Name an environmental issue and Jeff Koseff can tick off half a dozen research disciplines that come into play. Take deforestation in the Amazon. It’s not enough to chronicle all the reasons why the world’s most verdant ecosystem needs trees. To find solutions, you must know and understand the micro- and macroeconomies of the region, the intricacies of the timber and tourist industries, the culture of the native people and the relationships between international trading partners. In short, you need experts not only from science, but also from business, law, economics and anthropology. “The key is to integrate science and policy,” says Koseff, MS ’78, PhD ’83.
That, in a nutshell, is the goal of the Stanford Institute for the Environment. Koseff, professor of civil and environmental engineering, co-directs the institute along with Barton H. “Buzz” Thompson, ’73, MBA ’76, JD ’76, the Robert E. Paradise Professor of Natural Resources Law. “The institute is an incubator for innovative, transformative, interdisciplinary research,” says Koseff. It supplies seed funding, provides administrative support and serves as a catalyst for faculty collaboration, while also working to educate the public and policy makers. Its approach assumes that human needs must be calibrated along with efforts to conserve and protect the world’s resources. Nowhere are those tensions more pronounced than when debating global warming, one of the institute’s core areas of interest, says Koseff.
When he announced plans for the institute in April 2004, President John Hennessy noted that Stanford already had several interdisciplinary research programs and a history of pioneering work in environmental science. “What we have not had was a broad infrastructure designed to support and encourage the growth and interplay of these programs across the University.”
Since its inception last fall, the institute has provided 14 seed grants for research projects. Among them: a large-scale assessment of water demands in southern India, a study of biodegradable composites for the building industry and an analysis of the environmental consequences of increased global meat consumption. Most of the projects involve four or more academic departments.
Thompson says educating decision makers is a key part of SIE’s role. It will achieve that through fellowships, visitor programs and symposia like the Sustainability Conference it played host to last October. “If we’re going to help solve the environmental and sustainability problems of this and future generations, we must not only create knowledge here at Stanford, but we also must make sure that governmental and private leaders are aware of and understand how to use that knowledge.”
