School of Humanities and Sciences


Showing 1-65 of 65 Results

  • Laura Dahl

    Laura Dahl

    Senior Lecturer of Music

    BioPianist Laura Dahl is an active international performer and educator, appearing in venues including Carnegie Hall, the Berlin Philharmonic, San Francisco’s Davies Symphony Hall and Stern Grove Festival, Bing Concert Hall at Stanford University, the Carmel Bach Festival, and the Henley Festival in Great Britain. A specialist in collaborative performance and chamber music, Dahl is the founder and artistic director of the A. Jess Shenson Recital Series at Stanford University, as well as Music by the Mountain, a chamber music festival in Northern California. Dahl is a member of the music faculty at Stanford University, where she teaches collaborative and solo piano, chamber music, art song interpretation, and diction. She has also taught at the New National Theatre Young Artists Training Program in Tokyo, Japan.

    Dahl’s education featured training on both coasts of the US and in Germany. She was the first musician to be named a German Chancellor’s Scholar of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. She lived two years in Germany, studying under pianist Phillip Moll, baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, and pianist and composer Aribert Reimann. Dahl holds degrees from the University of Michigan School of Music and the New England Conservatory of Music, where she was a student of Martin Katz, Eckart Sellheim, and Margo Garrett. A graduate of San Francisco Opera’s Merola Program, Dahl served as Assistant Conductor for Western Opera Theater and was Associate Director of the San Francisco Boys Chorus. She has been a coach at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the New England Conservatory of Music and the University of Michigan Opera Theater. She was an invited fellow at the prestigious Tanglewood Music Center for two years, in addition to studies at the Banff Academy of Singing (Canada) and the Music Academy of the West (Santa Barbara). Dahl was born and raised in the western states of Colorado and Montana.

  • Hongjie Dai

    Hongjie Dai

    The J.G. Jackson and C.J. Wood Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus

    BioProfessor Dai’s research spans chemistry, physics, and materials and biomedical sciences, leading to materials with properties useful in electronics, energy storage and biomedicine. Recent developments include near-infrared-II fluorescence imaging, ultra-sensitive diagnostic assays, a fast-charging aluminum battery and inexpensive electrocatalysts that split water into oxygen and hydrogen fuels.

    Born in 1966 in Shaoyang, China, Hongjie Dai began his formal studies in physics at Tsinghua U. (B.S. 1989) and applied sciences at Columbia U. (M.S. 1991). He obtained his Ph.D. from Harvard U and performed postdoctoral research with Dr. Richard Smalley. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1997, and in 2007 was named Jackson–Wood Professor of Chemistry. Among many awards, he has been recognized with the ACS Pure Chemistry Award, APS McGroddy Prize for New Materials, Julius Springer Prize for Applied Physics and Materials Research Society Mid-Career Award. He has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, National Academy of Sciences (NAS), National Academy of Medicine (NAM) and Foreign Member of Chinese Academy of Sciences.

    The Dai Laboratory has advanced the synthesis and basic understanding of carbon nanomaterials and applications in nanoelectronics, nanomedicine, energy storage and electrocatalysis.

    Nanomaterials
    The Dai Lab pioneered some of the now-widespread uses of chemical vapor deposition for carbon nanotube (CNT) growth, including vertically aligned nanotubes and patterned growth of single-walled CNTs on wafer substrates, facilitating fundamental studies of their intrinsic properties. The group developed the synthesis of graphene nanoribbons, and of nanocrystals and nanoparticles on CNTs and graphene with controlled degrees of oxidation, producing a class of strongly coupled hybrid materials with advanced properties for electrochemistry, electrocatalysis and photocatalysis. The lab’s synthesis of a novel plasmonic gold film has enhanced near-infrared fluorescence up to 100-fold, enabling ultra-sensitive assays of disease biomarkers.

    Nanoscale Physics and Electronics
    High quality nanotubes from his group’s synthesis are widely used to investigate the electrical, mechanical, optical, electro-mechanical and thermal properties of quasi-one-dimensional systems. Lab members have studied ballistic electron transport in nanotubes and demonstrated nanotube-based nanosensors, Pd ohmic contacts and ballistic field effect transistors with integrated high-kappa dielectrics.

    Nanomedicine and NIR-II Imaging
    Advancing biological research with CNTs and nano-graphene, group members have developed π–π stacking non-covalent functionalization chemistry, molecular cellular delivery (drugs, proteins and siRNA), in vivo anti-cancer drug delivery and in vivo photothermal ablation of cancer. Using nanotubes as novel contrast agents, lab collaborations have developed in vitro and in vivo Raman, photoacoustic and fluorescence imaging. Lab members have exploited the physics of reduced light scattering in the near-infrared-II (1000-1700nm) window and pioneered NIR-II fluorescence imaging to increase tissue penetration depth in vivo. Video-rate NIR-II imaging can measure blood flow in single vessels in real time. The lab has developed novel NIR-II fluorescence agents, including CNTs, quantum dots, conjugated polymers and small organic dyes with promise for clinical translation.

    Electrocatalysis and Batteries
    The Dai group’s nanocarbon–inorganic particle hybrid materials have opened new directions in energy research. Advances include electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction and water splitting catalysts including NiFe layered-double-hydroxide for oxygen evolution. Recently, the group also demonstrated an aluminum ion battery with graphite cathodes and ionic liquid electrolytes, a substantial breakthrough in battery science.

  • Barnabas Daru

    Barnabas Daru

    Assistant Professor of Biology and Center Fellow, by courtesy, at the Woods Institute for the Environment

    BioBarnabas Daru is an Assistant Professor of Biology. He is interested in the ecology and biogeography of plants across ecological scales. He studied botany in Johannesburg, and was a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard, where he worked on new uses of herbarium specimens for understanding plant ecology and evolution in the Anthropocene, the epoch of profound human impact on Earth. Current research in the Daru lab addresses the role of phylogeny in: 1) understanding how species are distributed, 2) conserving unique communities, and 3) understanding changing distributions in the Anthropocene.

  • Richard Dasher

    Richard Dasher

    Adjunct Professor

    BioRichard Dasher has been Director of the US-Asia Technology Management Center (US-ATMC) at Stanford University since 1994. He served concurrently as the Executive Director of the Center for Integrated Systems in Stanford's School of Engineering from 1998 - 2015. His research and teaching focus on the flow of people, knowledge, and capital in innovation systems, on the impact of new technologies on industry value chains, and on open innovation management. Dr. Dasher was the first non-Japanese person ever asked to join the governance of a Japanese national university, serving as a Board Director and member of the Management Council of Tohoku University from 2004 - 2010. He has served on th Program Committee of the $1.3 billion/year World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI) of Japan since its inception in 2007, and he has also served on program and review committees of other national science and technology funding programs, national research institutes, and universities in Canada, Japan, and Thailand. He is a Founding Partner of the Tokyo-based VC firm Global Hands-On Venture Capital (GHOVC), and he is an advisor to start-up companies, business accelerators, venture capital firms, and nonprofits in Silicon Valley, Japan, India, and S. Korea. Dr. Dasher received M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Linguistics from Stanford University. Before coming to the US-ATMC, he served as board director of two small companies in Tokyo, developing international business from 1990 - 93. From 1986 – 90, he was Director of the U.S. State Department’s Advanced Language and Area Training Centers in Japan and Korea that provide full-time curricula to U.S. and Commonwealth Country diplomats assigned to those countries.

  • Laura M.K. Dassama

    Laura M.K. Dassama

    Assistant Professor of Chemistry and of Microbiology and Immunology

    BioLaura Dassama is a chemical biologist who uses principles from chemistry and physics to understand complex biological phenomena, and to leverage that understanding for the modulation of biological processes. Her current research focuses on deciphering the molecular recognition mechanisms of multidrug transporters implicated in drug resistance, rational engineering and repurposing of natural products, and control of transcription factors relevant to sickle cell disease.

  • Adrian Daub

    Adrian Daub

    J.E. Wallace Sterling Professor of the Humanities, Professor of German Studies and of Comparative Literature

    BioMy research focuses on the long nineteenth century, in particular questions of gender in literature, music and philosophy. My first book, "Zwillingshafte Gebärden": Zur kulturellen Wahrnehmung des vierhändigen Klavierspiels im neunzehnten Jahrhundert (Königshausen & Neumann, 2009), traces four-hand piano playing as both a cultural practice and a motif in literature, art and philosophy (an English edition of the book recently appeared as Four-Handed Monsters: Four-Hand Piano Playing and Nineteenth-Century Culture (Oxford University Press, 2014)). My second book Uncivil Unions - The Metaphysics of Marriage in German Idealism and Romanticism (University of Chicago Press, 2012), explored German philosophical theories of marriage from Kant to Nietzsche. Tristan's Shadow - Sexuality and the Total Work of Art (University of Chicago Press, 2013), deals with eroticism in German opera after Wagner. My most recent academic book, The Dynastic Imagination (University of Chicago Press, 2020) traces the fate of the dynasty in the age of the nuclear family. A comparative and intermedial study of the ballad-form in nineteenth century Europe will appear in 2022 with Oxford University Press. In addition, I have published articles on topics such as fin-de-siècle German opera, women composers in the 19th century, the history of feminist philosophy, the films of Hans-Jürgen Syberberg, film music, literature and scandal, the legacies of Richard Wagner, the cultural use of ballads in the nineteenth century, and writers like Novalis, Stefan George, Walter Benjamin, Sophie Mereau, Theodor Adorno and W.G. Sebald. I also write on popular culture and politics: in this capacity I co-wrote The James Bond Songs: Pop Anthems of Late Capitalism (with Charles Kronengold) and published a German-language essay collection Pop Up Nation (Hanser, 2016). My book What Tech Calls Thinking (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2020) has been translated into five languages. I write articles for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Switzerland), Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Germany), Die Zeit (Germany), The Guardian (UK), The Nation, The New Republic, n+1, Longreads and the LA Review of Books. More information can be found on my personal website adriandaub.com.

    I am the Director of the Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research, and the Andrew W. Mellon Program for Postdoctoral Studies in the Humanities. I have previously directed the Program in Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies (FGSS) and the Department of German Studies.

  • J. P. Daughton

    J. P. Daughton

    Professor of History and, by courtesy, of French and Italian

    BioJ. P. Daughton is Professor of History, and Professor (by courtesy) of French and Italian. He is a historian of Europe, imperialism and colonialism, and global history. His teaching and publications explore political, cultural, social, and environmental history, as well as the modern history of religion, technology, and humanitarianism. His affiliations at Stanford include the Europe Center, the Center for African Studies, and the Center for Human Rights and International Justice.

    His most recent book, In the Forest of No Joy: The Congo-Océan Railroad and the Tragedy of French Colonialism (W. W. Norton, 2021), tells the story of one of the deadliest construction projects in history. Between 1921 and 1934, French colonial interests recruited -- most often by force -- more than 100,000 men, women, and children to work on a 500-kilometer stretch of rail between Brazzaville and the Atlantic Coast. In the end, tens of thousands of Africans were dead, killed by mistreatment, starvation, and disease. The book painstakingly recounts the experiences of local communities in the face of colonial economic development, considers why the railroad witnessed such extraordinary violence and suffering, and explores how the rhetoric of "civilization" and "development" were used to justify the loss of so many African lives. In the Forest of No Joy was reviewed widely, including in the Economist, the New York Review of Books, the TLS, and the New Yorker. It was shortlisted for the Cundill History Prize and was a finalist for the American Library in Paris Book Prize. A French translation is forthcoming with Éditions du Seuil.

    Daughton is also the author of An Empire Divided: Religion, Republicanism, and the Making of French Colonialism, 1880-1914 (Oxford University Press, 2006), a book that tells the story of how troubled relations between Catholic missionaries and a host of republican critics shaped colonial policies, Catholic perspectives, and domestic French politics in the decades before the First World War. Based on archival research from four continents, the book challenges the long-held view that French colonizing and “civilizing” goals were the product of a distinctly secular republican ideology built on Enlightenment ideals. A CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title, An Empire Divided was awarded the George Louis Beer Prize for the best book in international history from the American Historical Association, as well as the Alf Andrew Heggoy Book Prize from the French Colonial Historical Society.

    He is also the editor, with Owen White, of In God’s Empire: French Missionaries in the Modern World (Oxford University Press, 2012), a collection of essays on the role played by French religious workers in the empire and beyond. His essays and reviews, on themes related to colonial violence, international governance, informal empire, and cultural policy, have appeared in publications like the Journal of Modern History, the American Historical Review, and French Historical Studies.

    Daughton’s PhD advisees have written on a wide range of subjects, from nineteenth-century French cultural policies to the history of famine, and from alcohol consumption and violence in the First World War to the work of international NGOs in Algeria during decolonization. He is currently accepting graduate students interested in transnational history, modern Europe, empire, humanitarianism, international politics, and environment history.

  • Lauren Davenport

    Lauren Davenport

    Associate Professor of Political Science

    BioLauren Davenport is an Associate Professor of Political Science. At Stanford, she is also affiliated with the Center for American Democracy; Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity; and Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Her general research interests include American politics, public opinion, and race and ethnicity. In particular, her work centers around how racial and ethnic minorities in the U.S. develop their identities and political attachments. Her research has appeared in journals including the American Political Science Review, American Sociological Review, American Journal of Political Science, and Journal of Politics, and has been featured in national media outlets including CNN, Time magazine, NBC News, and National Public Radio. Her book, Politics Beyond Black and White (Cambridge University Press), assesses how social, historical, and economic processes help construct multiracial Americans' identities and political outlooks.

    She has received several awards for her research and teaching, including the International Society of Political Psychology’s David Sears Best Book Award, the Emerging Scholar Award from the Elections, Public Opinion and Voting Behavior section of the American Political Science Association (given to "the top scholar in the field who is within ten years of receiving her or his Ph.D."), and the Stanford University Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching.

  • Andrea Davies

    Andrea Davies

    Academic Operations Mgr 2, KIPAC

    Current Role at StanfordManaging Director, Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC)

  • Jenna Davis

    Jenna Davis

    Associate Dean for Integrative Initiatives in Institutes and International Partnerships, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and Higgins-Magid Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsProfessor Davis’ research and teaching deals broadly with the role that water plays in promoting public health and economic development, with particular emphasis on low- and middle-income countries. Her group conducts applied research that utilizes theory and analytical methods from public and environmental health, engineering, microeconomics, and planning. They have conducted field research in more than 20 countries, most recently including Zambia, Bangladesh, and Kenya.

  • Giulio De Leo

    Giulio De Leo

    Professor of Oceans, of Earth System Science, Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment and Professor, by courtesy of Biology

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsI am a theoretical ecologist mostly interested in investigating factors and processes driving the dynamics of natural and harvested populations and on how to use this knowledge to inform practical management. I have worked broadly on life histories analysis, fishery management, dynamics and control of infectious diseases and environmental impact assessment.

  • Thomas Dee

    Thomas Dee

    Barnett Family Professor, Professor of Education, Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and, by courtesy, at the Hoover Institution

    BioThomas S. Dee, Ph.D., is the Barnett Family Professor at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education (GSE), a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) and the Faculty Director of the John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities. His research focuses largely on the use of quantitative methods to inform contemporary issues of public policy and practice. The Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) awarded his collaborative research the Raymond Vernon Memorial Award in 2015 and again in 2019. He currently serves on the editorial boards of the American Educational Research Journal, the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, and Education Finance and Policy.

  • Paul DeMarinis

    Paul DeMarinis

    Professor of Art and Art History and, by courtesy, of Music

    BioPaul DeMarinis has been working as an electronic media artist since 1971 and has created numerous performance works, sound and computer installations and interactive electronic inventions. One of the first artists to use computers in performance, he has performed internationally, at The Kitchen, Festival d'Automne a Paris, Het Apollohuis in Holland and at Ars Electronica in Linz and created music for Merce Cunningham Dance Co. His interactive audio artworks have been exhibited at the I.C.C. in Tokyo, Bravin Post Lee Gallery in New York, The Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco and the 2006 Shanghai Biennale. He has received major awards and fellowships in both Visual Arts and Music from The National Endowment for the Arts, N.Y.F.A., N.Y.S.C.A., the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and was awarded the Golden Nica for Interactive Art at Ars Electronica in 2006. Much of his recent work deals with the areas of overlap between human communication and technology. Major installations include "The Edison Effect" which uses optics and computers to make new sounds by scanning ancient phonograph records with lasers, "Gray Matter" which uses the interaction of flesh and electricity to make music, "The Messenger" that examines the myths of electricity in communication and recent works such as "RainDance" and "Firebirds" that use fire and water to create the sounds of music and language. Public artworks include large scale interactive installations at Park Tower Hall in Tokyo, at the Olympics in Atlanta and at Expo in Lisbon and an interactive audio environment at the Ft. Lauderdale International Airport. He has been an Artist-in-Residence at The Exploratorium and at Xerox PARC and is currently a Professor of Art at Stanford University in California.

  • Shane Denson

    Shane Denson

    Associate Professor of Art and Art History and, by courtesy, of German Studies and of Communication

    BioShane Denson is Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies in the Department of Art & Art History at Stanford University. His research and teaching interests span a variety of media and historical periods, including phenomenological and media-philosophical approaches to film, digital media, comics, games, and serialized popular forms. He is the author of three books: Post-Cinematic Bodies (2023), Discorrelated Images (2020) and Postnaturalism: Frankenstein, Film, and the Anthropotechnical Interface (2014). He is also co-editor of several collections: Transnational Perspectives on Graphic Narratives (2013), Digital Seriality (special issue of Eludamos: Journal for Computer Game Culture, 2014), and the open-access book Post-Cinema: Theorizing 21st-Century Film (2016).

    See also shanedenson.com for more info.

  • Sarah Derbew

    Sarah Derbew

    Assistant Professor of Classics

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsSarah Derbew's research focuses on the literary and artistic representations of black people in ancient Greece. The genres she investigates include ancient Greek tragedy, historiography, satire, and the novel. She also examines artistic renderings of black people in Greek antiquity, focusing on both the objects themselves and the museums in which they are displayed. Her interests extend to the twenty-first century; she has written about the reception of Greco-Roman antiquity in Africa and the African diaspora.

  • Joseph M. DeSimone

    Joseph M. DeSimone

    Sanjiv Sam Gambhir Professor of Translational Medicine, Professor of Chemical Engineering and, by courtesy, of Chemistry, of Materials Science and Engineering, and of Operations, Information and Technology at the Graduate School of Business

    BioJoseph M. DeSimone is the Sanjiv Sam Gambhir Professor of Translational Medicine and Chemical Engineering at Stanford University. He holds appointments in the Departments of Radiology and Chemical Engineering with courtesy appointments in the Department of Chemistry and in Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.

    The DeSimone laboratory's research efforts are focused on developing innovative, interdisciplinary solutions to complex problems centered around advanced polymer 3D fabrication methods. In Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, the lab is pursuing new capabilities in digital 3D printing, as well as the synthesis of new polymers for use in advanced additive technologies. In Translational Medicine, research is focused on exploiting 3D digital fabrication tools to engineer new vaccine platforms, enhanced drug delivery approaches, and improved medical devices for numerous conditions, with a current major focus in pediatrics. Complementing these research areas, the DeSimone group has a third focus in Entrepreneurship, Digital Transformation, and Manufacturing.

    Before joining Stanford in 2020, DeSimone was a professor of chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and of chemical engineering at North Carolina State University. He is also Co-founder, Board Chair, and former CEO (2014 - 2019) of the additive manufacturing company, Carbon. DeSimone is responsible for numerous breakthroughs in his career in areas including green chemistry, medical devices, nanomedicine, and 3D printing. He has published over 350 scientific articles and is a named inventor on over 200 issued patents. Additionally, he has mentored 80 students through Ph.D. completion in his career, half of whom are women and members of underrepresented groups in STEM.

    In 2016 DeSimone was recognized by President Barack Obama with the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the highest U.S. honor for achievement and leadership in advancing technological progress. He has received numerous other major awards in his career, including the U.S. Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award (1997); the American Chemical Society Award for Creative Invention (2005); the Lemelson-MIT Prize (2008); the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award (2009); the AAAS Mentor Award (2010); the Heinz Award for Technology, the Economy and Employment (2017); the Wilhelm Exner Medal (2019); the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award (2019 U.S. Overall National Winner); and the Harvey Prize in Science and Technology (2020). He is one of only 25 individuals elected to all three branches of the U.S. National Academies (Sciences, Medicine, Engineering). DeSimone received his B.S. in Chemistry in 1986 from Ursinus College and his Ph.D. in Chemistry in 1990 from Virginia Tech.

  • Trithep Devakul

    Trithep Devakul

    Assistant Professor of Physics

    BioI am a theoretical condensed matter physicist. My general research interests lie in exploring all the exotic states of matter that can arise in quantum systems.

    I am currently interested in studying topological states that can arise in a class of 2D quantum materials known as moiré materials.

    I did my bachelor's at Northeastern, a PhD at Princeton, and a postdoc at MIT, before joining Stanford as an assistant professor. I grew up in Bangkok, Thailand.

  • Persi Diaconis

    Persi Diaconis

    Mary V. Sunseri Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences and Professor of Mathematics

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsResearch Interests:
    PROBABILITY THEORY
    BAYESIAN STATISTICS
    STATISTICAL COMPUTING
    COMBINATORICS

  • Larry Diamond

    Larry Diamond

    Mosbacher Senior Fellow of Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Professor, by courtesy, of Sociology and of Political Science

    Current Research and Scholarly Interestsdemocratic development and regime change; U.S. foreign policy affecting democracy abroad; comparative trends in the quality and stability of democracy in developing countries and postcommunist states; and public opinion in new democracies, especially in East Asia

  • Alberto Diaz-Cayeros

    Alberto Diaz-Cayeros

    Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsComparative Politics, Political Economy, International Political Economy, Poverty, Rule of Law, Political Party Development

  • Maria Diez Ortega

    Maria Diez Ortega

    Lecturer

    BioDr. María (Mery) Díez-Ortega is an applied linguist and language educator. Her research interests lie in the intersection of second language acquisition, task-based language teaching (TBLT), and language learning and technology. She follows a communicative task-based and project-based learning approach, with an interest in developing intercultural competence. Before coming to Stanford, she taught a variety of Spanish courses at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, at South Puget Sound Community College, and at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse. She has also taught college courses in second language pedagogy, second language acquisition, and English for academic purposes.

    Dr. Díez-Ortega received her PhD in Applied Linguistics from the Department of Second Language Studies at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa. She earned an MA and an Advanced Graduate Certificate in Spanish Applied Linguistics and Hispanic Cultures and Literatures from the University of Hawai‘i. Dr. Díez-Ortega has published journal articles and book chapters on her various research interests. Moreover, she has received grants and awards for her work in the field of language learning and technology, such as the American Association of Applied Linguistics Graduate Student Award, the Duolingo Dissertation Grant, the CALICO Robert A. Fischer Outstanding Graduate Student Award, among others.

  • David Dill

    David Dill

    Donald E. Knuth Professor in the School of Engineering, Emeritus

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsSecure and reliable blockchain technology at Facebook.

  • Savas Dimopoulos

    Savas Dimopoulos

    Hamamoto Family Professor

    BioWhat is the origin of mass? Are there other universes with different physical laws?

    Professor Dimopoulos has been searching for answers to some of the deepest mysteries of nature. Why is gravity so weak? Do elementary particles have substructure? What is the origin of mass? Are there new dimensions? Can we produce black holes in the lab?

    Elementary particle physics is entering a spectacular new era in which experiments at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN will soon shed light on such questions and lead to a new deeper theory of particle physics, replacing the Standard Model proposed forty years ago. The two leading candidates for new theories are the Supersymmetric Standard Model and theories with Large Extra Dimensions, both proposed by Professor Dimopoulos and collaborators.

    Professor Dimopoulos is collaborating on a number of experiments that use the dramatic advances in atom interferometry to do fundamental physics. These include testing Einstein’s theory of general relativity to fifteen decimal precision, atom neutrality to thirty decimals, and looking for modifications of quantum mechanics. He is also designing an atom-interferometric gravity-wave detector that will allow us to look at the universe with gravity waves instead of light, marking the dawn of gravity wave astronomy and cosmology.

  • José R. Dinneny

    José R. Dinneny

    Professor of Biology

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsThe biology of root systems is governed by both micro-scale and systemic signaling that allows the plant to integrate these complex variables into growth and branching decisions that ultimately determine the efficiency resources are captured. Research in my lab is aimed at understanding the response of roots to water-limiting conditions and is exploring this process at different organizational scales from the individual cell type to the level of the whole plant.

  • Elizabeth DiRenzo, PhD

    Elizabeth DiRenzo, PhD

    Associate Professor of Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery (OHNS) and, by courtesy, of Music

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsDr. Erickson DiRenzo's laboratory integrates research techniques from the basic and clinical sciences to improve the prevention and management of voice disorders.

  • Rodolfo Dirzo

    Rodolfo Dirzo

    Associate Dean for Integrative Initiatives in Environmental Justice, Bing Prof in Environmental Science, Professor of Earth System Science and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsEcological and evolutionary aspects of plant-animal interactions, largely but not exclusively, in tropical forest ecosystems.
    Conservation biology in tropical ecosystems.
    Studies on biodiversity.
    Education, at all levels, on scientific practice, ecology and biodiversity conservation.

  • Scott Dixon

    Scott Dixon

    Associate Professor of Biology

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMy lab is interested in the relationship between cell death and metabolism. Using techniques drawn from many disciplines my laboratory is investigating how perturbation of intracellular metabolic networks can result in novel forms of cell death, such as ferroptosis. We are interested in applying this knowledge to find new ways to treat diseases characterized by insufficient (e.g. cancer) or excessive (e.g. neurodegeneration) cell death.

  • Benjamin Domingue

    Benjamin Domingue

    Associate Professor of Education and, by courtesy, of Sociology

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsI'm interested in models for psychological measurement and their uses alongside applied statistical projects of all kinds.

  • Sebastian Doniach

    Sebastian Doniach

    Professor of Applied Physics and of Physics, Emeritus

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsStudy of changes in conformation of proteins and RNA using x-ray scattering

  • David Donoho

    David Donoho

    Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences

    BioDavid Donoho is a mathematician who has made fundamental contributions to theoretical and computational statistics, as well as to signal processing and harmonic analysis. His algorithms have contributed significantly to our understanding of the maximum entropy principle, of the structure of robust procedures, and of sparse data description.

    Research Statement:
    My theoretical research interests have focused on the mathematics of statistical inference and on theoretical questions arising in applying harmonic analysis to various applied problems. My applied research interests have ranged from data visualization to various problems in scientific signal processing, image processing, and inverse problems.

  • Rowan Dorin

    Rowan Dorin

    Associate Professor of History

    BioI am a historian of western Europe and the Mediterranean, primarily during the high and late Middle Ages. Much of my research tries to understand how law and society interact with each other, especially where legal norms conflict with social practices. Another strand of my research explores the history of economic life and economic thought, especially medieval debates over usury and moneylending. I have also written on the circulation of goods, people, and ideas in the medieval Mediterranean.

    My first book (No Return: Jews, Christian Usurers, and the Spread of Mass Expulsion in Medieval Europe, Princeton University Press) uses the banishment of Jewish and Christian moneylenders to explore the rise of mass expulsion as a widespread practice in the later Middle Ages. A second ongoing project examines the ways in which medieval canon law was adapted, reinterpreted, or resisted in local contexts in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The latter builds on Corpus Synodalium, a prize-winning full-text database of late medieval local ecclesiastical legislation that I have been developing since 2016, with assistance from colleagues around the world.

    Born and raised in western Canada, I did my undergraduate and doctoral work at Harvard University, earning an MPhil in Medieval History from the University of Cambridge along the way. Before coming to Stanford, I was a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows.

  • Persis Drell

    Persis Drell

    Provost, Emerita, James and Anna Marie Spilker Professor, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and of Physics

    BioPersis Drell is the James and Anna Marie Spilker Professor in the School of Engineering, a professor of materials science and engineering, and a professor of physics. From Feb 1, 2017 to Sept. 30, 2023, Drell was the provost of Stanford University.

    Prior to her appointment as provost in February 2017, she was dean of the Stanford School of Engineering from 2014 to 2017 and director of U.S. Department of Energy SLAC National Acceleratory Laboratory from 2007 to 2012.

    She earned her bachelor’s degree in mathematics and physics from Wellesley College and her PhD in atomic physics from UC Berkeley. Before joining the faculty at Stanford in 2002, she was a faculty member in the physics department at Cornell University for 14 years.

  • Justin Du Bois

    Justin Du Bois

    Henry Dreyfus Professor of Chemistry and Professor, by courtesy, of Chemical and Systems Biology

    BioResearch and Scholarship

    Research in the Du Bois laboratory spans reaction methods development, natural product synthesis, and chemical biology, and draws on expertise in molecular design, molecular recognition, and physical organic chemistry. An outstanding goal of our program has been to develop C–H bond functionalization processes as general methods for organic chemistry, and to demonstrate how such tools can impact the logic of chemical synthesis. A second area of interest focuses on the role of ion channels in electrical conduction and the specific involvement of channel subtypes in the sensation of pain. This work is enabled in part through the advent of small molecule modulators of channel function.

    The Du Bois group has described new tactics for the selective conversion of saturated C–H to C–N and C–O bonds. These methods have general utility in synthesis, making possible the single-step incorporation of nitrogen and oxygen functional groups and thus simplifying the process of assembling complex molecules. To date, lab members have employed these versatile oxidation technologies to prepare natural products that include manzacidin A and C, agelastatin, tetrodotoxin, and saxitoxin. Detailed mechanistic studies of metal-catalyzed C–H functionalization reactions are performed in parallel with process development and chemical synthesis. These efforts ultimately give way to advances in catalyst design. A long-standing goal of this program is to identify robust catalyst systems that afford absolute control of reaction selectivity.

    In a second program area, the Du Bois group is exploring voltage-gated ion channel structure and function using the tools of chemistry in combination with those of molecular biology, electrophysiology, microscopy and mass spectrometry. Much of this work has focused on studies of eukaryotic Na and Cl ion channels. The Du Bois lab is interested in understanding the biochemical mechanisms that underlie channel subtype regulation and how such processes may be altered following nerve injury. Small molecule toxins serve as lead compounds for the design of isoform-selective channel modulators, affinity reagents, and fluorescence imaging probes. Access to toxins and modified forms thereof (including saxitoxin, gonyautoxin, batrachotoxin, and veratridine) through de novo synthesis drives studies to elucidate toxin-receptor interactions and to develop new pharmacologic tools to study ion channel function in primary cells and murine pain models.

  • John Duchi

    John Duchi

    Associate Professor of Statistics, of Electrical Engineering and, by courtesy, of Computer Science

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMy work spans statistical learning, optimization, information theory, and computation, with a few driving goals: 1. To discover statistical learning procedures that optimally trade between real-world resources while maintaining statistical efficiency. 2. To build efficient large-scale optimization methods that move beyond bespoke solutions to methods that robustly work. 3. To develop tools to assess and guarantee the validity of---and confidence we should have in---machine-learned systems.

  • Mark Duggan

    Mark Duggan

    Trione Director of SIEPR, Wayne and Jodi Cooperman Professor and Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research

    BioMark Duggan is a Professor of Economics at Stanford University and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering at M.I.T. in 1992 and 1994, respectively, and his Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 1999. He currently is a Co-Editor at the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy and was previously a Co-Editor at the Journal of Public Economics. Before arriving to Stanford in the summer of 2014, Duggan served on the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School (2011-14), the University of Maryland's Economics Department (2003-11), and the University of Chicago's Economics Department (1999-2003).

    Professor Duggan's research focuses primarily on the effect of government expenditure programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid on the behavior of individuals and firms. Some of his more recent research is exploring the effect of federal disability programs on the labor market and of changes to the Medicare and Medicaid programs on the cost and quality of health care. He is also estimating the effect of patent reforms in India on the price and utilization of pharmaceutical treatments. His research has been published in leading academic journals including the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy, and the Quarterly Journal of Economics and has been featured in outlets such as The Economist, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal.

    Professor Duggan was the 2010 recipient of the ASHEcon Medal, which is awarded every two years by the American Society of Health Economists to the economist aged 40 and under in the U.S. who has made the most significant contributions to the field of health economics. Along with his co-author Fiona Scott Morton, he received the National Institute for Health Care Management's 2011 Health Care Research Award for their work on Medicare Part D. He was a Fellow of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation from 2004 to 2006 and a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution from 2006 to 2007. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Social Security Administration, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Duggan served from 2009 to 2010 as the Senior Economist for Health Care Policy at the White House Council of Economic Advisers and has also been an Expert Witness for the U.S. Department of Justice.

  • Rob Dunbar

    Rob Dunbar

    W.M. Keck Professor in the School of Earth Sciences, Professor of Oceans, of Earth System Science and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsOcean processes, biogeochemistry, climatology/paleoclimatology, isotopic chemistry, ocean policy

  • Jean-Pierre Dupuy

    Jean-Pierre Dupuy

    Professor of French and Italian and, by courtesy, of Political Science

    BioProfessor Jean-Pierre Dupuy is a Professor of Social and Political Philosophy at the École Polytechnique, Paris. He is the Director of research at the C.N.R.S. (Philosophy) and the Director of C.R.E.A. (Centre de Recherche en Épistémologie Appliquée), the philosophical research group of the École Polytechnique, which he founded in 1982. At Stanford University, he is a researcher at the Study of Language and Information (C.S.L.I.) Professor Dupuy is by courtesy a Professor of Political Science.

    In his book The Mechanization of the Mind, Jean-Pierre Dupuy explains how the founders of cybernetics laid the foundations not only for cognitive science, but also artificial intelligence, and foreshadowed the development of chaos theory, complexity theory, and other scientific and philosophical breakthroughs.

  • William Durham

    William Durham

    Bing Professor in Human Biology, Emeritus

    BioWilliam (Bill) Durham is Bing Professor in Human Biology (Emeritus), Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education, and a Senior Fellow (Emeritus) in the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford. He has been jointly appointed in Human Biology and Anthropology at Stanford since 1977, when he came from the Society of Fellows at the University of Michigan. Bill was an undergraduate Biology major at Stanford, Class of 1971, and received the Lloyd W. Dinkelspiel Award at graduation for his contribution to undergraduate education via the NSF-funded Student Air Pollution Research Project, the first student initiative nationally to receive NSF funding.

    Bill’s career has focused on two main themes: (1) putting principles of evolution to work in efforts to sustain the biological and cultural diversity of our world; and (2) identifying social dimensions of environmental problems in Latin America and working with local leaders to help solve them. He has carried out fieldwork in Peru, Brazil, and Ecuador (especially Galápagos) in South America, and in El Salvador, Honduras, Panama, and Costa Rica in Central America. In 1983, he was one of the first scholars to receive the MacArthur Prize Fellowship and has also received five five awards for research and teaching at Stanford, including one by vote of the students. Bill’s recent book, Exuberant Life: An Evolutionary Approach to Conservation in Galápagos (Oxford University Press, 2021) was named a Finalist for the 2022 PROSE Award from the Association of American Publishers.

    Bill’s other publications include the books Scarcity and Survival in Central America (Stanford Press 1979; and in Spanish, by UCA Editores 1988), Coevolution: Genes, Culture, and Human Diversity (Stanford Press, 1991), The Social Causes of Environmental Destruction in Latin America (U. of Michigan Press, 1995, with M. Painter), Inbreeding, Incest and the Incest Taboo (Stanford Press 2004, with A. Wolf), and Ecotourism and Conservation in the Americas (CABI, 2008, with A. Stronza). In addition, he served as Editor in Chief for 16 volumes of the Annual Review of Anthropology between 1992 and 2008.

    Bill was Founding Co-Director of the Center for Responsible Travel (CREST), a research organization that views tourism as a means to promote local livelihoods and environmental conservation. Along with Stanford Professors Rodolfo Dirzo and Larry Crowder, Bill has been Co-director of the Osa-Golfito Initiative (INOGO) in the Woods Institute, working with Costa Ricans to develop a sustainability strategy for the southern region of the country.

    He has led more than 35 Stanford Alumni Association trips to Galápagos, Costa Rica, the Amazon, East Africa, and elsewhere.

  • Carol Dweck

    Carol Dweck

    Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor and Professor, by courtesy, of Education

    BioMy work bridges developmental psychology, social psychology, and personality psychology, and examines the self-conceptions people use to structure the self and guide their behavior. My research looks at the origins of these self-conceptions, their role in motivation and self-regulation, and their impact on achievement and interpersonal processes.