Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability


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  • Dr Lynn J. Rothschild

    Dr Lynn J. Rothschild

    Adjunct Professor, Earth & Planetary Sciences

    BioLynn J. Rothschild, a research scientist at NASA Ames and Adjunct Professor at Stanford, is a passionate astrobiologist focusing on the origin and evolution of life on Earth and elsewhere especially in the context of the physical environment, while at the same time pioneering the use of synthetic biology to enable space exploration. A graduate of Yale, Indiana University and Brown, she has brought her imagination and creativity to the burgeoning field of synthetic biology, articulating a vision for the future of synthetic biology as an enabling technology for NASA’s missions, including human space exploration and astrobiology. From 2011 through 2019 she served as the faculty advisor of the award-winning Stanford-Brown iGEM (international Genetically Engineered Machine Competition) team, which has pioneered the use of synthetic biology to accomplish NASA’s missions, particularly focusing on the human settlement of Mars, and such innovative technologies as biomining, mycotecture, BioWires, making a biodegradable UAS (drone) and an Astropharmacy. Current funded projects include developing an on-demand, personalized Astropharmacy, mycotecture and a detoxification system for perchlorates. Her lab tested select plans in space on in the PowerCell secondary payload on the DLR EuCROPIS satellite. A past-president of the Society of Protozoologists, she is a fellow of the Linnean Society of London, The California Academy of Sciences and the Explorer’s Club. She was awarded the Isaac Asimov Award from the American Humanist Association, and the Horace Mann Award from Brown University. She has been a NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) fellow five times. Lynn is an Adjunct Professor in Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Biochemistry at Brown University. She frequently appears on documentaries, TV and radio, and lectures worldwide, including Windsor Castle, Comi Con, TechFestival and the Vatican, and debated de-extinction for an Intelligence Squared USA debate.

  • Laura Schaefer

    Laura Schaefer

    Assistant Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences and, by courtesy, of Geophysics

    Current Research and Scholarly Interestsearly Earth atmosphere; planetary differentiation; rocky exoplanet atmospheric chemistry; planetary interiors; atmosphere-interior exchange on Earth-like planets; planetary habitability; Venus atmospheric evolution; volcanic gases on Io and volatile loss

  • Erik Sperling

    Erik Sperling

    Associate Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment and Associate Professor, by courtesy, of Oceans

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsThe research interests in the Sperling Lab are Earth history and the evolution of life, and the interactions between the biosphere and the geosphere. As such this research can generally be considered paleontology, insofar as paleontology encompasses all aspects of the history of life.

    Consequently, we define our research agenda by the questions we are interested in, rather than the tools used. This research incorporates multiple lines of evidence, and multiple tools, to investigate questions in the history of life. These lines of evidence include fossil data, molecular phylogenetics, sedimentary geochemistry, and developmental and ecological data from modern organisms. Ultimately, the goal is to link environmental change with organismal and ecological response through the lens of physiology.

    Our field research takes place all over the world--current areas include:

    -NW Canada (Yukon and Northwest Territories): Research has been conducted on the early Neoproterozoic Fifteenmile Group, Cryogenian and Ediacaran Windermere Supergroup, and on the Ordovician-Devonian Road River Group in the southern Richardson Mountains
    -Southern Canadian Cordillera: Work here has focused on the early Cambrian Mural Formation and its soft-bodied fauna.
    -England and Wales: Cambrian-Silurian successions in the Welsh Basin
    -Namibia: Ediacaran Nama Group
    -Upwelling zones: We study the oxygen minimum zone offshore California as an analogue for ancient low-oxygen oceans.

  • Jonathan Stebbins

    Jonathan Stebbins

    Professor of Geological Sciences, Emeritus

    Current Research and Scholarly Interestsstructure and dynamics of crystalline, glassy, and molten inorganic materials and how these relate to geologically and technologically important properties and processes; solid state Nuclear Magnetic Resoance (NMR); mineralogy; igneous petrology; glass science