Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability
Showing 1-66 of 66 Results
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Nicole Ardoin
Associate Professor of Environmental Social Sciences and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsNicole Ardoin, the Emmett Family Faculty Scholar, is an associate professor of Environmental Behavioral Sciences in the Environmental Social Sciences Department of the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability (SDSS).
Professor Ardoin studies motivations for and barriers to environmental behavior among a range of audiences and in varying settings; the use of social strategies by NGOs to engage individuals and communities in decisionmaking related to the environment; and the role of place-based connections and environmental learning on engagement in place-protective and stewardship actions over time.
Professor Ardoin's Social Ecology Lab group uses mixed-methods approaches--including participant observation, interviews, surveys, mapping, network analysis, and ethnography, among others--to pursue their interdisciplinary scholarship with community collaborators through a field-based, participatory frame. Professor Ardoin is an associate editor of the journal Environmental Education Research, a trustee of the California Academy of Sciences, and chair of NatureBridge's Education Advisory Council, among other areas of service to the environment and conservation field.
RECENT RESEARCH (Selected):
Accelerating 30x30 Through a Collaborative Regional Prioritization Partnership
With support from the SDSS Accelerator
PI: Liz Hadly; co-PIs Nicole Ardoin, Debbie Sivas
Empowering Youth in Frontline Communities through Climate Data
PI: Victor Lee; co-PIs Nicole Ardoin, Jenny Suckale
A Social Science/Sustainability Incubator: Interdisciplinary scholarship and practice to amplify impact and redefine solutions
With support from Stanford’s Sustainability Initiative
PI: Nicole Ardoin; co-PI: James H. Jones
Tracking Socio-Ecological Recovery after Forest Fire: The Case of Big Basin
With support from: Digital Learning Initiative of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning
The Summen Project: Coastal Fog-mediated Interactions Between Climate Change, Upwelling, and Coast Redwood Resilience
With support from NSF Coastal SEES Program, the National Geographic Society, and the TELOS Fund
In partnership with UC Santa Cruz, UC Berkeley, Carnegie, Oregon State University
Scholars and Land-Trust Managers Collaborating for Solutions
With support from Realizing Environmental Innovations Projects (REIP), Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment
PI: Nicole Ardoin; co-PI: Deborah Gordon
Community and Collective Environmental Literacy as a Motivator for Participating in Environmental Stewardship
With support from the Pisces Foundation
Hybrid Physical and Digital Spaces for Enhanced Sustainability and Wellbeing
WIth support from Stanford Catalyst for Collaborative Solutions
PI: Sarah Billington, Civil and Environmental Engineering; co-PIs Nicole Ardoin, James Landay, Hazel Markus
Blue Habits: Leveraging Behavioral Science to Support Pro-Ocean Behaviors
With support from The Oceanic Society
eeWorks: Examining the body of evidence for environmental education with regard to conservation, academic outcomes, civic engagement, and positive youth development
With support from the North American Association for Environmental Education, US EPA, Fish and Wildlife Service, and others -
William Barnett
Thomas M. Siebel Professor of Business Leadership, Professor of Environmental Social Sciences and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsBarnett studies how organizations are responding to the challenge of environmental sustainability. He is now establishing research sites around the world, investigating a number of areas where organizational adaptation is key, including: the proliferation of climate tech start ups, issues around environmental justice, the challenge of climate migration, and the urgent need to preserve the world's rainforests.
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Hélène Benveniste
Assistant Professor of Environmental Social Sciences
BioHélène Benveniste is an Assistant Professor in the Global Environmental Policy unit of the Department of Environmental Social Sciences at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. She works on international environmental policy and politics, with focuses on climate-related human migration and global governance of environmental issues. In her research, she uses both quantitative and qualitative methods drawn from political and other social sciences. Her work has appeared in scientific journals including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and Nature Climate Change. Prior to joining Stanford, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability at Harvard University. She holds a Ph.D. in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs.
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Adrien Gabriel Bilal
Assistant Professor of Economics, Center Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and Assistant Professor, by courtesy, of Environmental Social Sciences
BioAdrien Bilal is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Stanford University. He is a macroeconomist who works on topics related to climate change, spatial and labor economics.
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Alison W. Bowers
Research Associate, Environmental Social Sciences
BioAlison Bowers holds a PhD in Educational Research and Evaluation from Virginia Tech. Her background and experience include working as a field-based environmental educator with the Cooperative Extension Service and at the national scale with nonprofit conservation and education organizations. Alison has an EdS in Early Childhood Special Education from George Washington University, a MFRC with a Certificate in Environmental Education and Communication from the University of Florida, and a BA in Psychology from the University of South Carolina. Her research focus is on research design and process and she is particularly interested in research reviews, systematic reviews, and grounded theory methodology.
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Marshall Burke
Professor of Environmental Social Sciences, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, at the Woods Institute for the Environment, at SIEPR and Professor, by courtesy, of Earth System Science
BioMarshall Burke is professor of Global Environmental Policy in the Doerr School of Sustainability at Stanford, a senior fellow at the Center on Food Security and the Environment, the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, and Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, all at Stanford. He is also a research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His research uses tools from the social and natural sciences to measure environmental change, how society is impacted by this change, and how it can respond. He holds a PhD in Agricultural and Resource Economics from UC Berkeley, and a BA in International Relations from Stanford. He directs the Environmental Change and Human Outcomes Lab at Stanford, is co-founder of AtlasAI, and co-creator of the Environmental Hazards Adaptation Atlas.
Prospective students should see my personal and lab webpages, linked at right. -
Maxine Burkett
Emerson Collective Professor of Climate, Environment, and Society
BioMaxine Burkett is the Emerson Collective Professor of Climate, Environment, and Society at Stanford University’s Doerr School of Sustainability and the Faculty Director of the Stanford Center for Just Environmental Futures. Burkett’s research examines the relationship between environmental change and inequity and its impact on frontline communities, both domestic and international. With a background in law and diplomacy, her areas of expertise include climate change (international, national, subnational law and policy), ocean and coastal law, climate-related migration, and climate change and human security.
Professor Burkett most recently served as a Professor Law at the William S. Richardson School of Law as well as in senior roles at the White House and the State Department. At the State Department she oversaw the formulation and implementation of U.S. policy on a broad range of international issues concerning the oceans, the Arctic, the Antarctic, and marine conservation in her role as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans, Fisheries, and Polar Affairs. She also served as a Senior Advisor to Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, where her portfolio included climate-related migration, climate security, bilateral relationships with island nations, and Indigenous Peoples’ engagement. From 2021-2023, Burkett was also a Visiting Professor at Harvard Medical School’s Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, where she advanced research on climate justice and public health. -
Jen Burney
Professor of Environmental Social Sciences, of Earth System Science and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
BioJennifer (Jen) Burney is a Professor in Global Environmental Policy and Earth System Science in the Doerr School of Sustainability. Her research focuses on the coupled relationships between climate and food security – measuring air pollutant emissions and concentrations, quantifying the effects of climate and air pollution on land use and food systems, understanding how food production and consumption contribute to climate change, and designing and evaluating technologies and strategies for adaptation and mitigation among the world’s farmers. Her research group combines methods from physics, ecology, statistics, remote sensing, economics, and policy to understand critical scientific uncertainties in this coupled system and to provide evidence for what will – or won’t – work to simultaneously end hunger and stabilize earth’s climate. She earned a PhD in physics in 2007, completed postdoctoral fellowships in both food security and climate science, and was named a National Geographic Emerging Explorer in 2011; prior to joining the Doerr School, she served on the faculty at UC San Diego's School of Global Policy and Strategy and Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
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Bruce Cain
Charles Louis Ducommun Professor in the School of Humanities & Sciences, Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment, at SIEPR, at the Precourt Institute for Energy & Professor of Environmental Social Sciences
BioBruce E. Cain is a Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and Director of the Bill Lane Center for the American West. He received a BA from Bowdoin College (1970), a B Phil. from Oxford University (1972) as a Rhodes Scholar, and a Ph D from Harvard University (1976). He taught at Caltech (1976-89) and UC Berkeley (1989-2012) before coming to Stanford. Professor Cain was Director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley from 1990-2007 and Executive Director of the UC Washington Center from 2005-2012. He was elected the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2000 and has won awards for his research (Richard F. Fenno Prize, 1988), teaching (Caltech 1988 and UC Berkeley 2003) and public service (Zale Award for Outstanding Achievement in Policy Research and Public Service, 2000). His areas of expertise include political regulation, applied democratic theory, representation and state politics. Some of Professor Cain’s most recent publications include “Malleable Constitutions: Reflections on State Constitutional Design,” coauthored with Roger Noll in University of Texas Law Review, volume 2, 2009; “More or Less: Searching for Regulatory Balance,” in Race, Reform and the Political Process, edited by Heather Gerken, Guy Charles and Michael Kang, CUP, 2011; “Redistricting Commissions: A Better Political Buffer?” in The Yale Law Journal, volume 121, 2012; and Democracy More or Less (CUP, 2015). He is currently working on problems of environmental governance.
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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. -
Sara Constantino
Assistant Professor of Environmental Social Sciences and Center Fellow, by courtesy, at the Woods Institute for the Environment and at the Stanford Graduate School of Business
BioSara Constantino is an assistant professor at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability in the Department of Environmental Social Sciences and a visiting research scholar at Princeton's School of Public and International Affairs. She is also a faculty affiliate at SPARQ and the Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute. She has an interdisciplinary background at the intersection of economics, psychology, and environmental policy and politics. Her research focuses on understanding the interplay between individual, collective, institutional and ecological factors, including how they shape preferences, decisions, experiences and resilience to extreme events or shocks. In recent and ongoing studies, she is looking at the role of polarization, social norms and governance in stimulating or stifling climate action, including both adaptation and mitigation, and what conditions lead groups mobilize to shape policy and other outcomes. She also works on the impacts and politics of guaranteed income and other cash transfer programs. Prior to starting at Stanford, she was an assistant professor in the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs and the Department of Psychology at Northeastern University and an associate research scholar at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs. Before this, she was a senior research fellow in guaranteed income with the Jain Family Institute, a founding editor at Nature Human Behavior, and a research coordinator with the Institute for Fiscal Studies. She received her bachelor’s degree in economics from McGill University, a master’s degree in economics from University College London, a Ph.D. in cognitive and decision sciences from New York University, and did a postdoc focused on environmental policy, politics and decision-making at Princeton University.
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Larry Crowder
Edward Ricketts Provostial Professor, Professor of Oceans, Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment and Professor, by courtesy, of Environmental Social Sciences
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsEcology, conservation, fisheries, protected species, ecosystem-based management
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Jenna Davis
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, of Environmental Social Sciences and Higgins-Magid Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsProfessor Davis’ research and teaching deals broadly with the role that water plays in promoting public health and economic development, with particular emphasis on low- and middle-income countries. Her group conducts applied research that utilizes theory and analytical methods from public and environmental health, engineering, microeconomics, and planning. They have conducted field research in more than 20 countries, most recently including Zambia, Bangladesh, and Kenya.
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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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Michelle María Early Capistrán
Social Science Research Scholar
BioDr. Michelle María Early Capistrán is a Research Scientist at Stanford University's Environmental Social Sciences Department and an Affiliated Researcher at the Bill Lane Center for the American West. Her research addresses pressing issues in marine ecology under climate change by integrating transdisciplinary methods. She combines ethnobiological insights, historical data science, and ecological monitoring to understand and enhance the resilience of marine species and the coastal communities that depend on them, with a particular focus on the historical ecology and conservation of endangered green sea turtles. Dr. Early Capistrán earned her Ph.D. in Marine Science and Limnology from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) and is a recipient of the prestigious David H. Smith Conservation Research Fellowship.
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Caroline Ferguson
Social Science Research Scholar
BioCaroline E. Ferguson is an interdisciplinary social scientist focused on equity and justice at sea. www.ceferguson.com
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Bard Harstad
David S. Lobel Professor in Business and Sustainability, Professor of Environmental Social Sciences, Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and Professor, by courtesy, of Economics
BioWith a PhD from Stockholm University, Harstad taught at Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 2004-2012, and then at the University of Oslo 2012-2023, before joining the GSB in 2023. His fields include political economics, environmental economics, and applied theory. Specific research projects include the design of international agreements, trade agreements and climate agreements, supply-side environmental policies, and policies that motivate environmental conservation and reducing deforestation.
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David J Hayes
Professor of the Practice, Environmental Social Sciences
BioDavid J. Hayes is a Professor of Practice at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and affiliated faculty at Stanford Law School. He specializes in energy, environmental, and natural resources law and policy. Hayes served in the White House as Special Assistant to President Biden for Climate Policy and was the Senate-confirmed Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer at the U.S. Department of the Interior for Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. In addition to his public service, Hayes was Executive Director of the State Energy & Environmental Impact Center at the NYU School of Law, where he worked with state attorneys general on climate, environment and clean energy initiatives; Chairman of the Board of the Environmental Law Institute; and partner and Global Chair of the Environment, Land and Resources Department at Latham & Watkins. Hayes is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and Stanford Law School.
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Solomon Hsiang
Professor of Environmental Social Sciences and Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsEnvironmental Policy, Economics, Data Science, Intl Governance, Climate
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James Holland Jones
Professor of Environmental Social Sciences and, by courtesy, of Earth System Science
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.
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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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Jon Krosnick
Frederic O. Glover Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences, Professor of Communication and of Political Science, of Environmental Social Sciences and, by courtesy, of Psychology
BioJon Krosnick is a social psychologist who does research on attitude formation, change, and effects, on the psychology of political behavior, and on survey research methods. He is the Frederic O. Glover Professor in Humanities and Social Sciences, Professor of Communication, Political Science, Environmental Social Sciences, and (by courtesy) Psychology. He directs Stanford's Political Psychology Research Group and has directed the Summer Institute in Political Psychology.
To read reports on Professor Krosnick’s research program exploring public opinion on the environment, visit the American Public Opinion on Climate Change web site (https://climatepublicopinion.stanford.edu/).
Research Interests
Author of seven published books and two forthcoming books and more than 190 articles and chapters, Dr. Krosnick conducts research in three primary areas: (1) attitude formation, change, and effects, (2) the psychology of political behavior, and (3) the optimal design of questionnaires used for laboratory experiments and surveys, and survey research methodology more generally.
His attitude research has focused primarily on the notion of attitude strength, seeking to differentiate attitudes that are firmly crystallized and powerfully influential of thinking and action from attitudes that are flexible and inconsequential. Many of his studies in this area have focused on the amount of personal importance that an individual chooses to attach to an attitude. Dr. Krosnick’s studies have illuminated the origins of attitude importance (e.g., material self-interest and values) and the cognitive and behavioral consequences of importance in regulating attitude impact and attitude change processes.
Honors
Winner of the American Association for Public Opinion Research’s Lifetime Achievement Award for outstanding research, and the Nevitt Sanford Award from the International Society of Political Psychology, Dr. Krosnick’s scholarship has been recognized by election as a fellow by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Erik Erikson Award for Excellence and Creativity in the Field of Political Psychology from the International Society of Political Psychology, two fellowships at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the Phillip Brickman Memorial Prize for Research in Social Psychology, and the American Political Science Association’s Best Paper Award. -
Angelle Desiree LaBeaud
Professor of Pediatrics (Infectious Diseases), Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment and Professor, by courtesy, of Epidemiology and Population Health and of Environmental Social Sciences
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsArthropod-borne viruses are emerging and re-emerging infections that are spreading throughout the world. Our laboratory investigates the epidemiology of arboviral infections, focusing on the burden of disease and the long-term complications on human health. In particular, Dr. LaBeaud investigates dengue, chikungunya, and Rift Valley fever viruses in Kenya, where outbreaks cause fever, arthritis, retinitis, encephalitis, and hemorrhagic fever. Our main research questions focus on the risk factors for arboviral infections, the development of diagnostic tests that can be administered in the field to quickly determine what kind of arboviral infection a person has, and the genetic and immunologic investigation of why different people respond differently to the same infection. Our long-term goals are to contribute to a deeper understanding of arboviral infections and their long-term health consequences and to optimize control strategies to prevent these emerging infections. Our laboratory also investigates the effects of antenatal and postnatal parasitic infections on vaccine responses, growth, and development of Kenyan children.
My lab at Stanford supports the field work that is ongoing in Kenya, but we also have several projects that are based locally. We strive to improve diagnostics of arboviral infections and are using Luminex technology to build a new screening assay. We also have created a Luminex based platform to assess vaccine responses against multiple pathogens. -
Shanjun Li
Steven and Roberta Denning Global Sustainability Professor, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
BioShanjun Li is the Steven and Roberta Denning Global Sustainability Professor and a Senior Fellow at both the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR). His research focuses on environmental and energy economics, urban and transportation economics, empirical industrial organization, and the Chinese economy. His recent work examines pressing sustainability challenges and the rapid rise of clean energy industries in China, exploring their global implications to inform evidence-based policymaking.
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Marisa MacAskill
Director of Finance & Operations, Environmental Social Sciences
BioMarisa MacAskill is the Director of Finance & Operations for the department of Environmental Social Sciences (ESoS) at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability (SDSS). Marisa joined the SDSS in June 2023 as the Assistant Director of Finance & Operations of the, then, Social Sciences Division. Previously she served as the Program Manager for Finance & Research Administration and Faculty & Academic Affairs for Stanford's Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI), where she also held the role as HAI's inaugural Education Program Manager. Marisa started her career at Stanford in 2017 as the Fellowships and Student Programs Manager for the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) where she delivered academic programming, managed admissions, and supported research and learning opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows. Prior to Stanford, Marisa was the Assistant Director for Administration and Programming at the McKinnon Center for Global Affairs at Occidental College where she worked on strategic initiatives, international programming, and student/faculty grants. Marisa also served as a seasonal reader for Oxy’s Admissions Office and as a strategic planning analyst for the Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands.
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Rosamond Naylor
William Wrigley Professor, Professor of Environmental Social Sciences, Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute, and at the Freeman Spogli Institute, Emerita
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsResearch Activities:
My research focuses on the environmental and equity dimensions of intensive food production systems, and the food security dimensions of low-input systems. I have been involved in a number of field-level research projects around the world and have published widely on issues related to climate impacts on agriculture, distributed irrigation systems for diversified cropping, nutrient use and loss in agriculture, biotechnology, aquaculture and livestock production, biofuels development, food price volatility, and food policy analysis.
Teaching Activities:
I teach courses on the world food economy, food and security, aquaculture science and policy, human society and environmental change, and food-water-health linkages. These courses are offered to graduate and undergraduate students through the departments of Earth System Science, Economics, History, and International Relations.
Professional Activities:
William Wrigley Professor of Earth Science (2015 - Present); Professor in Earth System Science (2009-present); Director, Stanford Center on Food Security and the Environment (2005-2018); Associate Professor of Economics by courtesy (2000-present); William Wrigley Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Woods Institute for the Environment (2007-2015); Trustee, The Nature Conservancy CA program (2012-present); Member of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Beijer Institute for Ecological Economics in Stockholm (2011-present), for the Aspen Global Change Institute (2011-present), and for the Aldo Leopold Leadership Program (2012-present); Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellow in Environmental Science and Public Policy (1999); Pew Fellow in Conservation and the Environment (1994). Associate Editor for the Journal on Food Security (2012-present). Editorial board member for Aquaculture-Environment Interactions (2009-present) and Global Food Security (2012-present). -
Jack Pink
Postdoctoral Scholar, Environmental Social Sciences
BioI am primarily a marine researcher; my PhD is in maritime archaeology specifically focusing on the archaeology of ships. I have been fascinated by the sea and by shipwrecks since reading Jacques Cousteau's The Silent World as a child. The combination of diving and archaeology seemed to me then, and still seems to me now, an unusually fortunate way to make a living.
I read Archaeology and then Maritime Archaeology at the University of Southampton. I then spent two years as Assistant Rural Surveyor at the National Trust's Lanhydrock estate in Cornwall. Whilst that might look like a tangent (and it felt like it at the time) it was an experience that proved more formative than I had anticipated. My responsibilities covered a substantial portion of the Trust's Cornish portfolio, including areas of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape UNESCO World Heritage Site. Managing working harbours and conservation sites in an operational context, answerable to communities as much as to institutional objectives, gave me an understanding of coastal and marine heritage that you frankly cannot get as an academic.
I completed my PhD in 2023, under the supervision of Professor Jon Adams and Dr Julian Whitewright. I examined an assemblage of two hundred merchant vessels through the integration of archaeological remains and historical records, using this dataset to explore the impact of changing systems within the British Empire on merchant shipping and the development of shipbuilding technologies across the nineteenth century. During and around this period I worked to build the practical experience that underpins good maritime archaeology. Underwater, this took me to Roman harbour sites and anchorages in Lebanon (at Anfeh, Batroun, and Tyre) to an underwater excavation in Kalmar, Sweden, to survey projects across the British Isles from the Isle of Lewis to the Pembrokeshire coast, and to geophysical work in Uruguay. On land I directed and contributed to geophysical surveys across Europe, including at Ephesus in Turkey and at a British Museum excavation of an Indo-Roman trade site in northwest India. The range of these projects was deliberate: I was trying to become the kind of archaeologist who could work anywhere and with anything, and fieldwork in different countries and conditions is the only reliable way to do that. Something worked because I found myself being consulted on the archaeological standards for the wreck of Shackleton's Endurance following its discovery in 2022.
A period at Historic England followed, first as Senior Policy Advisor for Underwater Cultural Heritage where I supported the development of government legislation and prepared guidance on the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage. I moved to Technical Manager of the Marine Data Exchange Heritage Accelerator, where I led a team integrating offshore heritage data from commercial contractors and wind farm corporations into the National Marine Heritage Record. This work required collaborating with the Crown Estate, DCMS, and DEFRA, and gave me an understanding of how the marine sector operates commercially that sits alongside but distinct from my research background.
I joined Stanford in September 2025 as a Postdoctoral Scholar holding a joint appointment between the Stanford Robotics Center and the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. At the Robotics Center I manage the Oceans Flagship, a programme developing next-generation remotely operated vehicle capabilities for scientific discovery at depth, working with Professor Oussama Khatib and Dr. Steve Cousins. In parallel, I work with Dr. Krish Seetah on research into the environmental impacts of shipwrecks, exploring the interactions between anthropogenic material and the marine ecosystem within the developing field of Maritime Heritage Ecology. -
Malinda Pola
Administrative Associate 3, Environmental Social Sciences
BioMalinda Pola joined the Stanford University Doerr School of Sustainability in December 2022 as an Administrative Associate for the Department of Earth System Science (ESS) and is currently an Administrative Associate for Environmental Social Sciences (ESoS). Malinda started her career at Stanford in 2014 as a Faculty Assistant at the Graduate School of Business where she assisted faculty with research needs, supported classes, and processed financial transactions for 8 years.
Malinda holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Environmental Studies with a minor in Business from San José State University. -
Chenfei Qu
Postdoctoral Scholar, Environmental Social Sciences
BioChenfei Qu’s research focuses on climate change economics, including emissions trading systems, carbon pricing, air pollution, and integrated assessment of climate and energy policies, with an emphasis on general equilibrium modeling for policy analysis in developing countries. She holds a Ph.D. in Management Science and Technology and a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Management, both from Tsinghua University. Chenfei Qu was a visiting scholar at the ZEW–Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research in 2024. Her work has been published in journals such as Climate Change Economics, Advances in Climate Change Research, and Environmental Science & Technology.
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Lisa Rennels
Postdoctoral Scholar, Environmental Social Sciences
Biopersonal website (more frequently updated): lisarennels.com
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Krish Seetah
Associate Professor of Environmental Social Sciences, of Oceans, of Anthropology and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment
BioI am a zooarchaeologist, whose focus is primarily on colonisation and colonialism. My zooarchaeological research has used butchery analysis (with the benefit of professional and ethnographic actualistic experience) to investigate agency within the human-animal relationship. More recently, I have employed geometric morphometrics (GMM) as a mechanism for identifying and distinguishing animal populations. This approach to studying colonial activity centres on understanding how people manipulate animal bodies, both during life and after death.
Alongside the strictly faunal research is a research interest in technologies associated with animal processing. This has been used to investigate issues of technology, trade and socio-economic attitudes within colonial contexts in the Mediterranean (Venice & Montenegro) and the Baltic (Poland, Latvia & Lithuania).
I am also the Director of the ‘Mauritian Archaeology and Cultural Heritage’ (MACH) project, which studies European Imperialism and colonial activity. This project centres on the movement of peoples and material cultures, specifically within the contexts of slavery and Diaspora. The work of this project has focused on key sites in Mauritius and is based on a systematic programme of excavation and environmental sampling. The underlying aims are to better understand the transition from slavery to indentured labour following abolition, the extent and diversity of trade in the region and the environmental consequences of intense, monoculture, agriculture. -
Faye Shen Li Thijssen
Ph.D. Student in Environmental Social Sciences, admitted Autumn 2025
BioFaye is a PhD student in Environmental Social Sciences. Her research focuses on the political economy of the environment with a particular emphasis on how transnational corporations shape climate politics through their global political, social, and economic embeddedness. More specifically, she is currently investigating the extent to which the increasing material costs of climate vulnerabilities influence the power dynamics between pollutive industrial corporations (as employers) and the climate policy preferences of workers in these industries.
Prior to coming to Stanford, her research focused on indirect corporate influence in environmental politics, investigating executional greenwashing and its potential to affect public perceptions and preferences for regulatory policy. This research primarily employed experimental methods, with support from the Oxford Department of Politics & International Relations and the Nuffield Centre for Experimental Social Sciences. -
Barton Thompson
Robert E. Paradise Professor of Natural Resources Law, Professor of Environmental Social Sciences and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment
BioA global expert on water and natural resources, Barton “Buzz” Thompson focuses on how to improve resource management through legal, institutional, and technological innovation. He was the founding Perry L. McCarty Director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, where he remains a Senior Fellow and directs the Water in the West program. He also has been a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) at Stanford’s Freeman-Spogli Institute for International Studies, and a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. He founded the law school’s Environmental and Natural Resources Program. He also is a faculty member in Stanford’s Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER).
Professor Thompson served as Special Master for the United States Supreme Court in Montana v. Wyoming, an interstate water dispute involving the Yellowstone River system. He also is a former member of the Science Advisory Board of the United States Environmental Protection Agency. He chairs the boards of the Resources Legacy Fund and the Stanford Habitat Conservation Board, is a California trustee of The Nature Conservancy, and is a board member of the American Farmland Trust, the Sonoran Institute, and the Santa Lucia Conservancy.
Professor Thompson is of counsel to the law firm of O’Melveny & Myers, where he specializes in water resources and was a partner prior to joining Stanford Law School. He also serves as an advisor to a major impact investment fund. He was a law clerk to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist ’52 (BA ’48, MA ’48) of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge Joseph T. Sneed of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. -
Daniel Verdi
Ph.D. Student in Education, admitted Autumn 2025
Research Assistant, Environmental Social SciencesBioComputational Social Science • Social Computing • Science of Science • Natural Language Processing • Responsible AI
I apply data science methods, mainly natural language processing (NLP) and social network analysis, to evaluate the communication and governance of science and technology. A focus of my work is how academic knowledge is translated across audiences, amplified or distorted through digital media, and taken up in political debate.
My research is particularly concerned with how algorithmic systems like AI and social media are changing information ecosystems and how their own risks and benefits are transmitted to the public. At the core of my work is a commitment to questions of equity, ethics, and social justice.
Beyond conducting science, I am also passionate about designing tools and events to put it in conversation with communities and create opportunities for marginalized students to engage with research and technology. I’m especially interested in improving digital and AI literacies, as well as in using AI and other technologies in informal education.
Before Stanford, I graduated from the University of Richmond as a Richmond Scholar, the institution's most prestigious and competitive academic award. Additionally, I have conducted research at universities such as Carnegie Mellon, University of Southern Califronia, and University of Copenhagen, and interned at Amazon Alexa AI. I’m also proud to have co-founded one of Brazil's largest high school science fairs, the Brazilian Fair of Young Scientists (FBJC), which has engaged over 2,000 participants and received over 1M website visits. -
Madalina Vlasceanu
Assistant Professor of Environmental Social Sciences and, by courtesy, of Organizational Development at the Graduate School of Business
BioMadalina Vlasceanu is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Behavioral Sciences in the Department of Environmental Social Sciences at Stanford University’s Doerr School of Sustainability and the Director of the Climate Cognition Lab. Professor Vlasceanu is also a Faculty Fellow at the Stanford Center for Affective Science, the chair of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology at the United Nations, and a committee member of the Psychology Coalition at the United Nations, and the International Panel on the Information Environment. She obtained a PhD in Psychology and Neuroscience from Princeton University in 2021 and a BA in Psychology and Economics from the University of Rochester in 2016. Prior to Stanford, she was an Assistant Professor of Psychology at New York University. Her research focuses on the cognitive and social processes that give rise to emergent phenomena such as collective beliefs, collective decision-making, and collective action, with direct applications to climate policy. Guided by a theoretical framework of investigation, her research employs a large array of methods including behavioral laboratory experiments, social network analysis, field studies, randomized controlled trials, megastudies, and international many-lab collaborations, with the goal of understanding the processes underlying climate awareness and action at the individual, collective, and system level. Professor Vlasceanu's research is theoretically grounded and focused on applications for practice, incorporates an interdisciplinary perspective, and directly informs policies and practices relevant to climate mitigation and adaptation.
