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Rob Dunbar

W.M. Keck Professor in the School of Earth Sciences, Professor of Oceans and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment
My research and teaching interests include Climate Dynamics, Oceanography, Marine Ecology, and Biogeochemistry. I am interested in environmental policy directed towards problem-solving. My research group studies global environmental change with a focus on air-sea interactions, tropical marine ecosystems, polar climate, and biogeochemistry. In October, 2001, I became the founding director of the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Environment and Resources (now E-IPER), a position I maintained until 2005. In January, 2003, I was appointed the Victoria P. and Roger W. Sant Director of the Earth Systems Program, the largest undergraduate and co-terminal masters program in the School of Earth Sciences, an appointment that ran through 2012. In January, 2004, I was named the J. Frederick and Elisabeth B. Weintz University Fellow in Undergraduate Education in recognition of teaching and mentoring of Stanford undergraduate students. I was awarded the William M. Keck Professorship in 2008, the same year that I moved from the Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences to the newly created Department of Environmental Earth System Science. In 2009, I was elected as a Trustee for the Consortium for Ocean Leadership in Washington D.C. where I am active in promoting the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program and the Ocean Observatories Initiative. I am currently serving as the Chairperson of OL’s Board of Trustees. In 2004 I helped start the Palmyra Atoll Research Consortium (PARC) to promote research and conservation of Pacific coral reefs.

Education

Ph.D., University of California, San Diego, Oceanography (1981)
B.S., University of Texas, Austin, Geology (1975)