Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability
Showing 1,301-1,350 of 1,368 Results
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Jane Kathryn Willenbring
Associate Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences and, by courtesy of Earth System Science
BioJane Willenbring joined Stanford as an Associate Professor in the summer of 2020. Jane is a geologist who solves problems related to the Earth surface. Her research is primarily done to understand the evolution of the Earth’s surface - especially how landscapes are affected by tectonics, climate change, and life. She and her research group use geochemical techniques, high-resolution topographic data, field observations, and, when possible, couple these data to landscape evolution numerical models and ice sheet models. The geochemical tools she uses and develops often include cosmogenic nuclide systems, which provide powerful, novel methods to constrain rates of erosion and mineral weathering. Jane has also started to organize citizen science campaigns and apply basic science principles to problems of human health with an ultimate broader impact goal of cleaning up urban areas and environments impacted by agriculture. She received her B.Sc. with honors from the North Dakota State University where she was a McNair Scholar and in the NDSU scholars program. She holds a Masters degree from Boston University. Her Ph.D. is in Earth Science from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia Canada where she was a Killam Scholar. She was a Synthesis Postdoctoral Fellow through the National Center for Earth Surface Dynamics at the Saint Anthony Falls Lab at the University of Minnesota, and an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow and then subsequently a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Helmholz GFZ Potsdam, Germany. Jane was previously an Associate Professor in the Geosciences Research Division and Thomas and Evelyn Page Chancellor's Endowed Faculty Fellow at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego where she was the director of the Scripps Cosmogenic Isotope Laboratory (SCI-Lab). She was also a tenure-track professor at the University of Pennsylvania. She will be a Stanford University Gabilan Faculty Fellow in 2021-2023. She is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America and was the inaugural recipient of the Marguerite T. Williams award from the American Geophysical Union.
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Cynthia Williams
Assistant Director, External Engagement, Precourt Institute for Energy
Current Role at StanfordAssistant Director, External Engagement, Stanford Precourt Institute for Energy
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Earle Wilson
Assistant Professor of Earth System Science, by courtesy, of Geophysics, of Oceans and Center Fellow, by courtesy, at the Woods Institute for the Environment
BioEarle Wilson is an assistant professor in the Department of Earth System Science. He is a physical oceanographer who studies ocean dynamics at high latitudes and their far-reaching impacts on the global climate. He is particularly interested in the circulation of the Southern Ocean and its interactions with the cryosphere (i.e., sea ice and marine-terminating glaciers). Dr. Wilson and his group explore these research questions using various tools and methods, ranging from in situ ocean observations and idealized numerical models.
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Frank Wolak
Holbrook Working Professor of Price Theory and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute, at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and at the Precourt Institute for Energy
BioFrank A. Wolak is the Holbrook Working Professor of Commodity Price Studies in the Department of Economics and the Director of the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development at Stanford University. His research and teaching focuses on design, performance, and monitoring of energy and environmental markets. He served as Chair of the Market Surveillance Committee (MSC) of the California Independent System Operator and was a member of the Emissions Market Advisory Committee (EMAC) for California’s Market for Greenhouse Gas Emissions allowances.
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Philip Womble
Postdoctoral Scholar, Earth System Science
BioPhilip Womble is an attorney and a hydrologist specializing in water policy and water markets. He is a legal/postdoctoral fellow with the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University. Philip received his Ph.D. in Environment and Resources from Stanford and his J.D. from Stanford Law School, where his research evaluated optimal environmental water rights marketing in the Upper Colorado River Basin, barriers to water marketing in the state of Colorado, and Native American groundwater claims across the western United States. His work has been published in journals such as Science, Water Resources Research, and the Harvard Environmental Law Review. During graduate school, Philip worked for the Special Master in the U.S. Supreme Court interstate water dispute Montana v. Wyoming, The Nature Conservancy's Colorado River Program, and a water law firm. Before graduate school, he worked for the Environmental Law Institute in Washington, DC, where he analyzed the most established market for freshwater ecosystem services in the United States – wetland and stream compensatory mitigation under the Clean Water Act. Philip grew up in North Carolina, where he received his B.S. in Environmental Sciences from UNC-Chapel Hill.
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H.-S. Philip Wong
Willard R. and Inez Kerr Bell Professor in the School of Engineering
BioH.-S. Philip Wong is the Willard R. and Inez Kerr Bell Professor in the School of Engineering at Stanford University. He joined Stanford University as Professor of Electrical Engineering in 2004. From 1988 to 2004, he was with the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. From 2018 to 2020, he was on leave from Stanford and was the Vice President of Corporate Research at TSMC, the largest semiconductor foundry in the world, and since 2020 remains the Chief Scientist of TSMC in a consulting, advisory role.
He is a Fellow of the IEEE and received the IEEE Andrew S. Grove Award, the IEEE Technical Field Award to honor individuals for outstanding contributions to solid-state devices and technology, as well as the IEEE Electron Devices Society J.J. Ebers Award, the society’s highest honor to recognize outstanding technical contributions to the field of electron devices that have made a lasting impact.
He is the founding Faculty Co-Director of the Stanford SystemX Alliance – an industrial affiliate program focused on building systems and the faculty director of the Stanford Nanofabrication Facility – a shared facility for device fabrication on the Stanford campus that serves academic, industrial, and governmental researchers across the U.S. and around the globe, sponsored in part by the National Science Foundation. He is the Principal Investigator of the Microelectronics Commons California-Pacific-Northwest AI Hardware Hub, a consortium of over 40 companies and academic institutions funded by the CHIPS Act. He is a member of the US Department of Commerce Industrial Advisory Committee on microelectronics. -
Jeffrey Wong
Research Administrator 3, Earth & Planetary Sciences
Current Role at StanfordJeff is responsible for supporting the Earth & Planetary Sciences Department’s sponsored grants portfolio and faculty members' financial accounts. Jeff assists faculty members with budgeting and submitting sponsored research proposals, and managing the financial aspects of their sponsored awards. Additionally, Jeff serves as a department financial liaison with other university departments and schools, the Office of Sponsored Research and other academic institutions involved in collaborative research projects.
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Gabrielle Wong-Parodi
Assistant Professor of Earth System Science, Center Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment and Assistant Professor at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsTrained as an interdisciplinary social scientist theoretically grounded in psychology and decision science, my work has two aims. First, to understand how people make decisions to address the impacts of climate change. Second, to understand how robust interventions can empower people to make decisions that serve their lives, communities, and society.
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Jane Woodward
Adjunct Professor, Atmosphere and Energy
BioJane Woodward has been an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University since 1991 where she has taught classes on energy and environment. She currently plays supporting roles on the teaching teams for Understanding Energy and Stanford Climate Ventures. Jane also serves on Stanford’s Precourt Institute for Energy Advisory Council and founded and or funds a variety of sustainable energy education initiatives at Stanford.
Jane is a founder and Managing Partner of WovenEarth Ventures, an early-stage energy climate venture and project fund of funds and she is an investor and advisor or director of several early-stage sustainable energy companies and funds.
Jane is a Founding Partner at MAP Energy, an energy investment firm currently focused on oil and gas royalty interests. MAP is one of the longest-standing private energy investment fund management firms in the U.S. MAP began investing in natural gas mineral rights in 1987, wind energy in 2004, utility scale solar in 2015 and energy storage in 2017. In December 2020, MAP sold its renewable energy and energy storage assets under management to Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP).
In 2016, Jane created The Foster Museum, a 14,000-square-foot art venue in Palo Alto, to share artist-explorer Tony Foster’s powerful exhibitions of watercolor journeys with an intention to inspire connection to the natural world.
Prior to founding MAP in 1987, Jane worked as an exploration geologist with ARCO Exploration Company and later as a petroleum engineering consultant to Stanford University’s endowment.
Jane has a BS in Geology from UC Santa Barbara, an MS in Engineering and Petroleum Geology, and an MBA, both from Stanford University. -
Katie Wu
Ph.D. Student in Environment and Resources, admitted Autumn 2022
BioKatie is interested in using large-scale data analysis and AI to understand how infrastructure development impacts human and planetary health in urban contexts. Specifically, she focuses on improving social connectedness and well-being for climate resilience. She aims to develop adaptive decision support tools to identify and implement optimal development strategies prioritizing resource access, equity, human health, and nature.
Katie holds a Master of Engineering Management from Duke University, 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. She is a Dean's Graduate Scholar, a Graduate Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI (HAI), and a Stanford Dalai Lama Fellow. -
Hong Yang
Ph.D. Student in Geological Sciences, admitted Autumn 2018
BioHong Yang is currently a PhD student in Geological Science working with Wendy L. Mao. He joined Mao’s lab at Stanford University in 2018, after finishing his Master’s Degree at HPSTAR, Shanghai, where he was supervised by Jung-Fu Lin. His Master’s thesis focused on the experimental determination of iron isotopic fractionation behavior of lower mantle phases using the Synchrotron X-ray technique NRIXS. Before that, he was an undergraduate majoring in Geochemistry at the University of Science and Technology of China. There he performed the quality assessment of bottled drinking water and water from Lake Chao under Fang Huang’s supervision.
Hong’s research interests include the chemical (especially isotopic) evolution of the Earth and other planetary bodies; structure and sound velocities of iron-alloys at high pressure; pressure-induced electronic, magnetic, elastic and structural transitions in materials; as well as high pressure photon science. His recent research was published on Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 506, 113-122 (2019), entitled “Iron isotopic fractionation in mineral phases from Earth’s lower mantle: Did terrestrial magma ocean crystallization fractionate iron isotopes?”. -
Audrey Yau
Director, Stanford Energy Fellowships, Precourt Institute for Energy
BioAs a Director in the Precourt Institute for Energy and the Sustainability Accelerator in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, Audrey is responsible for the overall strategic and operational leadership for the Stanford Energy Postdoctoral Fellowship, the Summer Undergraduate Program on Energy Research, and the Stanford Sustainability Accelerator Fellowship. In her role, Audrey develops educational experiences that connect academic learning with real world impact for undergraduates and postdoctoral scholars in Stanford's newest school.
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David Zhen Yin
Research Scientist
BioDavid Zhen Yin is the co-founder and program director of Stanford Mineral-X to lead the research of sustainable critical minerals explorations for renewable energy transitions. He is also the principal scientist at Stanford Center for Earth Resources Forecasting and Co-PI of the Stanford-KoBold collaboration. He develops data-scientific approaches for prediction, uncertainty quantification, and decision-making in critical earth resources exploration and development.
David developed broad experience working with complex projects involving academia and industry and broad knowledge of the fields. His research delivered several key technologies transferred as in-house technologies in Chevron, Equinor, and KoBold. In addition, his research developments have been implemented on various subjects, from Antarctica bed topography modeling, critical mineral explorations in Canada/China/US, and the North Sea and Gulf of Mexico projects.
Before joining Stanford, David was a Research Associate at Edinburgh Time-Lapse Project in Scotland, leading a geophysical monitoring research project in collaboration with Equinor from 2016 to 2018. He was also a technology consultant at Equinor's Research Center in Bergen, Norway. Then, he was a Chevron CoRE Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford from 2018 to 2021.
David received his Ph.D. in Geosciences from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK, in 2016. His research interests include data science for geosciences, geological uncertainty quantification, and decision-making under uncertainty. He has authored one book and tens of articles in peer-reviewed journals and international conferences. -
Leehi Yona
Ph.D. Student in Environment and Resources, admitted Autumn 2018
Juris Doctor Student, LawCurrent Research and Scholarly InterestsLeehi studies greenhouse gas inventories and how governments and corporations use (or misuse) scientific knowledge in climate law and policy. She is particularly interested in how these actors account for their greenhouse gas emissions and in the gaps between scientifically measured and politically accounted-for emissions.
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Jessica Yu
Postdoctoral Scholar, Earth System Science
BioJessica Yu joined the Climate and Energy Policy Program (CEPP) and the Woods Institute for the Environment as a Postdoctoral Fellow in September 2022. Her current research focuses on the development of generalized public health guidance and best practices for protecting vulnerable populations from the health impacts of wildfire smoke. Working within an interdisciplinary team at CEPP, her goal is to continue applying and expanding her scientific skills to address the emerging threats of wildfire and other climate change-related policy challenges in California and beyond.
Prior to joining Stanford, she completed her PhD in Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia and an MSc in Global Health at McMaster University, where she worked on occupational and environmental health research with slum and mining communities in India and South Africa. Beyond academia, she's interested in learning how policy, technology, and social entrepreneurship can be leveraged to address inequalities in global environmental health and devise pro-equity and community-level solutions. -
Miki Yu
Assistant Director, Strategic Energy Alliance, Precourt Institute for Energy
BioMiki Yu joined Precourt Institute for Energy (PIE) as an Event and Outreach Program Planner. In this role she will help shape the programs that PIE, TomKat Center and GCEP offer as they build greater visibility within the Stanford community, the energy community at large, and throughout the world.
Miki started at Stanford working for the Office of Development in 2002, where she reported to the Vice President’s office. She then joined the Stanford Challenge Campaign as an initial team member, working with OOD partners and engaging volunteers and donors at every stage to build and direct momentum for The Stanford Challenge campaign. She was instrumental in executing the Leading Matters component of the campaign, which achieved record breaking attendance and engagement results. -
Xueying Yu
Postdoctoral Scholar, Earth System Science
BioMy research interests include atmospheric chemistry, greenhouse gas emissions, satellite remote sensing retrievals, and carbon mitigation. I use inverse modeling and other data-driven approaches to address the above issues across multiple scales, in particular, to quantify methane emissions from point source level to the global budget.
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Yifan Yu
Ph.D. Student in Geophysics, admitted Autumn 2022
BioYifan is a PhD student in Geophysics, advised by Prof. Greg Beroza. His research interests include earthquake source study, location, and machine learning. He received bachelor degree in geophysics from Nanjing University.
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Emily Juliette Zakem
Assist Prof (By Courtesy), Earth System Science
BioEmily Zakem is a Principal Investigator at the Department of Global Ecology at the Carnegie Institution for Science. Previously, she was a Simons Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Marine Microbial Ecology at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. She completed her Ph.D. in Climate Physics and Chemistry in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In her research, she aims to improve understanding of the connections between microbial ecosystems, global biogeochemistry, and the climate system. She uses theory and mathematical models to understand how microbial ecology drives carbon, nitrogen, and other elemental cycling. She develops broadly applicable models of microbial populations, grounded in underlying chemical and physical constraints, in order to robustly predict the biogeochemistry of past, present, and future environments.
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Richard Zare
Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor of Natural Science and Professor, by courtesy, of Physics
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMy research group is exploring a variety of topics that range from the basic understanding of chemical reaction dynamics to the nature of the chemical contents of single cells.
Under thermal conditions nature seems to hide the details of how elementary reactions occur through a series of averages over reagent velocity, internal energy, impact parameter, and orientation. To discover the effects of these variables on reactivity, it is necessary to carry out studies of chemical reactions far from equilibrium in which the states of the reactants are more sharply restricted and can be varied in a controlled manner. My research group is attempting to meet this tough experimental challenge through a number of laser techniques that prepare reactants in specific quantum states and probe the quantum state distributions of the resulting products. It is our belief that such state-to-state information gives the deepest insight into the forces that operate in the breaking of old bonds and the making of new ones.
Space does not permit a full description of these projects, and I earnestly invite correspondence. The following examples are representative:
The simplest of all neutral bimolecular reactions is the exchange reaction H H2 -> H2 H. We are studying this system and various isotopic cousins using a tunable UV laser pulse to photodissociate HBr (DBr) and hence create fast H (D) atoms of known translational energy in the presence of H2 and/or D2 and using a laser multiphoton ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometer to detect the nascent molecular products in a quantum-state-specific manner by means of an imaging technique. It is expected that these product state distributions will provide a key test of the adequacy of various advanced theoretical schemes for modeling this reaction.
Analytical efforts involve the use of capillary zone electrophoresis, two-step laser desorption laser multiphoton ionization mass spectrometry, cavity ring-down spectroscopy, and Hadamard transform time-of-flight mass spectrometry. We believe these methods can revolutionize trace analysis, particularly of biomolecules in cells. -
Howard Zebker
Professor of Electrical Engineering and of Geophysics
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsResearch
My students and I study the surfaces of Earth and planets using radar remote sensing methods. Our specialization is interferometric radar, or InSAR. InSAR is a technique to measure mm-scale surface deformation at fine resolution over wide areas, and much of our work follows from applying this technique to the study of earthquakes, volcanoes, and human-induced subsidence. We also address global environmental problems by tracking the movement of ice in the polar regions. whose ice mass balance affects sea level rise and global climate. We participate in NASA space missions such as Cassini, in which we now are examining the largest moon of Saturn, Titan, to try and deduce its composition and evolution. Our work includes experimental observation and modeling the measurements to best understand processes affecting the Earth and solar system. We use data acquired by spaceborne satellites and by large, ground-based radar telescopes to support our research.
Teaching
I teach courses related to remote sensing methods and applications, and how these methods can be used to study the world around us. At the undergraduate level, these include introductory remote sensing uses of the full electromagnetic spectrum to characterize Earth and planetary surfaces and atmospheres, and methods of digital image processing. I also teach a freshman and sophomore seminar course on natural hazards. At the graduate level, the courses are more specialized, including the math and physics of two-dimensional imaging systems, plus detailed ourses on imaging radar systems for geophysical applications.
Professional Activities
InSAR Review Board, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (2006-present); editorial board, IEEE Proceedings (2005-present); NRC Earth Science and Applications from Space Panel on Solid Earth Hazards, Resources, and Dynamics (2005-present); Chair, Western North America InSAR (WInSAR) Consortium (2004-06); organizing committee, NASA/NSF/USGS InSAR working group; International Union of Radioscience (URSI) Board of Experts for Medal Evaluations (2004-05); National Astronomy and Ionospheric Center, Arecibo Observatory, Visiting Committee, (2002-04; chair, 2003-04); NASA Alaska SAR Facility users working group (2000-present); associate editor, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing (1998-present); fellow, IEEE (1998) -
Markus Zechner
Adjunct Professor, Earth & Planetary Sciences
BioMarkus Zechner earned an MS degree in petroleum engineering from Mining University of Leoben. He joined OMV in 2008 as a reservoir engineer in Gaenserndorf, Austria. Zechner worked on gas, gas condensate, and oil reservoirs in the Vienna basin. During 2011 through 2013, he worked on the Technology and
Reservoir Engineering Teams in the OMV Head Office on CO2 injection and sequestration, water injection under fracturing
conditions, and polymer injection. In 2013, Zechner started his PhD degree at Stanford University on uncertainty quantification of enhanced oil recovery processes.
