Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability
Showing 1-64 of 64 Results
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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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Oluwafunmibi Asunmonu
Masters Student in Environment and Resources, admitted Spring 2025
Master of Arts Student in International Policy, admitted Autumn 2024BioOluwafunmibi 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 researcher, 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 working to bridge the gap between research and practice to create more just outcomes to a changing climate. His experience includes supporting communities domestically and internationally, as well as organizations and governments at all levels (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 student at Stanford University in the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER) at the Doerr School of Sustainability. His current research focuses on transforming climate adaptation and resilience policy, research, and practice towards more just outcomes using community-engaged social science research methods. Beyond publishing dozens of white papers, policy reports, government plans, academic journal articles, and popular media articles, Basaraba is a contributing author on the forthcoming 6th National Climate Assessment.
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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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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. -
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. -
Sarah Fendrich
Ph.D. Student in Environment and Resources, admitted Autumn 2022
SGSI Course Assistant, Vice Provost for Graduate EducationBioSarah is interested in the design and evaluation of decision support systems for local and regional-scale climate adaptation. Her research aims to explore the social and cognitive processes through which decision support systems — both digital decision support tools and the activities of regional climate resilience networks — shape adaptation planning and implementation, organizational learning, and environmental outcomes. She is specifically interested in supporting more adaptive and integrated water resources management. Sarah’s current work focuses on better understanding the collaborative landscape of federal decision support activities using social network analysis, as well as the decision-making and planning processes of local stormwater managers in coastal communities across the U.S. using a mixed-methods approach, including surveys, interviews, and document analysis.
Sarah holds a BA in cognitive neuroscience from the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to coming to Stanford, she worked on health care innovation and equity research at the Penn Medicine Nudge Unit and the Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics. -
Rwaida Gharib
Ph.D. Student in Environment and Resources, admitted Autumn 2023
Student Employee, Graduate School of Business - Center for Entrepreneurial Studies
Research Analyst, Precourt Institute for Energy
Research Asst-Graduate-Hourly, Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability - Dean's OfficeBioRwaida is a PhD student in Environment and Resources at Stanford’s School of Sustainability. Her research focuses on the international policy frameworks shaping climate adaptation and mobility, with an emphasis on environmental justice for displaced communities, rural populations, and women and girls. She examines how global institutions respond to climate vulnerability—and how they can be transformed to better support frontline communities.
Rwaida’s current work explores climate displacement and adaptation efforts across the Global South, with field research in Kenya and Central America. She is particularly focused on the lived experiences of refugees and migrants navigating environmental instability and structural inequities.
She brings over 15 years of experience in international development and humanitarian policy, including advisory roles with the World Bank Group and UNDP, and service in the Obama Administration, where she helped design the White House Power Africa Initiative. Currently, she supports adaptation finance research at Stanford's Sustainable Finance Institute as well as the Graduate School of Business's Ecopreneurship Program. -
Rachel Herring
Ph.D. Student in Environment and Resources, admitted Autumn 2024
BioRachel Herring (Choctaw Nation) is investigating pathways towards a Just Transition as an E-IPER PhD student. Previously, she has recommended policy alternatives for domestic mining with the Department of Energy’s Indian Energy Program, and has explored impacts of critical mineral extraction on Native land as a Kathryn Wasserman Davis Conflict Transformation Fellow. Additionally, as a Fulbright Fellow and National Geographic Explorer, Rachel continues to investigate the intersection between the clean energy transition and the depopulation crisis in rural Japan. She was named a Next Generation Photographer by the 2024 Japan Photo Award in Kyoto, and her work has appeared in the New York Times. She holds an MA in International Environmental Policy from the Middlebury Institute, and a BA from New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study.
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Ayako Kawano
Ph.D. Student in Environment and Resources, admitted Autumn 2022
BioAyako Kawano is a Ph.D. candidate at Stanford University. Her research interests include the impact analysis of air pollution on population health and climate change in low- and middle-income countries using remote sensing data and machine learning methods. Before coming to Stanford, she worked as a Data Scientist at UN Global Pulse and as a Program Manager at the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO).
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Emma Krasovich Southworth
Ph.D. Student in Environment and Resources, admitted Autumn 2022
BioEmma is interested in exploring how we can promote the health of people and the environment in a changing world. Her research aims to measure, value, and predict the impacts of global environmental change on our ecosystems, environmental quality, and human health. She leverages different types and scales of data, including field collected ecological data to remotely sensed data to epidemiological data on human health outcomes, and she relates these datasets together by drawing on methods and tools from various disciplines, such as machine learning, causal inference, and exposure assessment. Her current research focuses on how changes to air quality, land use, and water quality, which are three resources that are critical to the functioning of healthy ecosystems have consequences for both the environment and human health. Emma is co-advised by Erin Mordecai and Marshall Burke, and she is a NSF Graduate Research Fellow, a Stanford EDGE Fellow, and a Stanford Data Science Scholar.
Prior to starting her PhD, Emma worked as a Research Analyst at the Global Policy Lab at UC Berkeley (now at Stanford). During her time at GPL, she was part of a project that aimed to identify land-based sources of nonpoint source water pollution in national-scale river systems in New Zealand and the US Mississippi River Basin. Emma completed her MPH in global and environmental health science and global health at Columbia University and received a BA in behavioral neuroscience from Colgate University.
When she isn’t at her desk, you can find her outside - most likely running or hiking up a mountain. She also co-founded a trivia company and loves to host trivia nights to bring communities together. -
David Millman
Masters Student in Environment and Resources, admitted Spring 2025
Juris Doctor Student, LawBioDavid Millman is a writer, advocate, and Knight-Hennessy Scholar at Stanford Law School. He aspires to use law, advocacy, and public policy to help communities and the people in them, particularly by addressing inequalities, climate change, and our nation’s housing crisis. David has a wide range of legal, academic, political, and nonprofit experience ranging from being a zoning district author, a state sexual violence prevention nonprofit director, a student body president, and a candidate for local office. He aims to be a housing, community development, and civil rights attorney. His work has been featured in USA Today, AP News, Yahoo News, The Week, and many regional and local publications for advocacy around housing affordability, sexual violence prevention, local government, climate change, and food insecurity.
When he was 19 years old, David for local office in Hanover, NH to solve community issues around COVID-19 and the region's housing crisis. This effort turned into a multi-year campaign around reforming zoning laws and restoring civic participation. The exposure to local government, in combination with a long-standing fight against sexual violence, has led to a law degree at Stanford University.
He has presented work in front of town councils, state legislatures, and even the UK Parliament. While at Dartmouth College, he was the first-ever male recipient of Hannah T. Croasdale Award, which is “awarded each year to the member of the Senior Class who has made the most significant contribution to the quality of life for women at Dartmouth,” due to his longstanding commitment and work against sexual violence on campus. As Student Body President, he helped lead the campaign for the implementation of free teletherapy services on campus, establish a now-institutionalized campus food pantry, and design new campus bus routes for students to get home safely — all initiatives which continue to this day. Alongside his law degree, David is also completing an MS in Environment and Resources at the Doerr School of Sustainability. Most recently, he completed a Master’s degree at the London School of Economics (LSE) in Local Economic Development, writing a dissertation on effective strategies around empowering the homelessness in Central London. -
Karli Moore
Ph.D. Student in Environment and Resources, admitted Autumn 2021
BioKarli Moore, a member of the Lumbee Tribe, is from Prospect, North Carolina, and is pursuing a PhD in environment and resources at Stanford School of Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences. She earned bachelor's degrees in chemistry and agricultural business management from NC State University, master's degrees in agricultural economics (University of Arkansas) and rural development (Ghent University), and a graduate certificate in food policy from Arizona State University. Karli aspires to advance food sovereignty and economic development for indigenous communities through climate-smart agriculture that centers traditional ecological knowledge. She was a biodiversity coordinator at BASF, an economic fellow at the Indigenous Food and Agriculture Initiative, and a program officer at the Native American Agriculture Fund. Her work has helped guide the investment of more than $40 million for Native food systems over the past two years. She is a Udall Scholar, Park Scholar, and Mathews Medal recipient.
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Leona Neftaliem
Ph.D. Student in Environment and Resources, admitted Autumn 2022
BioLeona is pursuing a PhD in the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER) at Stanford University. Her research lies at the intersection of urban ecosystem ecology and social-ecological systems, developing new, comprehensive lenses into urban biogeochemistry using a socioecological framework. She is a Knight-Hennessy Scholar and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow.
Before Stanford, Leona worked as a research technician at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, designing technologically innovative climate change experiments, and she earned her Bachelor of Science in Biology at George Washington University. -
Fridah Nyakundi
Ph.D. Student in Environment and Resources, admitted Autumn 2021
BioFridah Nyakundi is an E-IPER PhD student whose broad research interests include productive water use, intensification of smallholder farms, land-use change and food security in Sub-Saharan Africa. Fridah graduated with a bachelor in economics and statistics (2014) and a masters of arts in economics (2016), both from the University of Nairobi. Her thesis focused on sustainably optimizing extractive forests in Kenya by calculating the optimal rotation period of three tree species that are the most harvested in Kenya.
Before her PhD program, Fridah worked as a Senior Research Associate with the International Center For Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) within the Africa region. -
Ryan OConnor
Ph.D. Student in Environment and Resources, admitted Autumn 2021
Research Asst-Graduate-Hourly, Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability - Dean's Office
SGSI Course Assistant, Vice Provost for Graduate EducationBioRyan O’Connor is an Ocean Social Ecologist and current PhD Candidate in the Oceans Department, Environmental Behavioral Sciences Department, and the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program for the Environment and Resources (E-IPER) at Stanford University. Ryan’s research focuses broadly on understanding how human societies interact with their local marine environments. His research employs an innovative blend of quantitative ecology and qualitative social science methods to elevate and highlight community voices and local ecological knowledge in ocean conservation. By understanding how a person's relationship to the ocean, personal history with nature, and social context shape individual perceptions of the marine environment, Ryan seeks to inform the co-production of sustainable ocean management programs. Ryan also teaches courses on human-ocean interaction, the history of the oceans, and ocean governance at Stanford and has supervised undergraduates on projects ranging from computer vision machine learning models for marine mammal monitoring to expert interviews of marine protected area officials. Ryan is also an Ethics in Society Fellow with the McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society at Stanford. Learn more at https://ryanoconnorresearch.com
Prior to his work at Stanford, Ryan served as an officer in the US Navy working on international logistics policy research and development. Ryan most recently worked as an environmental policy consultant and geospatial project manager for AECOM Technical Services, helping to administer the National Flood Insurance Program, leading multi-hazard mapping, policy analysis, and legislative affairs efforts in support of disaster and climate resilience across the United States.
Ryan earned his Bachelor's Degree in Environmental Science from the University of Virginia in 2017. -
Alison Ong
Ph.D. Student in Environment and Resources, admitted Autumn 2020
Master of Arts Student in Economics, admitted Autumn 2022BioAlison Ong is a PhD student in the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program for Environment and Resources. Prior to graduate school, she worked at Energy and Environmental Economics Inc. (E3) in San Francisco and most recently was a Fulbright Scholar in Melbourne, Australia. At Stanford, Alison plans to focus her doctoral research on the distributional effects of energy policy through both an economic and regulatory lens.
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Maggie Poulos
Ph.D. Student in Environment and Resources, admitted Autumn 2023
BioMaggie is a PhD student in Stanford University's E-IPER Program (short for Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources) interested in intersectional equity and blue justice through the lens of marine resource management in Kenya and Tanzania. In exploring access to resources and participation in local governance mechanisms, she studies the motivations behind and challenges to diverse participation in local marine governance, as well as opportunities for encouraging inclusion. Through a co-production of knowledge framework and related field research tools, Maggie aims to co-create applied research that makes marine policy a more diverse and equitable space for local and Indigenous communities. Before her time at Stanford, Maggie earned a Master of Public Policy from Duke University and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and International Studies from Macalester College.
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Jessica Pullen
MD Student with Scholarly Concentration in Biomedical Ethics & Medical Humanities, expected graduation Spring 2025
Masters Student in Environment and Resources, admitted Autumn 2020BioFuture health professional dedicated to improving human and planetary health
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Sergio Sánchez López
Ph.D. Student in Environment and Resources, admitted Autumn 2021
BioSergio is an environmental justice advocate. Originally from Mexico City, he has experience working in the public, private and non-profit sectors both in Mexico and the USA. He has drafted bills and policy proposals related to land management, natural resources, renewable energy, and indigenous communities. His research interests relate to how to accelerate the clean energy transition in an equitable, diverse, and inclusive way. He holds a bachelor's degree in international business from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education in Mexico, a J.D. from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, an LL.M in environmental law & policy from Stanford Law School, and is a former Schneider Fellow. Sergio is passionate about water sports and the beach.
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Meghan Marjorie Shea
Ph.D. Student in Environment and Resources, admitted Autumn 2019
BioMeghan is a PhD candidate in the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment & Resources at Stanford University, where she studies how to best use environmental DNA (eDNA)—little bits of DNA left behind by organisms in their ecosystems—for marine biodiversity monitoring. Her interdisciplinary approach blends science & technology studies and ocean sciences, drawing on her dual training as a social scientist and engineer. Working from the archives to the laboratory to the field, she advances eDNA tools while interrogating their social context and epistemic implications. Prior to her PhD, she received an MPhil in Nature, Society and Environmental Governance from Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and a BS in Environmental Systems Engineering from Stanford. When she's not thinking about environmental DNA, she loves cooking elaborate vegetarian meals, nurturing her house plants, and finding ways to spend as much time as possible on or near the ocean!
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Alyson Singleton
Ph.D. Student in Environment and Resources, admitted Autumn 2021
BioAly is a PhD student in the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment & Resources, investigating the impact of large-scale global change on infectious disease transmission and broader health dynamics. Based on the concepts of One Health and Planetary Health, she focuses on the design and evaluation of win-win solutions that can synergistically benefit human and environmental health. As we anticipate widening disease disparities under increasing climate and land-use change, her research aims to identify opportunities to prevent and mitigate these compounding harms. She approaches these topics by integrating novel computational methods, field-data collection, and epidemiologic techniques.
Prior to coming to Stanford, Aly was a Data Science Fellow at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention where she developed analytic tools for outbreak detection and triage of multiple pathogens and supported the CDC’s Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Response. She also worked at the People, Place & Health Collective at the Brown University School of Public Health while earning her undergraduate (BS, Applied Mathematics) and master's degrees (MA, Biostatistics). -
Adam Spitzig
Ph.D. Student in Environment and Resources, admitted Autumn 2024
Student Worker, Ethics In SocietyBioAdam Spitzig is an ecologist and data scientist with fourteen years of experience leading research and analytics in university labs, environmental non-profits, and tech startups.
Adam's current research uses remote sensing, satellite imagery, machine learning, and field data to understand how agricultural expansion into forests impacts biodiversity. He is also interested in the economic valuation of biodiversity in forest-agriculture landscapes. In his work, Adam seeks to support policymakers and communities in the sustainable development of forest-agriculture landscapes.
Adam holds a Bachelor of Arts (BA) from the University of Florida, a Juris Doctor (JD) and a Master of Environmental Management (MEM) from Duke University, a Master of Information & Data Science (MIDS) from UC Berkeley, and a Master in Public Administration (MPA) from Harvard University. -
Veda Sunkara
Ph.D. Student in Environment and Resources, admitted Autumn 2024
BioVeda Sunkara (she/her) is an E-IPER PhD student interested in studying disaster adaptation approaches and equity in outcomes for flood-prone communities in the face of increasing extremes due to climate change. Prior to starting her PhD, she worked as a Senior Machine Learning Engineer at Floodbase (formerly Cloud to Street), where she built machine learning algorithms to create flood maps from remotely-sensed imagery, in-situ sensors, and physics-based models for disaster planning and parametric flood insurance. She seeks to combine her earth observation and machine learning expertise with community-centered research to co-develop the data necessary to enable long term adaptation and resilience to flooding. She holds a B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science from Brown University.
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Jayson Toweh
Ph.D. Student in Environment and Resources, admitted Autumn 2021
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsAssessing the Health Impacts of the Major California Outages between 2017-2019
This research aims to investigate the relationship between major power outages and hospitalizations in California. Using outage data between 2017 and 2019, we are working to identify the hospitalization rates following outages. Additionally, we are evaluating how severe weather-caused outages can further impact hospitalizations. -
Katie Wu
Ph.D. Student in Environment and Resources, admitted Autumn 2022
Ph.D. Minor, Civil and Environmental EngineeringBioKatie's research explores how community-driven social interventions and infrastructure development impact community and climate resilience in informal settlements. Her work advances how we operationalize resilience to better inform community-based strategies, policy, and investments that support urban transformation for vulnerable populations. She incorporates participatory methods essential for driving community-led efforts, ensuring a community's deep participation in every step of the iterative analysis, planning, and decision-making processes, in collaboration with multi-sectoral partners and decision-makers. Katie integrates advanced data science techniques, including network science and graph neural networks (GNNs), with community-generated, ground-truthed data to redefine how resilience is measured and applied for more equitable, community-driven strategies for sustainable development. She uses unconventional data sources, such as satellite imagery and citizen-sourced data, to model the built and natural environment in areas with limited conventional data.
Prior to Stanford, Katie studied data science and AI for Product Innovation at Duke University, where she obtained a Master of Engineering Management (MEM). She was a Sustainability Graduate Intern at Lyft, Inc., where she completed and rebuilt their 2020 Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Inventory and Report and designed an air quality model forecasting potential health benefits of EV adoption for underserved communities. She received an M.S. in Medical Science from the University of Colorado School of Medicine and a B.S. in Animal Science with Distinction in Research from Cornell University. Katie is a Dean's Graduate Scholar in the Doerr School of Sustainability, an Emerson Consequential Scholar with the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP), a Graduate Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI (HAI), and a Stanford Dalai Lama Fellow.
