Sarah Castle joined the UW–Madison faculty in August 2025 as an assistant professor in the Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology. Her position is part of RISE-EARTH, the sustainability-themed focus area of the university’s Wisconsin RISE Initiative strategic hiring effort to solve grand challenges. 

What is your hometown? Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Dallas, Texas, with my British dad and Canadian mom.

What is your educational/professional background, including your previous position?
I started my career in aerospace engineering at the University of Texas at Austin and then worked as a structural engineer in Houston. After several years, I decided to follow my passion for sustainable farming and moved to Muir Beach, California, to work at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center. That experience led me to graduate school at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where I earned my master’s and PhD in natural resources and environmental sciences. Most recently, I was a postdoctoral researcher in the SPIRES lab at the Yale School of the Environment. 

What is your field of research, and how did you get into it?
While farming at Green Gulch, I became interested in understanding agricultural policy and designing programs that support farmers to integrate diversified, sustainable practices. Sustainable farming is hard work! But global conservation policies are often misaligned with producers’ lived realities. I began asking questions about how we could make the economics work for sustainable practices, how these systems could effectively scale up, and how they could actually improve farmers’ livelihoods. As a graduate student, I started on agroforestry projects and have since straddled the fence between sustainable agriculture and forestry – continually asking new questions around policy, land use change, and sustainable livelihoods. 

What are the main goals of your current research program?
My research program centers on policy design and evaluation, conservation motivations and behavior, participatory research, and using remote sensing to monitor environmental change. I gravitate towards systems thinking, so I use interdisciplinary research approaches to understand problems holistically and work with stakeholders to address policy-relevant and locally driven research questions. My program will work locally on questions pertaining to farmers and foresters in Wisconsin as well as internationally on questions related to tropical agroforestry and forest conservation projects.  

What was your first visit to campus like?
I first visited the campus in November 2017 for a Green Lands Blue Waters conference. I remember loving the trees, lakes, and hills, though the cold winds were also memorable. This year, I visited with wonderful weather during my first visit – and I still love the trees, lakes, and hills.

What’s the most important lesson you wish to convey to students?
Research can lead to impact – and we can intentionally design our research questions to address local concerns and influence policy decisions. As individuals, we may be only contributing a small part, but collectively our work can lead to real change! 

Do you feel your work relates to the Wisconsin Idea? If so, how?
I have the privilege of collaborating with farmers, non-profits and program administrators to understand their concerns and co-develop locally relevant sustainable solutions. I love doing applied research and sharing the findings back to communities and stakeholders. When thinking about my research on sustainable agriculture and forestry, I focus both on the ecological impacts and the social impacts – and how these outcomes may be achieved jointly to address climate change, soil and water conservation, and promote livelihoods for the diversity of people depending on these systems.  

What’s something interesting or surprising about your area of expertise that will make us sound smarter at parties?
Cows that graze under trees produce more milk in hot weather because the shade reduces their stress. So, throughout the summer, agroforestry can contribute to there being more ice cream to enjoy.

What are your hobbies and other interests?
I love bicycling, hiking, reading, baking, and exploring nature with my partner and toddler.