Matei "Matt" Georgescu is a Post-doctoral Scholar in the Center on Food Security and the Environment. His general research focuses on the use of mesoscale numerical modeling to study the interaction(s) between the land and overlying atmosphere.  Human alteration of the earth's surface has changed (and continues to change) the manner in which solar radiation is absorbed by the surface and in turn modifies the fluxes of energy and water back into the atmosphere, with significant implications for weather and climate.

Specifically, he is interested in the regional climatic impact of changing landscapes, due to, for example, altered agricultural practices or urbanization. At Stanford, his main goal will be to quantify how local and regional climate responds to landscape change resulting from increased biofuel production.

Dr. Georgescu completed his Ph.D. at Rutgers University in May, 2008. His current work at Stanford is a direct extension of his work at Rutgers, where he investigated, using a numerical modeling approach, the climatic effect of one of the most rapidly urbanizing areas in the United States - the Greater Phoenix region. A recipient of a NASA Earth System Science Fellowship, his work showed the significant impact of anthropogenic landscape modification, in a semi-arid region, on regional climate.

ASU bio

Tom is Co-Principal Investigator for the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) Developing Spent Fuel Strategies (DSFS) project coordinating international cooperation on issues at the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle with emphasis on spent fuel management and disposal in Pacific Rim countries. Participants include senior nuclear officials from Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Canada, and the United States.

Tom advises national nuclear waste programs on facility siting, communications, stakeholder engagement, and public trust and confidence. He has worked with the Canadian Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) for 15 years.

Tom was recently named as the Chair of the recently formed Experts Team to support Southern California Edison  at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.

Previously Tom was a Consulting Professor at CISAC, lead advisor to the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, Member of the National Academy of Sciences Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board, Director of Planning at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and long time senior executive at the Department of Energy where he led the siting of Yucca Mountain as the nation’s candidate site for a geologic repository.

He has degrees in Engineering, Applied Physics, and Chemical Engineering from Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania.

Gang He's work focuses on China's energy and climate change policy, carbon capture and sequestration, domestic coal and power sectors and their key role in both the global coal market and in international climate policy framework.  He also studies other issues related to energy economics and modeling, global climate change and the development of lower-carbon energy sources. 

Prior to joining PESD, he was with the World Resources Institute as a Cynthia Helms Fellow.  He has also worked for the Global Roundtable on Climate Change of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. With his experiences both in US and China, he has been actively involved in the US-China collaboration on energy and climate change. 

Mr. He received an M.A. from Columbia University on Climate and Society, B.S. from Peking University on Geography, and he is currently doing a PhD in the Energy and Resources Group at UC Berkeley.