Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment
Showing 51-100 of 224 Results
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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. -
Louis Durlofsky
Otto N. Miller Professor in the School of Earth Sciences
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsGeneral reservoir simulation, optimization, reduced-order modeling, upscaling, flow in fractured systems, history matching, CO2 sequestration, energy systems optimization
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Paul Ehrlich
Bing Professor of Population Studies, Emeritus
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsThe role of the social sciences in dealing with global change
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Kathleen Eisenhardt
Stanford W. Ascherman, M.D. Professor in the School of Engineering
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsTheoretical approaches: Cognition, complexity, learning, and organizational theories
Methods: Multi-case Theory Building as well as machine learning, simulation, and econometrics
Recent research: Business model design, strategy as "simple rules" heuristics, strategic interaction in novel markets and ecosystems, strategy in marketplaces, communities v. firm organizational forms -
Stefano Ermon
Associate Professor of Computer Science and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment
BioI am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Stanford University, where I am affiliated with the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and a fellow of the Woods Institute for the Environment.
My research is centered on techniques for scalable and accurate inference in graphical models, statistical modeling of data, large-scale combinatorial optimization, and robust decision making under uncertainty, and is motivated by a range of applications, in particular ones in the emerging field of computational sustainability. -
W Gary Ernst
The Benjamin M. Page Professor in Earth Sciences, Emeritus
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsPetrology/geochemistry and plate tectonics of Circumpacific and Alpine mobile belts; ultrahigh-pressure metamorphism in Eurasia; geology of the California Coast Ranges, the cental Klamath Mountains, and White-Inyo Range; geobotany and remote sensing of the American Southwest; mineralogy and human health.
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Walter Falcon
Senior Fellow, Emeritus, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment
Current Research and Scholarly Interestsbiotechnology; food security; food and agricultural policy in developing countries
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Marcus Feldman
Burnet C. and Mildred Finley Wohlford Professor
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsHuman genetic and cultural evolution, mathematical biology, demography of China
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Stephen Felt, DVM, MPH
Professor of Comparative Medicine
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsHis research interests include infectious diseases, particularly zoonoses, and exploring techniques which promote the health and welfare of laboratory animals.
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Scott Fendorf
Terry Huffington Professor, Senior Associate Dean for Integrative Initiatives, Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment and Professor of Photon Science
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsSoil and environmental biogeochemistry
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Chris Field
Melvin and Joan Lane Professor of Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies, Director, Woods Institute for the Environment and Professor of Earth System Science, of Biology and Senior Fellow at Woods
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsResearch
My field is climate-change science, and my research emphasizes human-ecological interactions across many disciplines. Most studies include aspects of ecology, but also aspects of law, sociology, medicine, or engineering. -
Mollie Field
Conference Services Manager, Woods Institute
Current Role at StanfordMollie plans and implement workshops, dialogues and special events for the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.
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Sarah Fletcher
Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Center Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsThe Fletcher Lab aims to advance water resources management to promote resilient and equitable responses to a changing world.
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Christopher Francis
Professor of Earth System Science, of Oceans and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMicrobial cycling of carbon, nitrogen, and metals in the environment; molecular geomicrobiology; marine microbiology; microbial diversity; meta-omics
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Oliver Fringer
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and of Oceans
BioFringer's research focuses on the development and application of numerical models and high-performance computational techniques to the study of fundamental processes that influence the dynamics of the coastal ocean, rivers, lakes, and estuaries.
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Angela Garcia
Professor of Anthropology
BioProfessor Garcia’s work engages historical and institutional processes through which violence and suffering is produced and lived. A central theme is the disproportionate burden of addiction, depression and incarceration among poor families and communities. Her research is oriented toward understanding how attachments, affect, and practices of intimacy are important registers of politics and economy.
Garcia’s most recent book is The Way That Leads Among the Lost: Life, Death, and Hope in Mexico City's Anexos (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024). Set in Mexico City, it examines how violence precedes and functions in the ways families seek to care for and protect each other. Central to this work are anexos (annexes), informal and coercive rehabilitation clinics for the treatment of drug addiction that are run and utilized by the working poor, and which incorporate violence into their therapeutic practices. Anexos are widespread across Mexico (and increasingly in the United States) and are widely condemned as abusive, illegal, ineffective, and unethical. By situating anexos within a larger social and historical frame, and closely attending to life within and beyond these spaces, Garcia shows that anexos provide refuge from the catastrophic and everyday violence associated with the drug war. The book also demonstrates that anexos are the leading resource for the treatment of drug addiction among Mexico’s poor, and are an essential space of protection for individuals at risk of the intensifying violence in Mexico.
Garcia's first book, The Pastoral Clinic: Addiction and Dispossession Along The Rio Grande (University of California Press, 2010) received awards in anthropology and writing. The Pastoral Clinic explores the relationship between intergenerational heroin use, poverty and colonial history in northern New Mexico. It argues that heroin addiction among Hispanos is a contemporary expression of an enduring history of dispossession, social and intimate fragmentation, and the existential desire for a release from these. Ongoing work in the U.S. explores processes of legal “re-entry” and intimate repair that incarcerated and paroled drug users undertake, particularly within kin networks.
Currently, Garcia is studying the environmental, social, and bodily effects resulting from Mexico City’s ongoing desagüe, the massive drainage project initiated by Spanish colonists in the seventeenth century in the Valley of Mexico. Mexico City’s desagüe speaks to some of the most pressing concerns of our time: water scarcity, humans’ relationship to changing ecologies, and chronic disease. This project examines how the desagüe remakes bodies, neighborhoods, and social worlds. -
Christopher Gardner
Rehnborg Farquhar Professor
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsThe role of nutrition in individual and societal health, with particular interests in: plant-based diets, differential response to low-carb vs. low-fat weight loss diets by insulin resistance status, chronic disease prevention, randomized controlled trials, human nutrition, community based studies, Community Based Participatory Research, sustainable food movement (animal rights and welfare, global warming, human labor practices), stealth health, nutrition policy, nutrition guidelines
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William Gilly
Professor of Oceans
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMy work has contributed to understanding electrical excitability in nerve & muscle in organisms ranging from brittle-stars to mammals. Current research addresses behavior, physiology and ecology of squid through field and lab approaches. Electronic tagging plus in situ video, acoustic and oceanographic methods are used to study behaviors and life history in the field. Lab work focuses on control of chromogenic behavior by the chromatophore network and of locomotion by the giant axon system.
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Jeremy Goldhaber-Fiebert
Professor of Health Policy
BioJeremy Goldhaber-Fiebert, PhD, is a Professor of Health Policy and a Core Faculty Member in the Centers for Health Policy and Primary Care and Outcomes Research. His research focuses on complex policy decisions surrounding the prevention and management of increasingly common, chronic diseases and the life course impact of exposure to their risk factors. In the context of both developing and developed countries including the US, India, China, and South Africa, he has examined chronic conditions including type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, human papillomavirus and cervical cancer, tuberculosis, and hepatitis C and on risk factors including smoking, physical activity, obesity, malnutrition, and other diseases themselves. He combines simulation modeling methods and cost-effectiveness analyses with econometric approaches and behavioral economic studies to address these issues. Dr. Goldhaber-Fiebert graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1997, with an A.B. in the History and Literature of America. After working as a software engineer and consultant, he conducted a year-long public health research program in Costa Rica with his wife in 2001. Winner of the Lee B. Lusted Prize for Outstanding Student Research from the Society for Medical Decision Making in 2006 and in 2008, he completed his PhD in Health Policy concentrating in Decision Science at Harvard University in 2008. He was elected as a Trustee of the Society for Medical Decision Making in 2011 and Secretary/Treasurer in 2021.
Past and current research topics:
- Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular risk factors: Randomized and observational studies in Costa Rica examining the impact of community-based lifestyle interventions and the relationship of gender, risk factors, and care utilization.
-Cervical cancer: Model-based cost-effectiveness analyses and costing methods studies that examine policy issues relating to cervical cancer screening and human papillomavirus vaccination in countries including the United States, Brazil, India, Kenya, Peru, South Africa, Tanzania, and Thailand.
- Measles, haemophilus influenzae type b, and other childhood infectious diseases: Longitudinal regression analyses of country-level data from middle and upper income countries that examine the link between vaccination, sustained reductions in mortality, and evidence of herd immunity.
- Patient adherence: Studies in both developing and developed countries of the costs and effectiveness of measures to increase successful adherence. Adherence to cervical cancer screening as well as to disease management programs targeting depression and obesity is examined from both a decision-analytic and a behavioral economics perspective.
- Simulation modeling methods: Research examining model calibration and validation, the appropriate representation of uncertainty in projected outcomes, the use of models to examine plausible counterfactuals at the biological and epidemiological level, and the reflection of population and spatial heterogeneity. -
Andrea Goldsmith
Stephen Harris Professor in the School of Engineering, Emerita
BioAndrea Goldsmith is the Dean of Engineering and Applied Science and the Arthur LeGrand Doty Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Princeton University. She was previously the Stephen Harris Professor of Engineering and Professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, where she is now Harris Professor Emerita. Her research interests are in information theory, communication theory, and signal processing, and their application to wireless communications, interconnected systems, and biomedical devices. She founded and served as Chief Technical Officer of Plume WiFi (formerly Accelera, Inc.) and of Quantenna (QTNA), Inc, and she serves on the Board of Directors for Intel (INTC), Medtronic (MDT), Crown Castle Inc (CCI), and the Marconi Society. She also serves on the Presidential Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). Dr. Goldsmith is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the Royal Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is a Fellow of the IEEE and has received several awards for her work, including the Marconi Prize, the ACM Sigmobile Outstanding Contribution Award, the IEEE Sumner Technical Field Award, the ACM Athena Lecturer Award, the ComSoc Armstrong Technical Achievement Award, the Kirchmayer Graduate Teaching Award, the WICE Mentoring Award, and the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal’s Women of Influence Award. She is author of the book ``Wireless Communications'' and co-author of the books ``MIMO Wireless Communications,” “Principles of Cognitive Radio,” and “Machine Learning and Wireless Communications,” all published by Cambridge University Press, as well as an inventor on 29 patents. She received the B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from U.C. Berkeley.
Dr. Goldsmith is the founding Chair of the IEEE Board of Directors Committee on Diversity and Inclusion. She served as President of the IEEE Information Theory Society in 2009, as founding Chair of its Student Committee, and as founding Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Information Theory. She has also served on the Board of Governors for both the IEEE Information Theory and Communications Societies. At Stanford she served as Chair of Stanford’s Faculty Senate and for multiple terms as a Senator, and on its Academic Council Advisory Board, Budget Group, Committee on Research, Planning and Policy Board, Commissions on Graduate and on Undergraduate Education, Faculty Women’s Forum Steering Committee, and Task Force on Women and Leadership. -
Deborah M Gordon
Paul S. and Billie Achilles Professor of Environmental Biology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsProfessor Deborah M Gordon studies the evolutionary ecology of collective behavior. Ant colonies operate without central control, using local interactions to regulate colony behavior.
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Steven Gorelick
Cyrus Fisher Tolman Professor and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment
Current Research and Scholarly Interests. Research : .
As a hydrologist, my research involves the study of water resources and water security with emphasis on freshwater. I direct the Global Freshwater Initiative, which studies water resources vulnerability problems throughout the world. We investigate the impacts of droughts on water-stressed regions by developing coupled human-natural systems models that explore the effects of climate, land-use, and demographic changes on urban and agricultural regions. We have produced useful tools to aid in sustainable agricultural and urban water management in the western US, Mexico, India, Jordan, and Vietnam. Although driven by observations, our conceptual and quantitative models lead us to rigorous understanding of physical processes, enable us to make predictions, and explore new water management policies, involving taxes, quotas, subsidies, water rights, and water markets. Such models have provided means to better quantify the influence of droughts and floods, particularly on vulnerable communities and then importantly to identify equitable water management strategies. .
. - Teaching :
. I teach courses for graduate and undergraduate students involving principles and methods used in physical and contaminant hydrogeology. In addition, I run a seminar series that exposes students to a variety of multidisciplinary topics involving hydrology and water resources. .
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. 2021-2022 von Humboldt Fellow-Germany, 2022-23 Fulbright Fellow - Distinguished Chair in Science, Technology and Innovation, Australian-American Program, 2016 Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 2014 Best Paper in Environmental Research Letters in 2014 (Padowski and Gorelick, (2014), 2013 Editor's Choice Award, Water Resources Research for paper Srinivasan et al., (2012), Member, US National Academy of Engineering (2012), International Fellow, Institute for Environmental Science and Research (ESR) (2011), New Zealand, Fulbright Senior Scholar (2008-09); Chester C. Keisel Memorial Lecturer, University of Arizona (2008); Best Paper Award in Computers and Geosciences, International Association for Mathematical Geology (2006); fellow, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (2005); Stanford representative to the Consortium of Universities for Advancement of Hydrologic Sciences (2005-2008); M. King Hubbert Science Award, NGWA (2004); Ineson Distinguished Lecturer (1998); Fulbright Senior Scholar (1997); O.E. Meinzer Award, GSA (1994) James B. Macelwane medal, AGU (1990); Fellow, GSA (1988) and AGU (1990); Editorial Board, Optimization and Engineering Journal (1990-present); visiting professor, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), Ecological Engineering Laboratory (2006); visiting professor, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, jointly at the Swiss Federal Institute for Environmental Science and Technology (2005); visiting scholar, University of Cambridge, Zoology (2007); visiting scientist, CSIRO, Perth, Australia (2009); Member AGU Water and Society Technical Committee (2011-present) visiting professor, University of Western Australia Centre for Ecohydrology (2012); visiting professor, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zurich (2013, 2019) -
Mark Granovetter
Joan B. Ford Professor
BioMark Granovetter's main interest is in the way people, social networks and social institutions interact and shape one another. He has written extensively on this subject, including his two most widely cited articles "The Strength of Weak Ties" (1973) and "Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness" (1985). In recent years, his focus has been on the social foundations of the economy, and he is working on a book entitled Society and Economy, to be published by Harvard University Press in two volumes. The first volume, Society and Economy: Framework and Principles,appeared in 2017. It is broadly theoretical, treating the role in the economy of social networks, norms, culture, trust, power, and social institutions. The second volume will use this framework to illuminate the study of such important topics as corruption, corporate governance, organizational form and the emergence of new industries such as the American electricity industry and the high-tech industry of Silicon Valley.
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Leonidas Guibas
Paul Pigott Professor of Engineering and Professor, by courtesy, of Electrical Engineering
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsGeometric and topological data analysis and machine learning. Algorithms for the joint analysis of collections of images, 3D models, or trajectories. 3D reconstruction.
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Elizabeth Hadly
Paul S. and Billie Achilles Professor of Environmental Biology and Professor of Earth System Science, Emerita
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsElizabeth Hadly and her lab probe how perturbations such as climatic change and human modification of the environment influence the evolution and ecology of animals.
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James Harris
James and Elenor Chesebrough Professor in the School of Engineering, Emeritus
BioHarris utilizes molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) of III-V compound semiconductor materials to investigate new materials for electronic and optoelectronic devices. He utilizes heterojunctions, superlattices, quantum wells, and three-dimensional self-assembled quantum dots to create metastable engineered materials with novel or improved properties for electronic and optoelectronic devices. His early work in the 1970's demonstrating a practical heterojunction bipolar transistor led to their application in every mobile phone today and record setting solar cell efficiency. He has recently focused on three areas: 1) integration of photonic devices and micro optics for creation of new minimally invasive bio and medical systems for micro-array and neural imaging and 2) application of nanostructures semiconductors for the acceleration of electrons using light, a dielectric Laser Accelerator (DLA), and 3) novel materials and nano structuring for high efficiency solar cells and photo electrochemical water splitting for the generation of hydrogen.
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Jerry Harris
The Cecil H. and Ida M. Green Professor in Geophysics, Emeritus
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsBiographical Information
Jerry M. Harris is the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Geophysics and Associate Dean for the Office of Multicultural Affairs. He joined Stanford in 1988 following 11 years in private industry. He served five years as Geophysics department chair, was the Founding Director of the Stanford Center for Computational Earth and Environmental Science (CEES), and co-launched Stanford's Global Climate and Energy Project (GCEP). Graduates from Jerry's research group, the Stanford Wave Physics Lab, work in private industry, government labs, and universities.
Research
My research interests address the physics and dynamics of seismic and electromagnetic waves in complex media. My approach to these problems includes theory, numerical simulation, laboratory methods, and the analysis of field data. My group, collectively known as the Stanford Wave Physics Laboratory, specializes on high frequency borehole methods and low frequency labratory methods. We apply this research to the characterization and monitoring of petroleum and CO2 storage reservoirs.
Teaching
I teach courses on waves phenomena for borehole geophysics and tomography. I recently introduced and co-taught a new course on computational geosciences.
Professional Activities
I was the First Vice President of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists in 2003-04, and have served as the Distinguished Lecturer for the SPE, SEG, and AAPG. -
Thomas Heller
Lewis Talbot and Nadine Hearn Shelton Professor of International Legal Studies, Emeritus
BioAn expert in international law and legal institutions, Thomas C. Heller has focused his research on the rule of law, international climate control, global energy use, and the interaction of government and nongovernmental organizations in establishing legal structures in the developing world. He has created innovative courses on the role of law in transitional and developing economies, as well as the comparative study of law in developed economies. He has co-directed the law school’s Rule of Law Program, as well as the Stanford Program in International and Comparative Law. Professor Heller has been a visiting professor at the European University Institute, Catholic University of Louvain, and Hong Kong University, and has served as the deputy director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, where he is now a senior fellow.
Professor Heller is also a senior fellow (by courtesy) at the Woods Institute for the Environment. Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 1979, he was a professor of law at the University of Wisconsin Law School and an attorney-advisor to the governments of Chile and Colombia. -
Martin Hellman
Professor of Electrical Engineering, Emeritus
BioMartin E. Hellman is Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University and is affiliated with the university's Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). His most recent work, "Rethinking National Security," identifies a number of questionable assumptions that are largely taken as axiomatic truths. A key part of that work brings a risk informed framework to a potential failure of nuclear deterrence and then finds surprising ways to reduce the risk. His earlier work included co-inventing public key cryptography, the technology that underlies the secure portion of the Internet. His many honors include election to the National Academy of Engineering and receiving (jointly with his colleague Whit Diffie) the million dollar ACM Turing Award, the top prize in computer science. In 2016, he and his wife of fifty years published "A New Map for Relationships: Creating True Love at Home & Peace on the Planet," providing a “unified field theory” for peace by illuminating the connections between nuclear war, conventional war, interpersonal war, and war within our own psyches.
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Lynn Hildemann
Senior Associate Dean for Education and Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
BioLynn Hildemann's current research areas include the sources and dispersion of airborne particulate matter indoors, and assessment of human exposure to air pollutants.
Prof. Hildemann received BS, MS, and PhD degrees in environmental engineering science from the California Institute of Technology. She is an author on >100 peer-reviewed publications, including two with over 1000 citations each, and another 6 with over 500 citations each. She has been honored with Young Investigator Awards from NSF and ONR, the Kenneth T. Whitby Award from the AAAR (1998), and Stanford's Gores Award for Teaching Excellence (2013); she also was a co-recipient of Atmospheric Environment’s Haagen-Smit Outstanding Paper Award (2001).
She has served on advisory committees for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and for the California Air Resources Board. She has been an Associate Editor for Environmental Science & Technology, and Aerosol Science and Technology, and has served on the advisory board for the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
At Stanford, Prof. Hildemann has been chair of the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, and served as an elected member of the Faculty Senate. She has chaired the School of Engineering Library Committee, the University Committee on Judicial Affairs, and the University Breadth Governance Board. -
Roland Horne
Thomas Davies Barrow Professor
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsWell Testing, Optimisation and Geothermal Reservoir Engineering
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Alison Hoyt
Assistant Professor of Earth System Science and Center Fellow, by courtesy, at the Woods Institute for the Environment
BioAlison Hoyt is an Assistant Professor of Earth System Science at Stanford. Her work focuses on understanding how biogeochemical cycles respond to human impacts, with a particular focus on the most vulnerable and least understood carbon stocks in the tropics and the Arctic. For more information, please visit her group website here: https://carboncycle.stanford.edu/
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Lily Hsueh
Affiliate, Woods Institute
BioLily Hsueh is an Associate Professor of Economics and Public Policy in the School of Public Affairs at the Arizona State University (ASU) and a Visiting Scholar in the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University. Her research investigates how different forms and scales of alternative and decentralized governance systems (e.g., market-based policies and voluntary programs) interact and shape the public and private provision of public goods and the management of natural resources and the environment. Questions of interest to Dr. Hsueh include, will decentralized environmental approaches produce real and sizeable impact? If so, by how much? Under what economic and political conditions do they work? How should they be designed? Who (and which groups) stand to gain or lose?
Funders for Dr. Hsueh's work include the National Research Council, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation. Prior to joining ASU, Dr. Hsueh was a National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow at NOAA. She holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy & Management from the University of Washington, a MSc in Economics from University College London, and a BA in Economics from UC Berkeley.
At Woods, Dr. Hsueh is currently completing a MIT Press-contracted book in progress, which investigates the demand for, and supply of, global businesses' climate mitigation and adaptation, across sectors and in rich and poor countries. The book draws on large-N statistical analyses and and illustrative company case studies. It examines the multi-faceted factors across levels of governance and government, which motivate some global businesses but not others to engage in proactive climate action.
https://www.lilyhsueh.com/ -
Gianluca Iaccarino
Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsComputing and data for energy, health and engineering
Challenges in energy sciences, green technology, transportation, and in general, engineering design and prototyping are routinely tackled using numerical simulations and physical testing. Computations barely feasible two decades ago on the largest available supercomputers, have now become routine using turnkey commercial software running on a laptop. Demands on the analysis of new engineering systems are becoming more complex and multidisciplinary in nature, but exascale-ready computers are on the horizon. What will be the next frontier? Can we channel this enormous power into an increased ability to simulate and, ultimately, to predict, design and control? In my opinion two roadblocks loom ahead: the development of credible models for increasingly complex multi-disciplinary engineering applications and the design of algorithms and computational strategies to cope with real-world uncertainty.
My research objective is to pursue concerted innovations in physical modeling, numerical analysis, data fusion, probabilistic methods, optimization and scientific computing to fundamentally change our present approach to engineering simulations relevant to broad areas of fluid mechanics, transport phenomena and energy systems. The key realization is that computational engineering has largely ignored natural variability, lack of knowledge and randomness, targeting an idealized deterministic world. Embracing stochastic scientific computing and data/algorithms fusion will enable us to minimize the impact of uncertainties by designing control and optimization strategies that are robust and adaptive. This goal can only be accomplished by developing innovative computational algorithms and new, physics-based models that explicitly represent the effect of limited knowledge on the quantity of interest.
Multidisciplinary Teaching
I consider the classical boundaries between disciplines outdated and counterproductive in seeking innovative solutions to real-world problems. The design of wind turbines, biomedical devices, jet engines, electronic units, and almost every other engineering system requires the analysis of their flow, thermal, and structural characteristics to ensure optimal performance and safety. The continuing growth of computer power and the emergence of general-purpose engineering software has fostered the use of computational analysis as a complement to experimental testing in multiphysics settings. Virtual prototyping is a staple of modern engineering practice! I have designed a new undergraduate course as an introduction to Computational Engineering, covering theory and practice across multidisciplanary applications. The emphasis is on geometry modeling, mesh generation, solution strategy and post-processing for diverse applications. Using classical flow/thermal/structural problems, the course develops the essential concepts of Verification and Validation for engineering simulations, providing the basis for assessing the accuracy of the results. -
John P.A. Ioannidis
Professor of Medicine (Stanford Prevention Research), of Epidemiology and Population Health and, by courtesy, of Biomedical Data Science
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMeta-research
Evidence-based medicine
Clinical and molecular epidemiology
Human genome epidemiology
Research design
Reporting of research
Empirical evaluation of bias in research
Randomized trials
Statistical methods and modeling
Meta-analysis and large-scale evidence
Prognosis, predictive, personalized, precision medicine and health
Sociology of science -
Rob Jackson
Michelle and Kevin Douglas Provostial Professor and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment and at the Precourt Institute for Energy
BioRob Jackson and his lab examine the many ways people affect the Earth. They seek basic scientific knowledge and use it to help shape policies and reduce the environmental footprint of global warming, energy extraction, and other issues. They're currently examining the effects of climate change and drought on old-growth forests. They are also working to measure and reduce greenhouse gas emissions through the Global Carbon Project (globalcarbonproject.org), which Jackson chairs. Examples of new research Rob leads include establishing a global network of methane tower measurements across the Amazon and at more than 100 sites worldwide and measuring and reducing methane emissions and air pollution from oil and gas wells, city streets, and homes and buildings.
Rob's new book on climate solutions, Into the Clear Blue Sky (Scribner and Penguin Random House) publishes July 30th, 2024. As an author and photographer, Rob has published a previous trade book about the environment (The Earth Remains Forever, University of Texas Press), two books of children’s poems, Animal Mischief and Weekend Mischief (Highlights Magazine and Boyds Mills Press), and recent or forthcoming poems in the journals Southwest Review, Cortland Review, Cold Mountain Review, Atlanta Review, LitHub, and more. His photographs have appeared in many media outlets, including the NY Times, Washington Post, USA Today, US News and World Report, Science, Nature, and National Geographic News.
Rob is a current Djerassi artist in residence and a recent Guggenheim Fellow and sabbatical visitor in the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. He is also a Fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Geophysical Union, and Ecological Society of America. He received a Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering from the National Science Foundation, awarded at the White House. -
Mark Z. Jacobson
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment
BioMark Z. Jacobson’s career has focused on better understanding air pollution and global warming problems and developing large-scale clean, renewable energy solutions to them. Toward that end, he has developed and applied three-dimensional atmosphere-biosphere-ocean computer models and solvers to simulate air pollution, weather, climate, and renewable energy. He has also developed roadmaps to transition states and countries to 100% clean, renewable energy for all purposes and computer models to examine grid stability in the presence of high penetrations of renewable energy.
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Thomas Johnson
Water Communication and Knowledge Manager, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment
BioTom manages communications for two water-related programs within the Stanford Woods Insitute for the Environment: Water in the West; and Water, Health & Development. Prior to coming to Stanford in 2022, Tom managed a graduate program at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo that prepared students for careers in the dairy foods industry. A seasoned communications professional, he once served as business editor at The Coloradoan, a Gannett daily newspaper, and was editor of Outlook Magazine, a publication of Colorado State University's College of Natural Sciences. Tom earned a Master's degree in Watershed Science from Colorado State University and was the founding director of the Colorado Springs-based Fountain Creek Watershed Project, an intergovernmental task force that won consensus buy-in for a plan that guides management of the Pikes Peak watershed. Tom is also an award-winning cheesemaker and musician.
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James Holland Jones
Professor of Environmental Social Sciences and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsI am a biological anthropologist with primary research interests in evolutionary demography and life history theory. In addition these fundamental interests in the evolution of human life histories, I work at the intersection of disease ecology, the analysis of dynamical systems, and social network analysis. My work combines the formalisms of population biology, statistics, and social network analysis to address fundamental problems in biodemography, epidemiology, and human decision-making in variable environments.
