Please join us for a special seminar presented by Sebastian Heilpern, Ph.D. The seminar will help build the research community in Earth System Science in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability.

Sebastian Heilpern, Ph.D.

Eric & Wendy Schmidt AI in Science Postdoctoral Fellow

Cornell University

Thursday, March 13, 2025

12:00 – 1:30 PM

Y2E2 299

“Reconciling Biodiversity Conservation with Food, Energy, and Water Security”

Sustainability requires balancing tradeoffs among multiple societal objectives, such as sustaining food and energy production while minimizing their adverse impacts on biodiversity and climate. First, focusing first on the relationship between food, biodiversity and climate, Dr. Heilpern will show how fisheries biodiversity provides opportunities to maximize human nutrition and climate resilience while mitigating the impacts of overexploitation on aquatic ecosystems. Dr. Heilpern will then shift focus to renewable energy, and explore how carbon offsets can be leveraged to co-benefit decarbonization and freshwater biodiversity conservation goals in the context of hydropower expansion. Throughout the talk Dr. Heilpern will highlight how transdisciplinary collaborations between domain experts, computer scientists, and practitioners can drive new insights and practical solutions for biodiversity, energy, and food, while also advancing AI approaches transferable to other sustainability challenges.