Caldeira Lab

Environmental science of climate, carbon, and energy
Ken Caldeira
Department of Global Ecology
Carnegie Institution for Science
260 Panama St.
Stanford, CA 94305, USA
1 + (650) 704-7212
kcaldeira@carnegiescience.edu
Lab Tabs
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Enrico Antonini (Postdoctoral Fellow)
Enrico is a Postdoctoral Research Scientist for the Carnegie Institution for Science, Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University. His research aims to understand the physics of wind power extraction for regional-scale wind farms. Enrico is investigating how the wind farm power extraction changes with the wind farm size and he aims to identify the transition scales at which this change occurs.
Before joining the Carnegie Institution for Science, Enrico conducted research in wind energy, computational fluid dynamics and optimization algorithms with the goal of advancing the knowledge of wind turbine aerodynamics and creating new design frameworks for the wind turbine industry.
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Lei Duan's research topic is about modeling the climate response to external forcing, especially the global scale geoengineering schemes during his PhD. At Carnegie, he will continue working on climate simulations and also helping with the energy modeling work in Ken Caldeira's group. He had a wonderful experience when he was here previously, and feels happy to come back and work with everyone in Carnegie.
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David Farnham (Postdoctoral Fellow)
David Farnham is an environmental engineer and hydroclimatologist interested in how climate affects our engineered water and energy systems. David’s work can broadly be described as the development of statistical models to estimate and/or predict climate risks at time scales ranging from daily to seasonal to multi-decadal.
With regard to water systems, David has authored papers on topics ranging from the prediction of urban water contamination, to the estimation of future regional riverine flooding hazard, to the climate drivers of seasonal precipitation variability in water scarce regions such as the Southwestern, United States.
Within energy systems, David has been focusing on weather/climate dependent renewable energy technologies; namely solar, wind, and hydro power. For example, David has recently been investigating the implications of yearly to decadal fluctuations in potential wind and solar energy supply for energy system planning.
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Muriel Hauser (PreDoctoral Associate)
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Bill creates programs to analyze data from climate models for Ken Caldeira and others in his lab.
After receiving his BSEE and MSEE from the University of Cincinnati in his home town he did his first professional work developing hardware and software for a Pediatric Cardiology research lab at Duke University. After working for many small companies in California he became a Systems Engineer at Siemens Oncology in Concord before joining Carnegie
He currently resides in Las Vegas tutoring Python online in his spare time.
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Candise Henry (Postdoctoral Fellow)
Candise Henry is a researcher with a background in geology and geomorphology. Her previous work has examined the influence of externally- versus internally-driven geological processes on sediment deposition and basin architecture at passive margins for use in oil and gas exploration. She also has an interest in energy systems, and has published research looking at the impacts of climate change on thermoelectric power production in the U.S. She will join the Caldeira Lab at the Carnegie Institution in January of 2019 to research efforts towards near-zero emissions energy systems.
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David Koweek (Postdoctoral Fellow)
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Michael Mastrandrea (Director, Near Zero Project)
Michael Mastrandrea is the Director of Near Zero, which provides credible, impartial, and actionable climate and energy research and policy analysis. Previously, he helped lead development of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report, a global assessment of climate change science and policy options. His work has focused on strategies for reducing climate risks and integrating expert knowledge and quantitative analysis to inform public and private decisions from global to local scales. He has taught at Stanford University as a Lecturer and Assistant Consulting Professor, and received his PhD from Stanford’s Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources.
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Rebecca Peer (Postdoctoral Fellow)
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Geeta Persad (Research Associate)
Geeta G. Persad is a Research Associate in the Caldeira Lab at the Carnegie Institution for Science's Department of Global Ecology, where she studies the impacts of short-lived climate pollutants on regional and global climate using numerical models. She serves as acting Principle Investigator on Carnegie's multi-year National Science Foundation-funded collaboration with the University of California San Diego and Stanford University to assess the coupled climate and institutional dynamics of short-lived local pollutants and long-lived global greenhouse gases.
Dr. Persad also serves as Senior Climate Scientist in the Union of Concerned Scientists Western States Office where she leads technical analysis on their short-lived climate pollutant and water resources portfolios.
Dr. Persad received her PhD in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and a certificate in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy from Princeton University, where she was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and a Ford Policy Fellow. Prior to her PhD, Dr. Persad served as a Physical Scientist in the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. She holds a B.S. in Geophysics from Stanford University.
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Manoela Romano de Orte (Postdoctoral Fellow)
Manoela Romanó de Orte is a Postdoctoral Research Scientist in in the Caldeira Lab at the Carnegie Institution for Science's Department of Global Ecology. She is a marine scientist, studying the fate and the effects of pollutants in the coastal environment. Her research considers traditional pollutants, such as heavy metals, alongside emerging contaminant threats. These emerging threats include plastics and the global effects of humans dumping carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, which warms and acidifies the ocean. Manoela's latest work focuses on the response of coral reef ecosystems to climate change and to plastic pollution.
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Tyler Ruggles (Research Scientist)
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Elizabeth Susskind (Executive Assistant)
Having graduated in Vocal Performance from Trinity College, London, Elizabeth traveled to St. Louis to pursue a career in music. Eventually, she found her way with her family to California, drawn by the lovely weather and magnificent Pacific Ocean. When not doing yoga, gardening, or walking her black Labrador, she can be found at Davies Symphony Hall singing with the San Francisco Symphony Chorus. She is excited to be part of the Carnegie Institution for Science, department of global ecology, supporting Ken Caldeira and his awesome group of postdocs.
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Leslie Willoughby (Science Writer)
Leslie's first love was a horned toad that lived in her backyard in Albuquerque. It disappeared over winter, emerged in spring, and showed her that nature changes over time. Throughout childhood, she yearned to share that lizard's world with others.
In college she studied environmental interpretation. Afterward, at the newly created Ohio EPA, she funded programs that regulated scrubbers in coal-fired power plants and improved sewage treatment facilities. Later, as a science teacher, she set the lab tables with a new narrative each morning. Monday’s tale might compare skeletons; Tuesday’s could mimic a lunar eclipse.
When climate change became the biggest nature story, Leslie signed on as a reporter in the Eastern Sierra. While forest fires rage and drought starves California's snowpack and water supply, Leslie heeds the call for epic writing muscle. She works out every day.
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Yixuan Zheng (Postdoctoral Fellow)
Yixuan is a postdoctoral research fellow at Ken Caldeira’s lab. He is studying the climate change associated with anthropogenic activities with a focus on the impacts of anthropogenic aerosol emissions on the global climate system. His previous works analyzed drivers of China’s aerosol pollution. These studies indicated, for him, the impacts of anthropogenic activities on regional and global environmental issues, and further motivated his work at Carnegie.

