Bio


Diana Gragg is the Managing Director of the Explore Energy program at the Precourt Institute for Energy.  Explore Energy is a student-engagement program that helps students navigate the variety of energy opportunities, courses, majors, internships/fellowships, and job opportunities related to energy across all of Stanford's seven schools.  Explore Energy also offers energy-related programs and courses for students, including Energy@Stanford&SLAC, Shultz Energy Fellowships, Summer Undergraduate Program on Energy Research (SUPER), and Energy Seminar.

Diana is also a Core Lecturer in the Civil & Environmental Engineering Department at Stanford University. She teaches a CEE/EarthSys course called Understanding Energy in the fall and spring and a related CEE course called Understanding Energy: Essentials during the summer as part of Summer Session. She delivers the course along with Jane Woodward and Kirsten Stasio.

Diana has a B.S. from the University of California, Berkeley in Chemical Engineering (2000), and M.S. and PhD degrees in the Atmosphere/Energy program in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford (2012). Her dissertation focused on atmospheric gas-phase and aqueous-phase chemistry and investigated the impact of ethanol (E85) use on urban air pollution. She was a Schneider Fellow at the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington, D.C. working on transportation advocacy in the summer of 2005.

She worked for the Dow Chemical Company as a production engineer at a chlorine facility and as a project lead on energy efficiency projects from 2000 to 2004, and as a post-doctoral scholar investigating different areas of sustainable transportation at the Precourt Energy Efficiency Center at Stanford from 2012 to 2015. She grew up in Houston, Texas. She is an environmentalist and animal lover who enjoys hiking, running, skiing, playing water polo, hanging out with friends and family, connecting with students, and anything that involves spending time with her four kids, her husband Mike, and her dog Gus.

Current Role at Stanford


Managing Director, Explore Energy, Precourt Institute for Energy
Core Lecturer, Civil and Environmental Engineering

Education & Certifications


  • BS, University of California Berkeley, Chemical Engineering (2000)
  • MS, Stanford University, CEE Atmosphere/Energy (2005)
  • PhD, Stanford University, CEE Atmosphere/Energy (2012)
  • Postdoc, Stanford University, Precourt Energy Efficiency Center (2015)

2024-25 Courses


All Publications