Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment
Showing 161-180 of 245 Results
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Stephen Palumbi
Jane and Marshall Steel Jr. Professor of Marine Sciences, Professor of Oceans and of Biology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsWe're interested in ecological, evolutionary, and conservation questions related to marine (and sometimes terrestrial) organisms and ecosystems. We use evolutionary genetics and molecular ecology techniques, and our fieldwork takes us all around the world. Currently, we're studying coral diversity, the adaptive potential of corals in response to climate change, the movement of organisms between marine reserves, genetic changes in abalone in response to environmental.
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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. -
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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Dmitri Petrov
Michelle and Kevin Douglas Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsEvolution of genomes and population genomics of adaptation and variation
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Allison Phillips
Managing Director, Human and Planetary Health
Current Role at StanfordManaging Director, Center for Human and Planetary Health, Woods Institute for the Environment
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Madison Pobis
Communications Manager, Woods Institute
Current Role at StanfordCommunications Manager, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment
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Manu Prakash
Associate Professor of Bioengineering, Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment and Associate Professor, by courtesy, of Oceans
BioWe use interdisciplinary approaches including theory and experiments to understand how computation is embodied in biological matter. Examples include cognition in single cell protists and morphological computing in animals with no neurons and origins of complex behavior in multi-cellular systems. Broadly, we invent new tools for studying non-model organisms with significant focus on life in the ocean - addressing fundamental questions such as how do cells sense pressure or gravity? Finally, we are dedicated towards inventing and distributing “frugal science” tools to democratize access to science (previous inventions used worldwide: Foldscope, Abuzz), diagnostics of deadly diseases like malaria and convening global citizen science communities to tackle planetary scale environmental challenges such as mosquito surveillance or plankton surveillance by citizen sailors mapping the ocean in the age of Anthropocene.
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Celia Price
Event and Convening Manager, Woods Institute
Current Role at StanfordConference Services Manager, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment
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Friedrich Prinz
Leonardo Professor, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, of Materials Science and Engineering and Senior Fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy
BioFritz Prinz is the Leonardo Professor in the School of Engineering at Stanford University, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and Senior Fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy. He also serves as the Director of the Nanoscale Prototyping Laboratory and Faculty Co-director of the NPL-Affiliate Program. A solid-state physicist by training, Prinz leads a group of doctoral students, postdoctoral scholars, and visiting scholars who are addressing fundamental issues on energy conversion and storage at the nanoscale. In his Laboratory, a wide range of nano-fabrication technologies are employed to build prototype fuel cells and capacitors with induced topological electronic states. We are testing these concepts and novel material structures through atomic layer deposition, scanning tunneling microscopy, impedance spectroscopy and other technologies. In addition, the Prinz group group uses atomic scale modeling to gain insights into the nature of charge separation and recombination processes. Before coming to Stanford in 1994, he was on the faculty at Carnegie Mellon University. Prinz earned a PhD in Physics at the University of Vienna.
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Stefan Reichelstein
William R. Timken Professor in the Graduate School of Business, Emeritus
BioStefan Reichelstein is known internationally for his research on the interface of management accounting and economics. Much of his work has addressed issues in cost- and profitability analysis, decentralization, internal pricing and performance measurement. His research projects have spanned analytical models, empirical work and field studies. Reichelstein’s papers have been published consistently in leading management and economic journals. Insights from his research have been applied by a range of corporations and government agencies. In recent years, Reichelstein has also studied the cost competitiveness of low-carbon energy solutions, with a particular focus on solar PV and carbon capture by fossile fuel power plants.
Stefan Reichelstein received his Ph.D. from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in 1984. Prior to that, he completed his undergraduate studies in economics at the University of Bonn in Germany. Over the past 30 years, Reichelstein has served on the faculties of the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, the University of Vienna in Austria, and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. His teaching has spanned financial and managerial accounting courses offered to undergraduate, MBA, and doctoral students. In recent years, he has introduced new courses on Sustainability and Clean Energy at the Stanford Business School. Reichelstein’s research has been supported by the National Science Foundation and a range of private foundations; several of his papers have won “Best-Paper” awards. Reichelstein serves on the editorial boards of several journals; he is also currently an editor of the Review of Accounting Studies and Foundations and Trends in Accounting. Until 2010, he served as the Department Editor for Accounting at Management Science. Professor Reichelstein has been a consultant to select companies and non-profit organizations. He has received honorary doctorates from the Universities of Fribourg (2008) and Mannheim (2011). In 2007, Reichelstein was appointed a Honorar-Professor at the University of Vienna. -
Thomas Robinson
The Irving Schulman, M.D. Professor of Child Health, Professor of Medicine (Stanford Prevention Research Center) and, by courtesy, of Epidemiology and Population Health
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsDr. Robinson originated the solution-oriented research paradigm and directs the Stanford Solutions Science Lab. He is known for his pioneering obesity prevention and treatment research, including the concept of stealth interventions. His research applies social cognitive models of behavior change to behavioral, social, environmental and policy interventions for children and families in real world settings, making the results relevant for informing clinical and public health practice and policy.
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Terry L Root
Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment, Emerita
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsImpacts of climate change on wild plants and animals including extinction
