directly from the people and landscapes that define this region.
If you’re considering applying, or know someone who should, join us on December 17 for a short virtual Info Session. We’ll walk through the program structure, curriculum, field sites, expectations, and answer your questions.
Today we are launching the Wright-Ingraham Institute’s Scholarship Campaign to support the 2026 Field Workshop, our flagship program training the next generation of environmental leaders.
We need to raise $30,000 by December 31 to ensure program costs aren’t a barrier for participants in this transformative three-week fellowship along the Rio Grande.
Field Workshop brings together early-career scientists, designers, artists, and community leaders to work directly with farmers, ranchers, and water managers in the San Luis Valley and northern New Mexico. Fellows learn to collaborate across disciplines, understand the pressures communities face, and co-design 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.
Alumni have gone on to:
Your contribution today helps make this possible.
Every gift of any size brings us closer to funding 16 fellows for 2026.
The Wright-Ingraham Institute’s Field Workshop 2026 is a three-week fellowship that traces the Rio Grande from its headwaters in Colorado’s San Luis Valley into northern New Mexico’s Taos Plateau. At a time of prolonged drought and rapid environmental change, the program brings together a diverse cohort to wrestle with urgent questions at the nexus of land, water and culture.
We are now accepting applications for our 2026 cohort.
This is not a traditional field school. It is designed for graduate students, early-career professionals, artists, researchers, and practitioners who are rigorous in their own disciplines yet committed to working across boundaries. We seek applicants who want to integrate scientific inquiry, design thinking, storytelling, and community engagement into the heart of their practice, and who intend to carry these integrative approaches into their careers.
The Field Workshop convenes a deliberately diverse cohort: ecologists and designers, policy thinkers and farmers, storytellers and scientists. The program unfolds in three phases. In the first phase, fellows travel together across the San Luis Valley and Taos Plateau for site visits, talks, and hands-on field work that build shared knowledge of ecological systems, cultural traditions, and governance structures. In the second, they split into small teams to immerse with regional partners, observing practices such as irrigation, grazing, or restoration and shaping applied projects in direct response to community needs. The final phase focuses on synthesis, as fellows refine their work into practical outputs (such as policy briefs, spatial analyses, oral histories, or creative storytelling) shared at a culminating public symposium with regional stakeholders.
Since 1970, WII’s Field Workshops have prepared leaders to navigate complexity, build adaptive practices, and foster resilience across disciplines and landscapes. The 2026 program emphasizes systems thinking, participatory design, and place-based learning. Fellows will leave with experience that equips them to become the kind of integrative practitioners needed for the challenges ahead.
Our Nexus newsletter shares curated articles and ideas reflecting the collaborations shaping our work at the Wright-Ingraham Institute. This edition focuses on interdisciplinarity and the value of integrated research and education in addressing complex problems.
We are also spotlighting Carbon Sponge, an interdisciplinary collaboration exploring soil health and carbon sequestration. Founder Brooke Singer will join our Sept. 25 webinar exploring interdisciplinary environmental work through the lens of soil.
Webinar details here.
Jake is an accomplished ecohydrologist whose work centers on developing adaptive strategies for water security and ecosystem restoration in the American Southwest, with a deep appreciation for interdisciplinary research and place-based education. He currently serves as Associate Director of Water Programs at the Mountain Studies Institute, teaches in the Environment and Sustainability Program at Fort Lewis College, and is an Elected Board Member at the San Miguel Power Association.
Jake has been a dedicated WII collaborator, having served as faculty during our 2022 Field Station and helping to organize our recent Nexus of Land and Water research initiative, which culminated in a successful symposium in Cortez last October. He brings to our board a rare combination of scientific expertise, regional knowledge, and programmatic leadership that will help strengthen and guide WII’s future.
This is an exciting milestone for the Institute, and part of our ongoing effort to expand our board to nine members by 2028. Through the past several years, Jake has developed a strong rapport with every member of our board and was voted on unanimously by current members Catherine Ingraham (President), Frederick Marks (Secretary Treasurer), Frank Miller, and Anna Grady.
Please join us in welcoming Jake to the board!