Solution Area - Integrative Projects grants
The Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability’s Solution Area - Integrative Projects grant program supports research with an emphasis on non-academic partnerships and understanding links between different projects, problems, and solutions in eight main areas:
Climate
Energy
Cities
Platforms and tools
This is one of several funding opportunities for Stanford faculty. In 2025, the school awarded Solution Area - Integrative Projects grants to eight projects:
Risk-informed planning to enhance urban resilience to extreme natural hazards
PI: Gregory Deierlein, John A. Blume Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Co-PI: Jack Baker, William Alden Campbell and Martha Campbell Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
In partnership with the City of San Francisco, this project develops next-generation simulation tools to assess and reduce risks from earthquakes, flooding, extreme heat, and other climate-driven hazards. Combining advanced computational modeling, AI-assisted building data, and synthetic population models, the research enables high-resolution analyses of how buildings, infrastructure, and communities are affected and how they recover. Pilot studies of Chinatown and waterfront neighborhoods will demonstrate how these innovations – integrating physical, social, and economic systems – can inform equitable, cost-effective resilience strategies. The approach will provide a model for other cities confronting natural hazard risks in the broader context of climate adaptation and sustainable urban development.
Solution Area: Cities
Scaling equitable household flood resilience: A field experiment in Belle Air, San Bruno
PI: Gabrielle Wong-Parodi, Associate Professor of Earth System Science and Senior Fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment
This project evaluates a new household flood resilience program in Belle Air, a neighborhood in the City of San Bruno that faces chronic flooding. In partnership with OneShoreline of San Mateo County, our team is testing whether and how micro-grants for household flood protection measures – such as sump pumps and flood barriers – can help residents better prepare for and respond to floods. The study will monitor program uptake, resource selection and use, and changes in residents’ flood resilience over two years. Findings will inform local adaptation planning and offer lessons for scaling urban flood resilience programs to cities across California and beyond.
Solution Area: Cities
Designing cities from salvage: AI for city-scale material reuse
PI: Iro Armeni, Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
This project advances circular design by developing an AI system that automates matchmaking between decommissioned yet reusable building elements and those seeking them for new projects. In collaboration with the City of San Francisco, the system uses natural language interaction to automatically generate and visualize design solutions integrating reclaimed elements directly within users’ spaces. By connecting real-world inventories with AI-driven design generation, it streamlines repurposing of elements. Addressing a critical technical and applied challenge faced by many cities – linking element availability with design intent – this work offers a scalable model for sustainable urban development that can guide municipal policy.
Solution Area: Cities
Climate-resilient school feeding programs as a lever for food-systems change
PI: Jennifer Burney, Professor of Environmental Social Sciences and of Earth System Science, and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Co-PI: Rosamond Naylor, Emeritus Professor of Environmental Social Sciences
School feeding programs are an important part of the social safety net in most countries. Because school meals are extremely beneficial and cost-effective, global momentum to feed every child on Earth at school is growing; however, the climate risk exposures of these programs – and, conversely, opportunities for resilience – are not well-characterized. Our team is working with on-the-ground experts around the world to: (a) model and monitor the climate vulnerability of school feeding programs; (b) rigorously evaluate procurement policies that might generate resilience in this social safety net; and (c) help policymakers and program leaders implement changes that help unlock the full potential of school meals to sustainably nourish the world’s youth.”
Solution Area: Food
Solutions for crop resilience in changing climate and pathogen pressure
PI: Elizabeth Sattely, Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering
Co-PIs: Jenn Brophy, Assistant Professor of Bioengineering; Jennifer Burney, Professor of Environmental Social Sciences and of Earth System Science, and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies; and Mary Beth Mudgett, Susan B. Ford Professor of Biology
We are a team of scientists with expertise in plant systems, including economics of food security and climate change, molecular basis of crop-pathogen interactions, chemistry of plant natural products and synthetic biology of plant adaptation to stress. Together, we are dedicated to tackling crop resilience under changing climate and pathogen pressures. We have chosen three project ideas under this theme – developing pathogen resistant and climate resilient orphan crops, reducing allelopathy in cover crops, and reducing aflatoxin contamination in food. We plan to study these ideas and develop potential solutions, with the goal to emerge with a single project plan to implement with international stakeholders.
Solution Area: Food
Replanting the food system at scale: Evaluating Mexico’s flagship agroforestry program, Sembrando Vida
PI: Aidee Guzman, Assistant Professor of Biology
This project evaluates Mexico’s flagship agroforestry program, Sembrando Vida, which is converting millions of hectares of farmland into tree-based systems to address climate change and rural poverty. Despite its scale, little is known about its true ecological and social impacts. Through geospatial mapping and community engagement, we will develop partnerships and co-design a research framework to assess the impact of large-scale agroforestry on ecosystems, livelihoods, and markets. The work will provide key insights into whether programs like Sembrando Vida can serve as models for building climate-resilient, equitable food systems globally.
Solution Area: Food
True Cost of Food: California as a Testbed for Exploring Pathways to Reduce Meat and Animal Product Consumption
PI: Deborah Sivas, Luke W. Cole Professor in Environmental Law and Professor of Environmental Social Sciences
Co-PIs: Michael Wara, Senior Research Scholar, Woods Institute for the Environment; Michael Mastrandrea, Senior Research Scholar, Woods Institute for the Environment; Elizabeth Sattely, Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering; Aidee Guzman, Assistant Professor of Biology; Leo Hollberg, Professor (research) of Physics and Geophysics; Alison Hoyt, Assistant Professor of Earth System Science; Maya Mathur, Associate Professor (research) of Pediatrics and Medicine; Robb Willer, Professor of Sociology; and Vayu Hill-Maini, Assistant Professor of Bioengineering
Climate, public health, and animal welfare concerns demand that wealthy nations reduce their consumption of meat and animal products. Industrial animal agriculture is heavily subsidized through a variety tax incentives, commodity purchases, and other hidden transfers, including failure to internalize the industry’s environmental, social, and human health costs, which are largely “out of sight, out of mind.” Making those substantial costs and subsidies visible to the public and policymakers is a critical step to nudging personal behavior modifications, reforming public policies that contribute to high meat and animal product consumption in the U.S., and creating a level playing field for emerging meat alternatives.
Solution Area: Food
Taking the pulse of the watershed
PI: Rosemary Knight, George L. Harrington Professor of Geophysics and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment;
Co-PIs: Greg Beroza, Wayne Loel Professor of Geophysics; Ettore Biondi, Assistant Professor of Geophysics; William Ellsworth, Emeritus Professor (Research) of Geophysics; Scott Fendorf, Terry Huffington Professor of Earth System Science and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment; Zerina Kapetanovic, Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering; Ching-Yao Lai, Assistant Professor of Geophysics; Olav Solgaard, Robert L. and Audrey S. Hancock Professor of Electrical Engineering; William Tarpeh, Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering; Daniel Tartakovsky, Professor of Energy Science & Engineering; Howard Zebker, Kwoh Ting Li Professor of Electrical Engineering and Professor of Geophysics; Sasha McLarty, Assistant Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering at Washington State University
Countries around the world face a diminishing supply of freshwater to support the needs of humans and ecosystems. The transformative contribution that we will make, to support sustainable freshwater management, is the development of a sensor-informed analytical framework to accurately quantify connected changes in human-ecological-hydrologic systems. Through our project we will improve the capacity to utilize existing sensor data and will develop new forms of measurements and sensors, integrating all data through the development of a digital twin. We have selected California’s San Joaquin Valley Watershed as the starting location for conducting and exemplifying the field- and sensor-based research.
Solution Area: Platforms and tools
Apply for a Solution Area - Integrative Projects grant
Stanford faculty may learn how to engage with the Solution Area communities and grant process through the school’s Faculty Funding Opportunities on the intranet or reach out to Sarah Sandoval.