Sustainable Societies Initiative
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We bring together researchers from across the university to address a central global challenge: How do we accomplish the social, economic, cultural transformations needed to create societies that are truly sustainable?
These complex, integrated, human-centered challenges require deep engagement with governments, business, civil society, and communities. This engagement will foster research that yields insights and pathways to enable and propel transformative change. Addressing political, institutional, behavioral, technological, historical, environmental, and ecological dimensions requires an integrative social-environmental systems approach for success.
Research Priorities
Stanford Center for Just Environmental Futures: Serving as an intellectual and community hub for interdisciplinary and engaged scholarship to advance environmental and climate justice. Launching in January 2026, led by Maxine Burkett, Professor of Environmental Social Sciences.
Transformation science: Understanding interventions that have potential to be powerful forces for transformation. Led by Nicole Ardoin, Associate Professor of Environmental Social Sciences, and Gabrielle Wong-Parodi, Associate Professor of Earth System Science.
Enhancing societal resilience to extreme weather events: Generating insights and innovations that can help societies develop institutions, policies, and processes to reduce vulnerability, improve response and recovery, and increase community resilience to future events.
Solution areas and integrative projects: Providing support for interdisciplinary teams of faculty collaborating with decisionmakers to tackle systems-level sustainability challenges. The Sustainable Societies Initiative currently supports work in three areas (Food, Sustainable Cities, and Platforms & Tools for Decisionmaking) of the school’s Solution Area - Integrative Projects grant program.
Faculty Affiliate Program
We are building a community of researchers committed to societal transformation.
Events
INTEGRATIVE PROJECTS IN PRACTICE: A Discussion with Rosemary Knight and Fio Michelli
Join us for an engaging discussion featuring two of the Sustainable Societies Initiative's Integrative Project teams: Taking the Pulse of the Watershed and Taking the Pulse of the Coastal Ocean. Lead Principal Investigators Rosemary Knight and Fio Michelli will discuss their Integrative Projects — how they built cross-sector partnerships with key decision makers, mobilized interdisciplinary teams of researchers, and developed their theory of change to tackle large systemic environmental challenges. Hear directly from researchers about what they have learned in year one of this work. This event is designed for anyone interested in partner-engaged research, including current solution area cohort members and prospective applicants for Integrative Projects funding. The event will feature a conversation-style discussion, moderated Q&A, and an open reception to follow.
Monday April 20th 3:30–4:30 PM | Register here
Sustainability in Practice series: Stories of partnering for impact
The Sustainability in Practice series brings together scholars, students, and practitioners twice per quarter to share personal stories of authentic sustainability impact through research-action collaborations. Beginning in January 2026, these informal gatherings will foster candid conversations about innovations, challenges, missteps, and breakthroughs in cross-sector collaboration.
Humanities and Sustainability Salon
The Stanford Humanities Center and the Sustainable Societies Initiative convenes Stanford humanists, social scientists, and natural scientists to explore sustainability readings through philosophical, historical, and other perspectives. The salon, held on campus with Stanford faculty twice per quarter starting in January 2026, aims to enrich understanding not only of sustainability, but also of each other’s disciplines as we confront the changing nature of life on this planet.
People
Faculty directors
- William and Eva Price Senior Fellow in the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment
- Richard and Rhoda Goldman Professor of Environmental Studies, Emerita
Senior Associate Dean for Research
- Terry Huffington Professor of Earth Science and Professor of Earth System Science
Staff
- Program Manager
- Administrative Associate
- Research Development Manager
- Operations Manager, Research Initiatives
- Advisor
- Assistant Dean for Research Initiatives
Faculty Affiliates
- Larry Kramer Professor of Law, Professor of Environmental Social Sciences and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment
- Associate Professor of Environmental Social Sciences and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment
- Professor of Energy Science Engineering, Senior Fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy and Professor, by courtesy, of Civil and Environmental Engineering and of Earth System Science
- William Alden Campbell and Martha Campbell Professor and Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
- Thomas M. Siebel Professor of Business Leadership, Professor of Environmental Social Sciences and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment
- Drs. Ben & A. Jess Shenson Professor, Senior Associate Dean, Global Health, Director, Center for Innovation in Global Health, Professor of Medicine, Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute and Professor, by courtesy, of Health Policy
- Professor of Environmental Social Sciences and, by courtesy, of Oceans
- Assistant Professor of Environmental Social Sciences
- Associate Professor of Education, of Environmental Social Sciences and, by courtesy, of Sociology
- Emerson Collective Professor of Climate, Environment, and Society
- Professor of Environmental Social Sciences, of Earth System Science and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
- Charles Louis Ducommun Professor in the School of Humanities & Sciences, Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment, at SIEPR, at the Precourt Institute for Energy & Professor of Environmental Social Sciences
- WSD-HANDA Professor of Human Rights and International Justice
- Andrew B. Hammond Professor of French Language, Literature, and Civilization Professor of English, and by courtesy, of French and Italian and of Comparative Literature
- Assistant Professor of Environmental Social Sciences and Center Fellow, by courtesy, at the Woods Institute for the Environment and at the Stanford Graduate School of Business
- Bing Professor of Environmental Science and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment and, by courtesy, at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
- Professor of Oceans, of Earth System Science and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment
- Associate Dean for Integrative Initiatives in Environmental Justice, Bing Prof in Environmental Science, Professor of Earth System Science and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment
- Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Center Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment
- Gildred Professor of Latin American Studies, Professor of Environmental Social Sciences, Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment and Professor, by courtesy, of Iberian and Latin American Cultures
- Rehnborg Farquhar Professor
- Mark Pigott KBE Professor Anthony P. Meier Family Professor of the Humanities Professor of English and Comparative Literature Director, Stanford Humanities Center
- Associate Professor of Operations, Information and Technology at the Graduate School of Business
- Michelle and Kevin Douglas Provostial Professor and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment and at the Precourt Institute for Energy
- Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
- Professor of Sociology Founding Director, Stanford Institute for Advancing Just Societies
- Clinical Associate Professor, Medicine - Immunology & Rheumatology
- Assistant Professor of Political Science and Center Fellow, by courtesy, at the Woods Institute for the Environment
- The George L. Harrington Professor, Professor of Geophysics and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment
- Professor of Pediatrics (Infectious Diseases), Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment and Professor, by courtesy, of Epidemiology and Population Health and of Environmental Social Sciences
- Professor of Political Science, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and at the Woods Institute for the Environment, Emeritus
- Benjamin M. Page Professor, William Wrigley Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute, at the Woods Institute for the Environment and at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
- Lucy Becker Professor of Medicine, Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Professor, by courtesy, of Epidemiology and Population Health
- Associate Professor of Religious Studies
- David and Lucile Packard Professor of Marine Science, Professor of Oceans and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment
- William Wrigley Professor, Professor of Environmental Social Sciences, Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute, and at the Freeman Spogli Institute, Emerita
