People
JenBurney Principal Investigator
PascalPolonik Research Scholar
YanJiang (蒋颜) Postdoctoral Scholar
MélanieGittard FSE Postdoc
AarabhiAchanta PhD Student (ESS)
AbigailFitzgibbon PhD Student (E-IPER)
SiddharthSachdeva PhD Student (E-IPER)
OluwafunmibiAsunmonu Masters Student (E-IPER)
JordanStock Masters Student (MPP)
Jen Burney
Professor, Global Environmental Policy and Earth System Science
Deputy Director, Center on Food Security and the Environment
Loves science ⚛️, exploring our amazing planet 🌍, and the beautiful game ⚽. Proud parent to the two greatest kids of all time.
Jen is a member of the Standing Panel on Impact Assessment (SPIA) of the CGIAR system, the Food Security Leadership Council (FSLC), and the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA), where she is co-chair of the Digital Agricultural Innovations & Services Initiative (DAISI). Before joining the Doerr School in 2025, she spent 12 years on the faculty at UC San Diego's School of Global Policy and Strategy (GPS) and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO), and has been a member of the National Geographic Explorers (NGS) family since 2011.
Education: BA, Harvard College (History & Science), 1999; PhD Stanford University (Physics), 2007
Contact: burney@stanford.edu | Stanford Profile
Pascal Polonik
Research Scholar
Pascal is a research scholar working to develop and apply statistical and numerical models to study the climate and social impacts of greenhouse gases and particulate matter. His research explores human-atmosphere interactions and tries to uncover how human decisions may alter climate and equity outcomes. In his free time he likes to hike with his wife and dog, run, bike, travel, eat, and take pictures.
Education: BS, Environmental Sciences, BA, Atmospheric Sciences, minor in Energy and Resources, UC Berkeley (2015); MS, Meteorology, LMU Munich (2017); PhD, Climate Science, Scripps Institution of Oceanography (2023)
Contact: ppolonik@stanford.edu | Personal Website | Stanford Profile
Yan Jiang (蒋颜)
Postdoctoral Scholar
Yan Jiang is a Hydroclimate Scientist who uses satellite remote sensing, climate/physical models, and advanced statistical/AI techniques to quantify agricultural vulnerability and improve the resilience of global water systems. She is currently a Postdoctoral Scholar at UC San Diego (School of Global Policy and Strategy & Scripps Institution of Oceanography). She completed her degrees in Atmospheric Science from UAlbany, SUNY (Ph.D.) and Sun Yat-Sen University (B.S.). When she's not tracking rainfall, you might find her chasing her doggie, Lily, "swagging" in a bubble tea store or Trader Joe's, or struggling to find her way down a hiking or ski trail.
Education: BS, Atmospheric Science, Sun Yat-Sen University, China; PhD, Atmospheric Science, SUNY-Albany
Contact: yaj007@ucsd.edu | Personal Website | LinkedIn | Google Scholar
Mélanie Gittard
Postdoctoral Scholar, Center on Food Security and the Environment
Mélanie is an applied environmental and development economist. Her research examines how climate shocks affect migration, urbanization, agricultural production, and food security in Sub-Saharan Africa, alongside work on the health consequences of industrial mining and water pollution. She is also a Research Affiliate of the King Center on Global Development at Stanford and of the International Migration Economics Chair at the Paris School of Economics.
Education: MS, Applied Mathematics and Engineering, Mines Nancy (2017), with a joint Bachelor in Economics from Lorraine University; MA, Economics -- Public Policy and Development, Paris School of Economics (2018); PhD, Economics, Paris School of Economics, CIRED and ENPC (2023)
Contact: mgittard@stanford.edu | Personal Website | Stanford Profile
Aarabhi Achanta
PhD Student (ESS)
Aarabhi Achanta is a researcher with a commitment to addressing critical challenges in climate science and food security. She holds triple bachelor's degrees in Physics, Astrophysics, and Applied Mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley, where she cultivated a comprehensive analytical background and honed expertise in quantitative research, machine learning, and large-scale physical systems. Her background working as an aerospace engineer and developing AI systems for natural disaster detection has equipped her with a unique, applied perspective to experimental and manufacturing systems. In her free time, she enjoys dancing, backpacking, and art!
Education: BS, Physics + Astrophysics + Applied Math, UC Berkeley
Contact: aarabhi@stanford.edu | LinkedIn | Personal Portfolio
Abigail Fitzgibbon
PhD Student (E-IPER)
Abby is an E-IPER PhD student whose research focuses on the climate impacts of food systems and agriculture’s potential as a climate mitigator. She studies enhanced rock weathering (ERW) on croplands, biochar, and fermentation of waste streams, and is also working to generate new estimates of emissions from food loss and waste around the world.
Education: BA, Physical Geography and Geospatial Science, UCLA; Master's, Environmental Policy (agriculture and economics), Sciences Po Paris School of International Affairs
Contact: afitzgib@stanford.edu | Stanford Profile
Siddharth Sachdeva
PhD Student (E-IPER)
Sidd is an E-IPER PhD candidate supervised by David Lobell and Gretchen Daily. He works on remote sensing identification of individual indigenous fruit tree species in India, and development of market aggregation strategies so that smallholders can more effectively monetize tree fruit crops. He is working on projects identifying, aggregating, and processing tree crops for school meals in several regions of India and developing better models to understand the climate (and food security) resilience of indigenous crops.
Education: BS, Statistics, University of Chicago (2018)
Contact: siddsach@stanford.edu | Personal Website
Oluwafunmibi Asunmonu
Masters Student (E-IPER)
Funmibi is a Stanford Master’s student designing financial and risk-management tools to help farmers, governments, and businesses respond to climate risks while strengthening food-system resilience. Before Stanford, she worked across 16 African countries with Pula, where she developed and scaled agricultural and climate insurance solutions reaching millions of smallholder farmers, including a $35 million cyclone insurance product financed by the World Bank. In the US, she worked with Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) to develop a toolkit for the coalition of finance ministers and publish an insurance roadmap for public development banks. She is currently exploring how investment in post-harvest processing and risk management can make African food systems more resilient.
Education: Dual Master’s, International Policy & E-IPER, Stanford University; Swiss Re Foundation Fellowship, African Leadership University
Contact: funmibi@stanford.edu | Stanford Profile | LinkedIn
Jordan Stock
Masters Student (Public Policy)
Jordan Stock is excited to work on important issues facing food security and the planet. She holds a B.S. in Earth Systems (also from Stanford) and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Public Policy. She plans to spend her career making food systems more sustainable and resilient and is especially passionate about the protein transition. In her free time, she enjoys trail running, hiking, exploring nature, and veganism.
Education: BS, Earth Systems, Stanford
Contact: jstock@stanford.edu | LinkedIn
Alumni
- Amelia HawkinsMasters Student (Civil & Environmental Engineering)
- Leo Abramsky-SzeKing Center Undergraduate Researcher