School of Engineering


Showing 1-24 of 24 Results

  • Nikola Blagojevic

    Nikola Blagojevic

    Postdoctoral Scholar, Civil and Environmental Engineering

    BioNikola Blagojević is a postdoctoral scholar at the Stanford Urban Resilience Initiative (SURI) within the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University. His research focuses on regional recovery modeling and urban disaster resilience assessment.

    As part of his doctoral work, Nikola developed pyrecodes, an open-source software for simulating how cities recover from disasters. His broader research interests span earthquake engineering, software development, post-disaster data collection, and climate risk and resilience assessment.

    In addition to his academic research, Nikola has collaborated with the insurance industry to improve tools for assessing business interruption losses.

    He holds a Ph.D. from ETH Zurich (2023) and an M.Sc. (2016) and B.Sc. (2015) in Structural Engineering from the University of Belgrade, Serbia.

  • Sheena Conforti

    Sheena Conforti

    Postdoctoral Scholar, Civil and Environmental Engineering

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMy research focuses on using wastewater to track infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance across populations. I integrate environmental surveillance with clinical data to understand pathogen transmission dynamics and support public health decision-making within a One Health framework.

  • Jiechao Gao

    Jiechao Gao

    Postdoctoral Scholar, Civil and Environmental Engineering

    BioJiechao Gao is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Stanford University's Center for Sustainable Development and Global Competitiveness. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Virginia, his M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University, and dual B.S. degrees in Applied Physics and Financial Engineering from Jilin University. Prior to joining Stanford, he served as an Associate Research Scientist at Columbia University.

    His research spans federated learning, large language model (LLM) interpretability and efficiency, reinforcement learning, and privacy-preserving AI, with applications in healthcare, smart buildings, IoV, and finance. He has published extensively at top venues including ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML, AAAI, EMNLP, KDD, CVPR, ACL, etc. He serves as Area Chair or Senior Program Committee member for conferences such as ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML, AAAI, EMNLP, KDD, IJCAI, IJCNN, ICASSP, and reviews for journals such as JMLR, IEEE IoT-J, and IEEE TITS. His recognitions include the Google HE Faculty AI Fellowship (2026), Stanford/Elsevier Global Top 2% Scientists (2024 & 2025), and multiple Best Paper Nominations.

  • Zhili He

    Zhili He

    Graduate Visiting Researcher Student, Civil & Envir Engr

    BioZhili He is a Visiting PhD Student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University, working with Prof. Hae Young Noh. He is currently pursuing his PhD at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology under the supervision of Prof. Yu-Hsing Wang.

    His research lies at the intersection of robotics, computer vision, and artificial intelligence for the built environment. His current work focuses on autonomous quadruped robot systems, SLAM, 3D building digitalization, BIM, large language models, and AI-driven structural inspection.

    He has published research in leading journals including Information Fusion and Automation in Construction. His long-term goal is to develop intelligent robotic systems that enable autonomous inspection, digitalization, and maintenance of civil infrastructure.

  • Simona Meiler

    Simona Meiler

    Postdoctoral Scholar, Civil and Environmental Engineering

    BioI am a weather and climate risk scientist, studying how hazard, exposure, and vulnerability interact to shape the risks and impacts of extreme weather events – both today and in a changing climate. My work combines modeling and systems thinking to explore a range of topics, including tropical cyclone risk, uncertainty and sensitivity analysis, human displacement, post-disaster recovery, and systemic risk. My approach is inherently interdisciplinary, with the goal of translating model insights into real-world applications that support climate-resilient decision-making.

    I am currently a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University, supported by an SNSF Postdoc.Mobility fellowship, working with Prof. Jack W. Baker. I completed my PhD at ETH Zurich in weather and climate risk modeling, with a focus on global tropical cyclone risk and uncertainty quantification, under the supervision of Prof. David N. Bresch.

  • Kopal Nihar

    Kopal Nihar

    Postdoctoral Scholar, Civil and Environmental Engineering

    BioI am a postdoctoral scholar working with Dr. Catherine Gorle, Dr. Sarah Billington and Dr. Rishee Jain. I also did a PhD from Stanford advised by Dr Rishee Jain at Urban Informatics Lab. My research interest lies in understanding data-driven human-building interactions and impact of indoor air quality on occupant behaviour, especially for the purpose of natural cooling.

  • Yuandong PAN

    Yuandong PAN

    Postdoctoral Scholar, Civil and Environmental Engineering

    BioYuandong Pan is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the School of Engineering at Stanford University. His research focuses on developing digital and smart approaches to support more sustainable buildings, infrastructure, and cities. Before joining Stanford, he was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Future Road Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge. His work aims to improve how the built environment is designed, managed, and maintained, contributing to smarter, more resilient, and more sustainable urban systems.

  • Nitish Ranjan Sarker

    Nitish Ranjan Sarker

    Postdoctoral Scholar, Civil and Environmental Engineering

    BioNitish Ranjan Sarker is a Postdoctoral Scholar at Stanford University, where he contributes to the design, execution, and evaluation of an Industrial, Agricultural, and Water FlexHub Demonstration Pilot Project. His current research focuses on developing data-driven decision-support tools for sustainable water and energy systems, integrating experimental and pilot-scale data with technoeconomic analysis (TEA) to guide system design, deployment strategies, and policy recommendations.

    Nitish earned his Ph.D. in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering from the University of Toronto, where his work combined laboratory-to-pilot experimentation, systems modeling, and field validation to advance resilient and affordable water technologies. Prior to that, he completed his M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Alberta and his B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET). His research portfolio spans off-grid solar desalination, oil-water separation and spill response technologies, and distributed water quality monitoring tools for decentralized systems. Beyond research, Nitish has engaged in interdisciplinary training and global capacity-building initiatives in Canada, Mexico, Kenya, Bangladesh, India, and France, advancing the water‑energy‑health nexus and sustainable technology adoption from lab to field. He also co-founded FRODO, a venture translating foam-based oil-water separation research into deployable spill response and produced water treatment solutions, bridging lab innovation and early commercialization.

  • Meghan Marjorie Shea

    Meghan Marjorie Shea

    Postdoctoral Scholar, Civil and Environmental Engineering

    BioMeghan is a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University, where she studies how to best use environmental DNA (eDNA)—little bits of DNA left behind by organisms in their ecosystems—for marine biodiversity monitoring. Her interdisciplinary approach blends science & technology studies and ocean sciences, drawing on her dual training as a social scientist and engineer. Working from the archives to the laboratory to the field, she advances eDNA tools while interrogating their social context and epistemic implications. Prior to her postdoc, she received a PhD in the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment & Resources at Stanford, an MPhil in Nature, Society and Environmental Governance from Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, and a BS in Environmental Systems Engineering from Stanford. When she's not thinking about environmental DNA, she loves cooking elaborate vegetarian meals, nurturing her house plants, and finding ways to spend as much time as possible on or near the ocean!

  • Simon Treillou

    Simon Treillou

    Postdoctoral Scholar, Civil and Environmental Engineering

    BioSimon Treillou (he/him) is a postdoctoral researcher at the Baker Coastal Lab at Stanford University, where he studies coastal transport and mixing processes with a focus on wave-driven circulation dynamics. He holds a Master's degree in Applied Mathematics from INSA Toulouse and recently completed his Ph.D. in Coastal Oceanography at the University of Toulouse (France) in the LEGOS lab under the supervision of Patrick Marchesiello. His research uses advanced 3D wave-resolving models to improve the understanding of tracer dispersal in nearshore environments, addressing critical environmental challenges such as contaminant mitigation and ecosystem resilience. Simon's work will integrate numerical modeling, remote sensing, and experimental methods to advance knowledge of coastal physics.