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Environmental leaders need specialized skills, knowledge and networks to link research with action and support informed decision-making. Our interdisciplinary research and educational programs engage students and early career researchers – as well as decision-makers in business, government and the non-profit world – in the work Stanford’s leading experts are doing to solve the world’s most urgent environmental challenges.
The Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment incubates and supports strategic research centers and programs designed to tackle major sustainability challenges facing the planet. Through these interdisciplinary initiatives, Woods brings together top scholars from Stanford and other academic institutions and connects them with prominent leaders from government, nongovernmental organizations and business to develop practical solutions to real-world problems.
A collaboration among Stanford University (through the Stanford Woods Institute and the Hopkins Marine Station), the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, advancing knowledge and solutions to ocean challenges.
Larry Crowder, Science Director
A joint effort with the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies that addresses the challenges of feeding the world's growing population without depleting the planet's natural resources.
Roz Naylor, Director
David Lobell, Deputy Director
An interdisciplinary research effort that studies the long-term viability of freshwater supplies for people and the environment, factoring in threats from climate change, shifts in land use, increasing population and decaying infrastructure. The program focuses on developing and water-scarce regions throughout the world.
Steven Gorelick, Faculty Director
A joint venture with The Nature Conservancy, the World Wildlife Fund and the University of Minnesota Institute on the Environment that uses open-source software and other tools to enable decision-makers to quantify nature's values, assess trade-offs associated with alternative land and water use choices, and integrate conservation and human development into land and water use and investment decisions.
Gretchen Daily, Co-Director (Stanford)
Mary Ruckelshaus, Managing Director
An initiative to support sustainable human development and environmental stewardship in Costa Rica's Osa and Golfito region through work with local communities, government, the private sector and nongovernmental organizations.
Rodolfo Dirzo, Faculty Director
William Durham, Faculty Director
Emily Arnold Mest, Associate Director
A program aimed at identifying ways to improve and increase the sustainability of water supply and sanitation service delivery, while also enhancing capacity for sustainable water and wastewater management in developing countries.
Jenna Davis, Faculty Director
A joint program with Stanford's Bill Lane Center for the American West that develops and promotes solutions to key water management questions in the West, including better groundwater management, more sustainable urban water use, better use of markets and other mechanisms to help western states cope with water scarcity.
Leon Szeptycki, Executive Director
Stanford's third annual Stephen H. Schneider Memorial Lecture featured record-breaking underwater explorer, scientist and ocean advocate, Sylvia Earle, who spoke on sustainability and oceans.