Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability
Showing 1,001-1,020 of 1,459 Results
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Quinn Mitsuko Parker
Ph.D. Student in Oceans, admitted Autumn 2023
Ph.D. Minor, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Research Assistant, OceansCurrent Research and Scholarly InterestsQuinn Parker studies social-ecological dynamics of small-scale fisheries, and their ties to gender equity, food security, and food sovereignty. She examines the cultural, socio-economic, and historical drivers that impact SSF governance, and how these governance models in turn affect resilience of and access to blue food systems.
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Nidhi Utkarshbhai Patel
Ph.D. Student in Earth and Planetary Sciences, admitted Autumn 2023
BioPlants display enormous diversity of forms today that, have evolved over geological timescales after plants successfully colonized land. Currently, I am interested in learning more about evolutionary changes in plant structures including specialized reproductive organs of seed plants. I study plant fossil record from deep time and living plants with the aim to develop a better understanding of origins of plant reproductive structures and drivers of morphological evolution in plants. Previously, I have looked at spore-pollen record preserved in sedimentary rocks from Canada. These microscopic fossils and their distribution in space and time can help us elucidate the response of vegetation to past extinction events.
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Sarina Patel
Program Manager, Policy & Engagement, Woods Institute
Current Role at StanfordProgram Manager, California Policy & Engagement, Woods Institute
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Ann Patterson
Policy Scholar, Woods Institute
BioAnn Patterson is a policy scholar at the Woods Institute for the Environment and the Sustainability Accelerator at the Doerr School for Sustainability, where she focuses on issues related to climate and energy.
She recently served as Senior Counselor for California Governor Gavin Newsom, where she advised the Governor regarding the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires and emerging energy-sector and insurance issues. She also advised the Governor on policy solutions to stabilize the state’s electric utilities in the wake of the catastrophic 2025 fires, which resulted in enactment of Senate Bill 254 (Becker, 2025). Patterson’s experience led to a focus on the wide-ranging societal and economic consequences of catastrophic wildfires in California and the implications for insurance accessibility and energy affordability.
Until March of 2025, Patterson served as Cabinet Secretary for Governor Newsom, where she oversaw the work of all state agencies and departments within the administration as well as development of the state budget. Prior to her appointment as Cabinet Secretary, Ann served as Governor Newsom’s Legal Affairs Secretary, providing legal advice and counsel to the Governor and the Governor’s office, as well as overseeing litigation to which the Governor or the State of California was a party. She also served as legal counsel to the Governor’s energy team, formed to stabilize the state’s utility sector in the wake of PG&E’s 2019 bankruptcy filing.
Prior to joining the Newsom Administration, Ann was a partner in the law firm of Orrick, Herrington, and Sutcliffe, where she practiced from 2005 until 2018. -
Marco Pavone
Associate Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Senior Fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy and Associate Professor, by courtesy, of Electrical Engineering & of Computer Science
BioDr. Marco Pavone is an Associate Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University, where he directs the Autonomous Systems Laboratory and the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford. He is also a Distinguished Research Scientist at NVIDIA where he leads autonomous vehicle research. Before joining Stanford, he was a Research Technologist within the Robotics Section at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He received a Ph.D. degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2010. His main research interests are in the development of methodologies for the analysis, design, and control of autonomous systems, with an emphasis on self-driving cars, autonomous aerospace vehicles, and future mobility systems. He is a recipient of a number of awards, including a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from President Barack Obama, an Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, a National Science Foundation Early Career (CAREER) Award, a NASA Early Career Faculty Award, and an Early-Career Spotlight Award from the Robotics Science and Systems Foundation. He was identified by the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) as one of America's 20 most highly promising investigators under the age of 40. His work has been recognized with best paper nominations or awards at a number of venues, including the European Conference on Computer Vision, the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, the European Control Conference, the IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems, the Field and Service Robotics Conference, the Robotics: Science and Systems Conference, and the INFORMS Annual Meeting.
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Jonathan Payne
Dorrell William Kirby Professor, Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs, Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment and Professor, by courtesy, of Biology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMy goal in research is to understand the interaction between environmental change and biological evolution using fossils and the sedimentary rock record. How does environmental change influence evolutionary and ecological processes? And conversely, how do evolutionary and ecological changes affect the physical environment? I work primarily on the marine fossil record over the past 550 million years.
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Kabir Peay
Senior Associate Dean for Education, Director of the Earth Systems Program, Professor of Biology, of Earth System Science and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsOur lab studies the ecological processes that structure natural communities and the links between community structure and the cycling of nutrients and energy through ecosystems. We focus primarily on fungi, as these organisms are incredibly diverse and are the primary agents of carbon and nutrient cycling in terrestrial ecosystems. By working across multiple scales we hope to build a 'roots-to-biomes' understanding of plant-microbe symbiosis.
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Janis C Pepper
Affiliate, Precourt Institute Affiliates
Visiting Scholar, Precourt Institute for EnergyBioJan Pepper has more than 30 years of experience in the energy and utility industry, with a legacy of industry-leading innovations. Most recently, from 2016 to 2023, she was the founding Chief Executive Officer of Peninsula Clean Energy, the community choice energy program serving the unincorporated county and all 20 cities in San Mateo County, as well as the City of Los Banos. Under Jan’s leadership, Peninsula Clean Energy has one of the cleanest electricity portfolios in the industry, delivering 100% clean electricity, and at a lower cost than the incumbent utility. During Jan’s tenure, she advanced the forward-looking goal of delivering 100% renewable energy on a 24/7 basis at no additional cost.
Over the course of her career, Jan has founded four energy-related start-ups. She is a pioneer and innovator in industry. At APX, she developed and implemented the first use of renewable energy credits, which now serve as the standard currency for trading and tracking renewable power. At Clean Power Markets, her company designed and implemented the successful Solar Renewable Energy Credit (SREC) program for the State of New Jersey.
In 2017, the U.S. EPA and the Center for Resource Solutions honored her as the Green Power Leader of the Year. Jan served eight years on the Los Altos City Council and was Mayor in 2015 and 2020. She served on the Board of Directors of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District from 2013 to February 2017. Jan is currently a Visiting Scholar at the Precourt Institute for Energy in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and co-teaches a course on energy during the fall quarter. She has a BS in civil engineering and an MBA, both from Stanford University. She is the recipient of the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability Distinguished Alumni Award for 2025. -
Charlotte Joy Darcia Pera
Executive Director, Sustainability Accelerator
BioCharlotte Pera has worked for more than 30 years in clean energy, climate change, and philanthropy. In 2023 she was named one of the 50 most powerful women in U.S. philanthropy by Inside Philanthropy magazine. In July 2024, she became the first Executive Director of the Sustainability Accelerator at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. Previously, she served as Vice President and Deputy CEO at the Bezos Earth Fund, a philanthropic organization created by Jeff Bezos that is spending $10 billion this decade to address climate change and protect and restore nature. Before joining the Earth Fund, Charlotte served for nearly nine years as President & CEO of the ClimateWorks Foundation, a leading philanthropic organization that works globally to advance climate solutions through intelligence services, convening, and grantmaking. Earlier in her career, Charlotte advanced clean energy technology and policy in the U.S. and China at the Energy Foundation and at engineering consulting firm Acurex.
Charlotte serves on the advisory board of the 100X Impact Accelerator at the London School of Economics, the governing board of the International Council for Clean Transportation, and the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Philanthropy for Climate and Nature. She is a Senior Fellow at the Bezos Earth Fund and a Senior Fellow with the Mission Possible Partnership. She holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in mechanical engineering from Stanford University.
