Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability
Showing 1-100 of 381 Results
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Ammar Alali
Ph.D. Student in Energy Science and Engineering, admitted Autumn 2023
BioI'm Ammar, a PhD student in Energy Science Engineering who is working with Hamdi Tchelepi. I got my master's degree from Stanford in 2018, and since then I have been working with Aramco as part of the development teams of two projects for Underground Gas Storage and CCUS to be developed for the first time in Saudi Arabia. My masters research was focused on numerical reservoir simulation of capillary-dominated flow in matrix-fracture systems using interface conditions. In my free time, I enjoy reading modern poetry and watching classic films.
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Anela Arifi
Ph.D. Student in Environment and Resources, admitted Autumn 2020
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsAnela researches the nexus between engineering, socio-economic, policy, and environmental components of energy systems. She currently focuses on the characterization of the scale and pace of integrating different energy systems with natural climate solutions.
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Kemi Ashing-Giwa
Ph.D. Student in Geological Sciences, admitted Autumn 2022
BioI'm interested in how mass extinctions affect different types of animals, and more broadly how animals respond to their environments in general. Half of my work involves experiments to better understand the differential responses of bivalves and brachiopods to temperature-dependent hypoxia and to euxinia in settings that mimic those at the end-Permian mass extinction. The other half uses the metabolic index to explore early animal evolution and modern ecophysiology.
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Oluwafunmibi Asunmonu
Masters Student in Environment and Resources, admitted Spring 2025
BioOluwafunmibi Asunmonu is a driving force behind rural food security and resilience and has spent 3.5 years securing sustainable, catalytic financing for the climate adaptation of over 1M of the most vulnerable rural households in Africa while contributing to the development of scalable agricultural risk management solutions.
She advocates designing adaptable climate financing models for further vulnerable groups (women and youth). She has made significant contributions as a two-time speaker at the annual AGRF Summit and the AYuTe Africa Summit, a delegate at the World Bank Youth Summit and the UN ECOSOC Youth Forum, and a participant in the Nigeria National Economic Council meeting on Food Security held in the Presidential Villa. Additionally, she has contributed to technical agri-financing reports published by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Shell Foundation.
Funded by the Swiss Re Foundation, she graduated with a BA(Hons) in International Business and Trade as the Best Graduating Student from the African Leadership University, where she co-founded an Initiative that won the Queen’s Young Leader Award and interned with KPMG, Andersen, and GTB. At Stanford, she plans to leverage the innovation and exposure it offers to design improved climate-adaptation investment models.
Oluwafunmibi enjoys hiking and playing sudoku. -
Alexander Basaraba
Ph.D. Student in Environment and Resources, admitted Autumn 2024
BioAlex Basaraba (he/him) is an interdisciplinary social scientist, practitioner, educator, and science-informed visual storyteller working at the interstice between people, the environment, and the climate. Building on an academic foundation in the social and natural sciences, he has more than 10 years of domestic and international experience in the climate adaptation field. His experience includes supporting communities domestically and internationally, as well as organizations and governments at different scales (federal, state, Tribal, city, and county) in preparing for and responding to the impacts of climate change, including: the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Shoshone-Paiute Tribes, the District of Columbia, among others. Basaraba is currently a PhD candidate at Stanford University in the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER) at the Doerr School of Sustainability. His current research is focused on transformative climate adaptation using community-engaged research methods. Beyond publishing dozens of white papers, policy reports, government plans, academic journal articles, and popular media articles, Basaraba has served as a contributing author, chapter graphic design lead, and review editor on multiple National Climate Assessments.
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Isabela Beine
Ph.D. Student in Energy Science and Engineering, admitted Spring 2026
Masters Student in Energy Science and Engineering, admitted Autumn 2024BioResearching hydrogen storage in porous media. Interest in energy storage solutions for renewable energy sources.
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Samantha Bents
Ph.D. Student in Environment and Resources, admitted Autumn 2024
BioSamantha Bents (she/her/hers) is an E-IPER PhD student interested in studying the transmission dynamics of infectious diseases across changing temporal and spatial scales. She plans to investigate how these dynamics can be leveraged to design public health interventions targeting inequities in both the built and natural environment. Prior to beginning her PhD, she was a researcher at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and Fogarty International Center (FIC) NIH where her work focused on predictive disease modeling. She holds a B.A. from Princeton University in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology with a concentration in Global Health and Health Policy.
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Hilary Brumberg
Ph.D. Student in Environment and Resources, admitted Autumn 2024
BioHilary Brumberg (she/her) is a PhD student in the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER) at Stanford. She is an interdisciplinary environmental scientist, conservation practitioner, and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow (NSF GRFP) with extensive experience researching and implementing Natural Climate Solutions (NCS) across the tropics. She studies socioeconomic, financial, political, and ecological dimensions of NCS implementation. Hilary spent four years managing community-based restoration projects while living at a research station deep in the Costa Rican rainforest, originally as a Princeton in Latin America Fellow. She has consulted for diverse international conservation organizations, including The Nature Conservancy (TNC), World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and the Governors' Forest and Climate Task Force. Her work has been featured in National Geographic, Living on Earth on NPR, Mongabay Latam, and NASA DEVELOP. Hilary holds an M.S. in Environmental Studies with a Data Science Statistics Certificate from the University of Colorado Boulder as a USDA NNF Fellow, as well as a B.A. in Earth Science and Spanish from Wesleyan University.
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Stephanie Caddell
Ph.D. Student in Oceans, admitted Autumn 2024
Graduate Student Coordinator, Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability - Dean's OfficeBioStephanie Caddell graduated with a bachelor's degree in environmental science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with minors in marine science and environmental justice. While at UNC, she researched marine microbiology, fisheries dynamics, and marine ecosystem dynamics in Ecuador and the Galapagos. Additionally, she has researched bycatch mitigation efforts in the North Atlantic for sea turtle species with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. Now working on her PhD in the Oceans Department under the mentorship of Dr. Larry Crowder and Dr. Nicole Ardoin, Stephanie studies how relationships with marine resources shape stewardship. Her research sits at the intersection of marine social science and policy, examining how and why people care for local ecosystems and how governance can support—or hinder—this care. Her work aims to inform marine management policies grounded in local realities, ensuring coastal and island communities are equitably engaged at every stage of decision-making.
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Eeshan Chaturvedi
Ph.D. Student in Environment and Resources, admitted Autumn 2022
BioEeshan is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in Climate Governance, and its correlations with policy, law, and earth systems. He holds an LLM in Environmental Law and Policy from Stanford Law School and has since worked with various domestic and international organizations on legal and management issues. In academia, he has held positions of Assistant Dean and Professor of Environmental Governance and continues to engage with the various stakeholders in the space.
He enjoys discussions on neuroscience, astrophysics, and geo-politics in his free time. -
Pedro Cintra
Ph.D. Student in Environmental Social Sciences, admitted Autumn 2025
BioTrained as a physicist until my MSc, in which I worked with neutrino detection of core collapse supernovae, I recently switched fields to apply mathematical and computational models to ecological and social systems :)
On the ecological side, I like working with individual based models for cooperation and foraging strategies from an evolutionary perspective. On the social side, I am currently interested in the evolution of cultural values on groups of humans and polarization of opinions on networks of contacts. -
Dylan Marshall Crain
Ph.D. Student in Energy Resources Engineering, admitted Autumn 2022
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMy current research revolves around optimizing the monitoring design of Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) projects in such a way that the posterior (after data assimilation) predictions are as close to reality as can be hoped for.
In CCS projects within the U.S., it is important to have monitoring plan, which can consist of wells with pressure, saturation, salinity, et cetera sensors, seismic lines, or gravimetric above-ground measurements, before any injection has begun into the subsurface. This is due to the permitting requirements that must be satisfied before operations are begun.
Due to this constraint, any monitoring optimization (at least initially) needs to be determined using only a prior (highly uncertain) understanding of the subsurface. This makes the optimization much more challenging. We utilize a prior optimization scheme from a previous student which allows us to optimize a monitoring plan using only prior information to get the minimized, expected uncertainty reduction in the posterior models for a given quantity of interest. This scheme is limited by some Gaussian assumptions. We optimize it using a genetic algorithm.
From this point, with the monitoring plan established, the information gathered from the optimized monitoring scheme (using only monitoring wells at the moment) is used to history match (data assimilate) our understanding of the subsurface. The results can be used to predict the CO2 plume flow and behavior into the future.
This work was initially developed to assist a project in Illinois that is currently seeking Class VI injection well permits in the self-same state in order to begin injecting CO2 produced from two companies paying for the work from the Illinois Geological Survey. -
Iván Deiana
Ph.D. Student in Geophysics, admitted Autumn 2023
BioPh.D. student in Geophysics at Stanford Earth Imaging Project (SEP). Research interests include Geophysical Inverse Problems, Quantitative Interpretation, and Earth Imaging, integrated with HPC and ML.
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Victoria Dinov
Masters Student in Energy Science and Engineering, admitted Autumn 2025
BioHi, my name is Vicky and I am a graduate student at Stanford studying energy science and engineering. At Stanford, I worked in the INES research group, focused primarily on creating a capacity expansion model with improved spatial, temporal, and geographical resolution.
I am passionate about capacity expansion and transmission planning, power markets, utility rate structure, load forecasting, microgrids and more. I am also curious to explore the ways in which we will harness DERs and technological tools at our fingertips to create more resilient communities and energy systems. This can have broad implications for developing regions and more generally energy scarce areas.
Outside of school, you will find me running, climbing, backpacking, skiing, etc. I like everything outdoors, have an affinity for art/music, and love to salsa too. Please message me with questions or just to connect! -
Devin Dollery
Ph.D. Student in Oceans, admitted Autumn 2023
Masters Student in Oceans, admitted Autumn 2024BioI am interested in computational simulations of the natural world - focusing on developing models of ocean physics to predict the ocean's role in climate variability. At Stanford, my PhD research commencing in Autumn 2023 with Prof Fringer seeks to model and understand the interaction of surface and internal waves. This relationship will be correlated to satellite imagery of ocean surface roughness to infer stratification for assimilation into ocean models.
My professional background started in civil engineering and coastal processes modeling. I received an MSc in computational mechanics at the University of Cape Town (2018) - formulating and implementing a multiscale FEM model for cardiac tissue. Most recently, I was a scientific software developer adding parallelized tools and functionality to the ocean modeling software, UCLA ROMS, at the University of California, Los Angeles. -
Erinn Drage
Ph.D. Student in Environmental Social Sciences, admitted Autumn 2025
BioErinn Drage is an environmental filmmaker, conservation social scientist, and outdoor adventure guide from Canmore, Alberta. In addition to her primary work in international conservation policy, she has guided expeditions in the Arctic and Antarctica and written, edited, and directed award-winning documentary films. Her past scientific research has included studying nature-based tourism economies in Alaska and social well-being, human rights, and conservation in Kanungu, Uganda. At Stanford, Erinn is exploring the political and economic dimensions of biodiversity conservation, with a focus on community-led stewardship and the role of human institutions in shaping conservation outcomes. When not pursuing her intellectual passions around conservation, she can usually be found trail running, mountain biking, or backcountry skiing in the nearest mountain ranges.
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Lama El Halabi
Ph.D. Student in Energy Science and Engineering, admitted Spring 2022
BioI am a PhD candidate in the Department of Energy Sciences and Engineering and a Data Science Scholar, advised by Adam Brandt. My research is driven by the crucial role renewable energy must play in sustainably meeting our energy demands. The major challenge in transitioning to renewable energy lies in the intermittent and inherently uncertain nature of these energy sources. My current research focuses on predicting energy outputs from these stochastically behaving sources, with an emphasis on uncertainty quantification and volatility. Specifically, I employ computer vision models and statistical techniques to develop short-term probabilistic photovoltaic (PV) power forecasts from sky images and time-series PV data. I hold an MS in Energy Resources Engineering from Stanford and a BE in Mechanical Engineering and a BS in Physics from the American University of Beirut. Previously, my research involved using machine learning to model water resources.
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Emily Ellefson
Ph.D. Student in Geological Sciences, admitted Autumn 2021
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsI am a palynologist, that is, I study fossilized pollen and spores! Previously I have worked on Permian-Triassic and Jurassic-Cretaceous palynology, but here at Stanford I'm excited to be exploring a new time interval and will be working on Silurian-Devonian palynology. My research will focus on how the evolution of terrestrial plants affected the marine redox record through palynology, paleobotany, and geochemistry.
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Safari Fang
Ph.D. Student in Environment and Resources, admitted Autumn 2020
BioSafari Fang is a Ph.D. candidate in the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER). She is an interdisciplinary scientist and ocean conservation leader with proven experience and passion for connecting people from diverse backgrounds to facilitate deep, meaningful collaborations aimed at solving environmental challenges. Growing up next to a polluted Yangtze River in China, Safari aspired from an early age to work in environmental conservation, and she connects deeply with communities that live the real consequences of pollution and habitat destruction. Her current research focuses on aquaculture and fisheries, food security, and community-based marine conservation. Through her research and action, Safari is engaging diverse stakeholders in the global seafood system and fostering collaborations among sectors for the sustainable use of ocean resources.
Safari is an alumna of the Blue Pioneers Program, a leadership development program for ocean conservationists from Asia. She sits on the board of directors of Demos Education Hub, an environmental education and community development NGO in Hainan, China. Safari has lived and worked in several countries, including China, the U.S., Iceland, Germany, and France. She speaks fluent Chinese and English and enjoys reading, swimming, kayaking, hiking, whale watching, yoga, meditation, and creative writing.
