Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability
Showing 1-50 of 112 Results
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Nur Arafeh Dalmau
Postdoctoral Scholar, Oceans
BioI am currently a postdoc at UCLA and Stanford and an Honorary Fellow at The University of Queensland. I am a marine community ecologist and marine spatial planner. My research focuses on understanding the impacts of marine heatwaves on kelp forest ecosystems. I also research the role of marine protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures for providing climate resilience and designing networks of climate-smart marine protected areas. I support conservation initiatives with NGOs, parks, and fishers, and teach decision tools such as Marxan. My heart remains in my beautiful Costa Brava, Spain (Catalonia), where I do my best to support conservation. I am a naive dreamer, and I know future generations will dive into healthy kelp forests and thriving marine ecosystems.
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Adel Asadi
Postdoctoral Scholar, Earth and Planetary Sciences
BioAdel Asadi is a Postdoctoral Scholar at Stanford University's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, in the Doerr School of Sustainability. He is a member of Stanford Mineral-X initiative, a program dedicated to pioneering sustainable critical minerals exploration to facilitate the transition to green energy. Under the supervision of Prof. Jef Caers, Adel's research is focused on mineral exploration, leveraging data science tools and artificial intelligence algorithms. Through the integrated geological data analysis, his goal is to enhance the predictive accuracy of models for discovering high-grade mineral deposits, thereby enabling decision-making with higher certainty. He is currently collaborating with Ero Copper Corporation, headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, on discovery of new economic copper and nickel deposits in Brazil.
Before joining Stanford University, Adel was a Postdoctoral Scholar at Tufts University in Massachusetts. There, he conducted research on renewable energy systems at the Offshore Wind Energy group. Under Prof. Babak Moaveni’s supervision, in a project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), he exploited multiple-point geostatistics to simulate offshore wind speed and direction in a multi-variate context, using numerical weather models, satellite/radar remote sensing, observational, and geospatial data.
Adel Asadi earned his PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering with a Geosystems specialization from Tufts University. His doctoral work in the Geohazards Research Lab involved a diverse toolkit (computer vision, machine learning, remote sensing, and geographic information systems) to model earthquake-induced ground failure hazards (soil liquefaction) and map post-earthquake ground failure damages (landslides and liquefaction) on global, regional, and event-specific scales. His dissertation research was funded by the US Geological Survey (USGS) and the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGIA).
During his Master's study in Mining Engineering at Michigan Technological University, under Prof. Snehamoy Chatterjee’s supervision, he developed a novel multiple-point geostatistical simulation algorithm for Earth resources modeling and uncertainty quantification. He also worked on a space mining research project aimed at mapping iron and titanium on the lunar surface using remote sensing data and machine learning algorithms. Additionally, he gained one year of professional experience in the copper mining industry in the US through three internships in Sierrita and Morenci operations at Freeport-McMoRan Inc., Arizona. -
Paul Berne Burow
Postdoctoral Scholar, Earth System Science
BioI am a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Earth System Science at Stanford University. My research examines the cultural dimensions of climate and land use change in North America, with a focus on how Indigenous peoples and rural communities experience, adapt to, and shape environmental change on the landscapes they call home. I work at the intersection of environmental anthropology, Indigenous environmental sciences, cultural ecology, and human-environment geography, using mixed methods that span ethnography, interviews, focus group discussions, household surveys, community science, archival research, and spatial analysis.
My current projects investigate collaborative forest stewardship with Tribal Nations and federal land management agencies in the Sierra Nevada and Great Basin regions of California and Nevada. This work examines how Indigenous knowledge, cultural values, and governance institutions shape the effectiveness of shared stewardship approaches and their outcomes for ecosystem health and community well-being. I also lead research into how forest-adjacent communities value and use dryland woodland ecosystems, and I am developing a new planning framework for integrating cultural ecosystem services into forest management decision-making. My book manuscript, Good Country: Land Stewardship and Belonging in the American West, examines the cultural politics of environmental change through the experiences of Paiute communities, federal land managers, and livestock ranchers navigating ecological transformation in the rural West.
My research program is organized around three interconnected lines of inquiry: understanding the nature of climate impacts on vulnerable, frontline communities; identifying the institutional barriers and enablers that shape equitable climate adaptation; and advancing community-led approaches to building climate-resilient landscapes. Through long-term, community-engaged partnerships with Tribal Nations, I work to expand Indigenous-led stewardship of ancestral homelands, co-produce knowledge that supports cultural revitalization and landscape resilience, and inform more just approaches to climate adaptation and public lands policy. -
Pablo Busch
Postdoctoral Scholar, Earth System Science
BioDr. Pablo Busch is an interdisciplinary researcher with training in industrial and environmental engineering, public policy, energy systems, industrial ecology, and statistics. His research broadly focuses on scientific analyses to support a clean energy transition, and to help identify risks to equity and sustainability in the emerging energy transition mineral supply chain. Pablo's main research goal is to conduct scientific analysis to diverse environmental and climate change problems, and to translate key insights from research into a digestible and actionable format for decision-making. His research is fueled by tools from engineering, statistics, geographic information systems, economics and public policy.
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Elsie Cecilia Carrillo
Postdoctoral Scholar, Oceans
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsDiving physiology and foraging ecology of semi-aquatic garter snakes
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Xinyu Dou
Postdoctoral Scholar, Earth System Science
BioStanford Energy Fellow
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Amir Eskanlou
Postdoctoral Scholar, Earth and Planetary Sciences
BioAmir is a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford Mineral-X. With 15 years of research and industry experience, his background includes the development and optimization of mineral processing flowsheets for copper, phosphate, graphite and rare earth elements (REEs) from primary and secondary resources. At Stanford, he conducts research related to various aspects of critical minerals processing, including AI-driven reagent discovery, uncertainty quantification, circuit design, and optimization of energy and water consumption.
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Veronica Frans
Postdoctoral Scholar, Oceans
BioVeronica is a quantitative ecologist and science communicator focused on understanding biodiversity-human relationships within the contexts of conservation, sustainability, and ecological theory. She advances methods in ecological and synthesis research by creating innovative, open-source databases, modeling tools, and frameworks that have been widely adopted for conservation and industrial applications. Her award-winning research has been published in leading journals such as Methods in Ecology & Evolution and Nature Ecology & Evolution, and has consistently gained global media attention, being featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and Smithsonian Magazine.
Veronica earned a dual Ph.D. in Fisheries & Wildlife and Ecology, Evolution, & Behavior from Michigan State University in 2024. She also holds a dual M.Sc. in International Nature Conservation from Göttingen University (Germany) and Lincoln University (New Zealand). She has studied and worked in many places around the world—from as far north as Alaska’s Bering Sea, to as far south as the Falkland Islands. Speaking six languages, her international experiences and relationships with diverse communities inform her research on coupled human-natural systems at local to global scales.
Veronica is a Stanford Science Fellow and National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Biology at Hopkins Marine Station (Doerr School of Sustainability). Her faculty host is Fiorenza Micheli, the David and Lucile Packard Professor of Marine Science, Chair of the Oceans Department, and Co-Director of the Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions. For her postdoctoral research, Veronica is developing a novel framework for predicting human-wildlife relationships under global change. -
Laura Frouté
Postdoctoral Scholar, Energy Science and Engineering
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsLaura is a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University, working on subsurface engineering solutions for the energy transition. Part of her research focuses on replicating geological hydrogen production in the laboratory and identifying and mitigating reactivity constraints at the microscale. Her research also focuses on investigating carbon storage into various basalt formations by measuring their carbon mineralization potential. Her expertise includes designing laboratory-scale pilots and conducting research on rock formations in the context of hydrocarbon production, carbon storage, and hydrogen production to understand the interplay of geochemistry, reaction mechanisms and complex storage and transport processes across length scales. To study the evolution of porous media properties following reaction or transport experiments, she uses a wide spectrum of multiscale, multimodal material characterization techniques (sorption, XRD, XRF, μCT, FIB-SEM, TEM). She holds a MS in Chemical Engineering from ENSIC (France) and a PhD in Energy Science and Engineering from Stanford University. Her interests range from subsurface engineering, fluid flow in porous media, to environmental and regulatory issues in the oil & gas industry, CCUS, climate solutions and energy policy.
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Melanie Gittard
Postdoctoral Scholar, Earth System Science
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsI am an applied environmental and development economist studying the impacts of climate change and water pollution in sub-Saharan Africa.
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Tianyang Guo (郭天阳)
Postdoctoral Scholar, Geological Sciences
BioDr. Tianyang Guo earned his Ph.D. degree in Rock Mechanics from the Department of Earth Sciences, the University of Hong Kong in 2020. He earned his bachelor's and master’s degree from Wuhan University (WHU) in 2013 and 2016, respectively. He was awarded the National Scholarship for Graduate in 2015 and graduated from WHU as an outstanding graduate. Before joining Stanford, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) under PolyU Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship Scheme 2021.
His research interests include (1) Cracking mechanisms and induced microseismicity during the injection of CO2 into reservoir rocks. (2) Application of machine learning in acoustic emission (AE) data interpretation. (3) Microcracking mechanisms of granite based on AE and microscopic observation. -
Alex Hedgpeth
Postdoctoral Scholar, Earth System Science
BioAlexandra Hedgpeth is a biogeochemist whose research explores how soil carbon cycling in peatlands responds to environmental change. Her work focuses on understanding the mechanisms that regulate carbon storage and greenhouse gas production in both tropical and boreal wetlands, with a particular emphasis on the vulnerability of deep, ancient carbon to modern surface inputs and hydrologic shifts.
Through her Ph.D. research at the University of California, Los Angeles, Alex has developed and applied novel isotopic and geochemical approaches—including implementing radiocarbon dating, stable isotope analyses, and high-resolution molecular characterization—to trace the sources and fates of carbon in peat soils. Her fieldwork spans a range of ecosystems, from ombrotrophic bogs in the Arctic to saturated tropical peat domes in Central America. This comparative framework allows her to identify unifying controls on carbon preservation and loss across climate zones.
Alex's research integrates field measurements, laboratory experiments, and synthesis of global datasets. She is a key contributor to multi-institutional efforts to model peatland carbon cycling under climate change scenarios, including DOE- and NSF-supported initiatives. Her work helps clarify the role of peatlands as both long-term carbon sinks and potential sources of atmospheric CO₂ and CH₄ under future disturbance.
In addition to her scientific contributions, Alex is committed to collaborative, interdisciplinary research and has worked closely with partners at national laboratories, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, and international data synthesis networks. She is especially interested in questions with high uncertainty and high relevance to climate feedbacks—such as thresholds in biogeochemical function and the persistence of deep soil carbon under hydrologic change. -
Alexander Honeyman
Postdoctoral Scholar, Earth System Science
BioI work at the intersections of data science, field work, laboratory experimentation, biogeochemistry, and microbial ecology. I was exposed to the issue of wildland fire through 10 years of experience as a volunteer firefighter / EMT in Colorado (fire / rescue / EMS). My current work involves investigating the geochemical character of wildfire smoke by hybridizing analyses of physical samples with various geospatial datasets and atmospheric particle transport models. I love working in environmental systems because they are complex, and offer numerous opportunities to blend the physical and computational sciences.
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Qi Hu
Postdoctoral Scholar, Energy Science and Engineering
BioI am a postdoctoral scholar collaborating with Tapan Mukerji on developing innovative workflows for monitoring subsurface CO2 sequestration. My research primarily involves integrating advanced seismic inversion techniques, such as full-waveform inversion, with rock physics and fluid dynamics to glean insights into subsurface structures and behaviors. Additionally, I am intrigued by the potential of distributed acoustic sensing and machine learning algorithms in various topics related to energy transition.
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Cameron S. Kay
Postdoctoral Scholar, Environmental Social Sciences
BioCameron S. Kay is a postdoctoral scholar in the Climate Cognition Lab at Stanford University. His research explores the psychological foundations of antisocial beliefs and behaviours, including why people believe in conspiracy theories, harbour prejudicial beliefs, and gaslight others. To support this work, he develops psychometrically sound scales and tools for improving data quality. Before joining Stanford, Cameron was a visiting assistant professor at Union College in Upstate New York. He earned his PhD in psychology with a specialization in quantitative research methods at the University of Oregon, where he also completed master’s degrees in psychology and journalism. He holds a BA in psychology from the University of British Columbia.
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Jonas Kloeckner
Postdoctoral Scholar, Earth and Planetary Sciences
BioJonas Kloeckner is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, sponsored by the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI). He specializes in critical mineral exploration essential for the sustainable energy transition. Utilizing his expertise in artificial intelligence and resource forecasting, Mr. Kloeckner leads initiatives that strive to align with global sustainability goals.
Jonas earned his PhD in Engineering from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Brazil, where he later served as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Geosciences. His doctoral and postdoctoral research focused on advancing geostatistical methods for Earth resources forecasting, significantly contributing to the field.
Previously, Jonas was a Visiting Research Scholar at Stanford University under the mentorship of Professor Jef Caers. He holds a Master’s and Bachelor’s degree in Mining Engineering from UFRGS, with additional international studies at Ecole des Mines d’Alès, France, and as a visiting student at Columbia University, USA.
Jonas’s current research integrates spatial data analysis with advanced decision-making processes in subsurface systems, enhancing resource management strategies and supporting sustainable mining practices. Beyond academia, he actively collaborates on various international projects, optimizing resource extraction and minimizing environmental impacts through innovative technology and interdisciplinary collaboration. -
Mengyu Liang (Amber)
Postdoctoral Scholar, Earth System Science
BioI'm currently a postdoc at Stanford Woods Institute of the Environment working on combining remote sensing and econometric to assess the environmental and social outcomes of natural climate solutions and forest management interventions. I completed my PhD at the Department of Geographical Sciences at UMD in May 2024. During my PhD, I developed remote sensing techniques utilizing multi-source remote sensing data (e.g,. GEDI, ICESat2, Landsat archive, PlanetScope) for monitoring long-term carbon sequestration in forest restoration areas in East Africa. Seeking to understand how to use Earth Observation to improve the sustainability of human-environment interaction is both a passion of mine and the research agenda during my PhD and onwards. Moreover, I have developed skills in forest inventory and Terrestrial Laser Scanner (TLS) data collection from working on field campaigns in Mozambique and Uganda. Developing web-based interactive map dashboards is another set of technical expertise that I have been practicing (see http://mliang8.github.io/ for map portfolio ) and want to employ in future projects to enhance communications with various stakeholders.
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Stephanie M. Lim
Postdoctoral Scholar, Earth System Science
BioI am a biological oceanographer studying the response of ice algae, phytoplankton, and biogeochemical cycles to climate change in the polar oceans. My personal website is https://slim8288.github.io
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Zhuo Liu
Postdoctoral Scholar, Earth and Planetary Sciences
BioZhuo Liu is a postdoctoral scholar at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, sponsored by Mineral-X. His expertise is in multi-geophysical data interpretation with both traditional methods and machine-learning-based methods for critical mineral exploration.
Zhuo Liu earned his PhD degree in Geophysics, with a minor degree in Geology, from the Colorado School of Mines (CSM), USA. His doctoral and postdoctoral research focused on advancing geophysical data interpretation methods and incorporating geologic prior information into the interpretation process in machine-learning and geostatistical approaches for mineral resources exploration.
Previously, Zhuo earned his Bachelor's degree in Applied Geophysics from the Central South University, China, and a Master's degree in Geophysics from the Colorado School of Mines (CSM), USA. He also visited the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) as a Student Visiting Scholar under the mentorship of Dr. Xinming Wu in 2021.
