Stanford University


Showing 61-80 of 108 Results

  • James Leape

    James Leape

    William and Eva Price Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment and Professor, by courtesy, of Oceans

    BioJim Leape serves as co-director of the Center for Ocean Solutions and is the William and Eva Price Senior Fellow in the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. Through research, writing, and direct engagement with private and public sector leaders, Jim looks at how to drive large-scale systemic shifts to sustainability, with particular interest in expanding private sector leadership on sustainability globally.

    Jim has four decades of conservation experience, spanning a broad range of conservation issues on every continent. From 2005 to 2014, he served as Director General of WWF International and leader of the global WWF Network, which is one of the world’s largest conservation organizations, active in more than 100 countries. In that capacity, he worked with government, business and civil society leaders on a wide range of issues, including climate change, marine conservation, forest protection, water resources management, and sustainability in global commodity markets. Before going to WWF International, Jim directed the conservation and science initiatives of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, a leading philanthropy in the U.S. Previously, he served as executive vice president of WWF-US in Washington, D.C.; as a lawyer for the United Nations Environment Programme in Nairobi, Kenya; as a law professor; and as a litigator for the National Audubon Society and for the U.S. Department of Justice.

    Jim has served on the boards of the Marine Stewardship Council, Mission 2020 and the Luc Hoffmann Institute, and on the Global Future Council for the Food Security and the Environmental Stewards Board of the World Economic Forum. From 2007 to 2017, he was a member of the China Council for International Cooperation in Environment and Development, which advises the Premier of China. He is also a Distinguished Fellow at the ClimateWorks Foundation.

    Leape received an A.B. with honors from Harvard College and a J.D. with honors from Harvard Law School.

    Jim serves on the boards of the Marine Stewardship Council, Mission 2020 and the Luc Hoffmann Institute, and on the Global Future Council for the Food Security and the Environmental Stewards Board of the World Economic Forum. From 2007 to 2017, he was a member of the China Council for International Cooperation in Environment and Development, which advises the Premier of China. He is also a Distinguished Fellow at the ClimateWorks Foundation.

    Leape received an A.B. with honors from Harvard College and a J.D. with honors from Harvard Law School.

  • Justin Leidwanger

    Justin Leidwanger

    Associate Professor of Classics and, by courtesy, of Oceans

    BioJustin Leidwanger's research focuses on Mediterranean mobilities and connectivity, maritime livelihoods, and their heritage. Ships and ports are central to exploring these themes, providing evidence for the long-term dynamics that shaped coastal communities economically, socially, and politically. He is drawn to the long arc of the Roman Mediterranean, especially its temporal edges, from the emergence of Hellenistic states to the long Late Antiquity and beyond. Through a focus on diverse but co-dependent seaborne interactions that have and continue to define the Mediterranean, this work aligns critical engagement with the past, advocacy for local communities in the present, and sustainable development for the future.

    Current collaborative fieldwork in Sardinia with the University of Sassari examines the socio-environmental dynamics spanning three millennia of tuna trap fisheries (tonnare). In Croatia, joint excavation with the Croatian Conservation Institute of a wreck carrying a high-ranking individual and perhaps a goldsmith around 700 CE sheds new light on the transformation of interactions at the end of antiquity (featured in National Geographic, Reuters, and elsewhere). A maritime landscape survey with Dokuz Eylül University in southwest Türkiye explores the impacts of early Hellenistic sociopolitical shifts on local economies and mobilities.

    Previously, Justin co-directed investigations (2011-2015) at the Archaic through Late Antique harbors of Burgaz (“Old Knidos”) in Türkiye, and led excavations (2013-2019) of the 6th-century Marzamemi 2 “church wreck” off Sicily, which carried 100 tons of marble architectural elements. Work in Sicily continues through 3D and other analyses of the assemblage as well as immersive museum-based and other heritage initiatives that link past and present. One facet of this work mobilizes archaeology to understand the creation and circulation of plastics as maritime material assemblages, offering a new vantage point on socio-environmental systems. Another uses archaeology to foreground heritage activism through the spaces, materialities, and memories of forced and undocumented migration across these waters.

    On campus, he teaches courses and advises students on topics in Hellenistic, Roman, and Late Antique archaeology, Mediterranean heritage, economies and interaction, port networks, ceramic production and exchange, archaeological theory, and Greco-Roman architecture and engineering. The Maritime Archaeology & Digital Heritage Lab (MEDLab) at the Archaeology Center serves as a fieldwork base and collaborative resource for shipwreck and harbor archaeology, digital modeling (structured light scanning, laser scanning, photogrammetry, GIS, network visualization), and pottery analysis (petrography, pXRF, computational morphological analysis, finite element method, experimental archaeology).

    Author of Roman Seas: A Maritime Archaeology of Eastern Mediterranean Economies (Oxford), and editor or co-editor of various volumes, including Maritime Networks in the Ancient Mediterranean World (Cambridge), Regional Economies in Action (Vienna), and Across the Shore: Integrating Perspective on Maritime Heritage (Springer), he is currently working on two books. The first, Fluid Technologies: Innovation on the Ancient Mediterranean, examines the interdependence of maritime logistics in Greco-Roman economies, from transport amphora standardization to changes in ship design and port infrastructure. The second, The Tuna Trap, uses the distinctive practices surrounding community fisheries to shed light on the entanglement of human and non-human mobilities across central Mediterranean waters.

  • Peter Mastnak

    Peter Mastnak

    Ph.D. Student in Oceans, admitted Autumn 2024

    BioPeter is a PhD student in the Oceans department, leveraging his interdisciplinary expertise to develop advanced computational models that predict the movement patterns of large marine predators in response to environmental change. With a Master's degree in Computer Science from KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Peter's research bridges computational science with oceanography, applying advanced mathematical modeling techniques to ecological data while incorporating international policy and economic considerations—a truly interdisciplinary approach to addressing complex marine conservation challenges.
    His work focuses on synthesizing diverse environmental variables and large-scale climate phenomena to forecast shifts in marine species distribution, ultimately informing evidence-based policy for ocean protection and sustainable fisheries management. Peter is pioneering innovative technological solutions—from advanced sensor networks to sophisticated predictive software—designed to address global oceanic ecosystem threats. Through this synthesis of computational rigor and conservation science, he strives to transform how we understand, monitor, and protect our ocean ecosystems for future generations.

  • Fiorenza Micheli

    Fiorenza Micheli

    David and Lucile Packard Professor of Marine Science, Professor of Oceans and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsDr Fiorenza Micheli is a marine ecologist and conservation biologist conducting research and teaching at the Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University. Micheli’s research focuses on the processes shaping marine communities and incorporating this understanding in the management and conservation of marine ecosystems. She is a Pew Fellow, a fellow of the California Academy of Science and the Aldo Leopold Leadership Program, and past president of the Western Society of Naturalists.

  • Stephen Monismith

    Stephen Monismith

    Obayashi Professor in the School of Engineering and Professor of Oceans

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsHydrodynamics of lakes, estuaries, coral reefs, kelp forests and the coastal ocean

  • Carolina Olguin Jacobson

    Carolina Olguin Jacobson

    Postdoctoral Scholar, Oceans

    BioMy research focuses on socio-ecological systems within fishery cooperatives in Baja California, Mexico, exploring their resilience and adaptation strategies to climate change and COVID-19 impacts through oceanographic and ecological monitoring. Working with marine protected areas and climate refugia areas.