Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability
Showing 1-37 of 37 Results
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Paul Burow
Postdoctoral Scholar, Earth System Science
BioI am a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Earth System Science at Stanford University. In July 2027, I will join the faculty as Assistant Professor in the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley. 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 forest 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. -
Xinyu Dou
Postdoctoral Scholar, Earth System Science
BioStanford Energy Fellow
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Garrett Finucane
Postdoctoral Scholar, Earth System Science
BioI'm a physical oceanographer!
https://garrettfinucane.com/ -
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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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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Langlang Li
Postdoctoral Scholar, Earth System Science
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsEnvironmental geochemistry, hydrology, and plant nutrient supply
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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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Benjamin Maki
Postdoctoral Scholar, Earth System Science
BioBen joined Stanford's Earth System Science department as a postdoctoral scholar in February 2026. He is currently working on a series of projects related to the sustainable management of groundwater resources in California's Central Valley, where his work is focused within the context of managed aquifer recharge (MAR). MAR is a suite of methods used to redirect excess surface water into groundwater systems and has emerged as a key strategy to bank freshwater and restore groundwater levels throughout California. More specifically, his work focuses on better understanding the potential risks to groundwater quality posed by naturally occurring geogenic contaminants during recharge efforts, where changes to native geochemical conditions during recharge can result in the inadvertent mobilization of toxic naturally occurring contaminants, such as arsenic, uranium, chromium, and manganese. Current work funded through the Stanford Sustainability Accelerator, and in partnership with the Madera Irrigation District among other community partners, aims to establish a simple, functional multi-user focused toolkit to aid in effectively and safely scaling groundwater recharge efforts throughout the state. Importantly, this work focuses on both understanding community level concerns during local groundwater recharge projects, while simultaneously establishing effective groundwater quality monitoring protocols and designing simple, scalable, and effective field-scale management solutions to protect long-term groundwater quality.
Prior to joining Stanford, Ben completed his Ph.D. in Environmental Toxicology, with a designated emphasis in Public Policy, at the University of California Riverside (UCR). His dissertation research focused on assessing the mechanistic controls driving inadvertent geogenic metals solubilization and transformation within MAR systems designed to infiltrate untreated stormwater runoff using recharge basins on agricultural lands in the Pajaro Valley, CA. These systems were uniquely designed to remediate nitrate contamination within infiltrating stormwater via the application of carbon based (e.g., woodchips, almond shells, etc.) horizontal permeable reactive barriers, installed within basin surface soils, where carbon solubilization effectively stimulated native microbial communities to reduce and remediate excess nitrate during infiltration. However, the conditions that promote denitrification (e.g., excess organic carbon and shifts to oxygen depleted conditions) can also result in the solubilization of geogenic metals from soils. Ben’s dissertation work employed novel methods to assess how these processes were influenced by excess organic carbon availability and redox cycling, representative of the cycling wet and dry condition in basin soils during recharge, to better understand the balance between water quality tradeoffs and consider system management strategies to maximize water quality benefits while reducing risks. Preceding his time at UCR, Ben received a BS in Environmental Science from Western Washington University, where he studied the influences of amorphous iron oxyhydroxides and biological amendments on arsenic and iron bioavailability, fate, and transport in soils.
When not thinking about groundwater replenishment, Ben enjoys time with friends, family, and his partner Al and dog Rupert. He spends the bulk of his free time surfing on the California coast, exploring the Bay Area by bicycle and campervan, traveling to as many new places as possible, and enjoying live music, and good food and company along the way! -
Eric Mayer
Postdoctoral Scholar, Earth System Science
BioEnding catastrophic wildfires by making biochar.
Eric Mayer earned a PhD in Environmental Engineering from Stanford University (2020), where he studied fluid mechanics and published research parameterizing lee-wave drag for ocean circulation models, tangentially improving global climate simulations.
Graduating in the early months of the pandemic and eager to act on the implications of his research, Eric went looking for a more immediate way to effect the climate crisis. Upon learning of biochar’s potential for rapidly-scalable carbon sequestration and the simple technologies already developed for on-site biochar production, Eric founded the biochar-as-a-service company Napachar. Today, you can find Napachar in the vineyards and forests of Napa and Sonoma, California, diverting pulled vines and forestry slash from burn piles to bake in flame-cap biochar kilns, returning "waste" carbon to the soil.
Beginning in the spring of 2026, Eric returned to Stanford in a postdoctoral position with the Woods Institute for the Environment and the Doerr School of Sustainability Accelerator, with the mission of ending catastrophic wildfire in fire-adapted forests by making biochar. -
Alireza Namayandeh
Postdoctoral Scholar, Earth System Science
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsAlireza Namayandeh’s research focuses on the formation, transformation, and environmental impacts of metal-bearing nanoparticles in soil, water, and air, with a particular emphasis on their role in wildfire-generated pollution. His work investigates how wildfires contribute to the release and transport of toxic metal nanoparticles, assessing their chemical and physical properties and their implications for human health and ecosystem contamination.
His current research, supported by the NSF Earth Science Postdoctoral Fellowship, explores the mechanisms by which biomass burning generates toxic airborne nanoparticles and how soil mineralogy influences their formation. By combining laboratory experiments, synchrotron-based spectroscopy, electron microscopy, and field studies, he aims to better understand the pathways of metal mobilization during wildfires. He is also leading efforts to analyze ash and soil samples from recent wildfires in California, including the Eaton and Palisade fires in Los Angeles, to assess the risks associated with airborne metal nanoparticles.
Beyond wildfire-driven pollution, he is interested in the fundamental geochemistry of nanoparticle formation and transport. His previous work on precursor clusters of iron oxy-hydroxides provided new insights into the formation of metal-bearing nanoparticles and their role in controlling contaminant mobility in the environment. He continues to explore how ultrafine particles interact with toxic metals, organic matter, and microbial communities in both terrestrial and atmospheric systems.
His broader scholarly interests include wildfire geochemistry, atmospheric particulate matter, environmental mineralogy, and the intersection of environmental geochemistry and public health. His goal is to develop a deeper understanding of how natural and anthropogenic processes influence the formation and dispersion of hazardous nanoparticles, ultimately contributing to improved air quality standards, risk assessment models, and environmental policies in wildfire-prone regions. -
Marcus Nobrega Gomes Jr
Postdoctoral Scholar, Earth System Science
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsBy recreating high-resolution flood maps for the last 50 years in California, my research aims to cross-correlate flood hazard maps with medical records to investigate whether a causal relation exists.
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Lamprini Papargyri
Postdoctoral Scholar, Earth System Science
BioLamprini Papargyri is a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University co-advised by Professor Steve Davis and Dr. Ken Caldeira. She earned her PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Cyprus, where she worked under the guidance of Professor Panos Papanastasiou to optimize the durability of materials used in photovoltaic systems. Her doctoral research employed advanced computational modeling using 3D finite element methods and XFEM to simulate stress, cracking, and degradation mechanisms in photovoltaic materials.
At Stanford, Lamprini’s research lies at the intersection of climate policy, economics, and equity. Her current work explores how economies with income inequality can optimally allocate resources between income redistribution and emissions abatement. Beyond research, she has led and contributed to multi-million-euro research initiatives across Europe and remains deeply interested in the societal and ethical dimensions of emerging technologies. Broadly, she is interested in developing integrated models that inform equitable and sustainable pathways for climate mitigation and economic development. -
Rafael Stern
Postdoctoral Scholar, Earth System Science
BioRafael Stern’s research focuses on the natural processes and mechanisms that regulate methane exchange between tropical forests and the atmosphere. He works with a network of eddy-covariance, ecological, and meteorological research stations across the Amazon rainforest, tropical Africa, and Asia.
Rafael earned his Ph.D. in Earth and Planetary Sciences from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, where he was advised by Professor Dan Yakir. His doctoral research used a mobile eddy-covariance system to compare the biogeophysical and biogeochemical effects of different ecosystems and photovoltaic fields in drylands. He holds an M.Sc. in Climate and Environment from the National Institute of Amazonian Research in Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil, where he was advised by Professor Paulo Artaxo and studied the physical and chemical properties of atmospheric particles during the Amazon forest-fire season. He also holds a B.Sc. in Geography from the Department of Geosciences at Universidade Federal Fluminense in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Rafael was born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. -
Jacob VanderRoest
Postdoctoral Scholar, Earth System Science
BioJacob started as a postdoctoral scholar in Dr. Scott Fendorf's lab in August 2026. Jacob graduated from Hope College in 2021 with a B.S. in chemistry and a geology minor and graduated from Colorado State University in 2026 with a PhD in analytical chemistry from Dr. Thomas Borch's lab. During his time at Colorado State University, Jacob investigated the impacts of wildfires on soil organic matter chemistry and carbon cycling. In Dr. Fendorf's lab at Stanford, Jacob is studying plastic contamination in compost alongside further wildfire research determining the organic carbon composition of wildfire smoke. Outside of work, Jacob enjoys trail running, swimming, playing board games, being impressed at the size of redwood trees, and teaching salsa and bachata dancing.
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Margaret Weng
Postdoctoral Scholar, Earth System Science
BioMaggie Weng is a NASA postdoctoral fellow in the Dekas lab at Stanford University. Her research focuses on understanding molybdenum availability and uptake strategies at deep-sea methane seeps. She uses culture-independent techniques including metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, and stable isotope probing to understand whole-community dynamics. She earned her PhD from Georgetown University in 2024 with Dr. Sarah Stewart Johnson, where her research focused on microbes in hypersaline environments, and her bachelor's degree in 2019 from Washington University in St. Louis. She is interested in microbial persistence at the edge of possibility, including extreme environments and polluted sites, and how microbial communities contribute to bioremediation and ecosystem stability. She always says yes to fieldwork and as a consequence has found herself in the Atacama Desert, Kerlingarfjöll, Iceland, and Western Australia as well as a commercial salt factory in San Diego, CA. When not in the lab she is an avid writer, hiker and knitter. Her fiction and nonfiction writing have appeared in The Los Angeles Review and Northern Woodlands magazine. When out in the woods, she appreciates a good biofilm almost as much as a good view.
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Weiwei Zhan
Postdoctoral Scholar, Earth System Science
BioI study the coupling between the global carbon and water cycles under climate change. Specifically, I investigate how plants regulate carbon uptake and water loss as atmospheric CO2 rises and water limitation intensifies, and how these responses feed back on the global environment. I develop hybrid physics–machine learning approaches and combine them with the expanding record of satellite and in situ observations to test hypotheses about ecosystem function.
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Zhenglin Zhang
Postdoctoral Scholar, Earth System Science
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsClimate change mitigation and sustainable nutrient management in agroecosystems
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Xiaojian Zheng
Postdoctoral Scholar, Earth System Science
BioDr. Xiaojian Zheng is a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Earth System Science at Stanford University, working with Dr. Yuan Wang. His research targets aerosol–cloud–climate interactions, combining ground-based, airborne, and satellite observations with global and convection-permitting models, and leveraging machine learning throughout the analysis.
Xiaojian's current research directions span deep learning-based estimates of regime-dependent aerosol–cloud interactions, machine-learning emulation of aerosol microphysics inside Earth System models, and the circulation control of convection, heatwaves, and regional air quality.
