Conceptual Investigations Unit

The Conceptual Investigations Unit, which is led Ken Caldeira in his capacity as a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University, is a subgroup of the Sustainable Solutions Lab, which is led by Professor Steve Davis of Stanford University.

Our research provides information to help inform decisions aimed at improving human welfare while protecting the environment. Our research tends to be stylized and somewhat abstract, but is motivated by a desire to provide actionable information. Much of our work addresses issues at global spatial scales and at temporal scales that are multi-decadal or longer. Our work bridges the geophysical sciences and economics, and seeks to place human decision-making in the context of human evolution and the universe’s vast reaches of space and time.

Right now, we are thinking about approaches to developing a broader consensus around how to allocate finite resources aimed at improving human welfare and protecting the environment (e.g., How do we reach some degree of consensus on tradeoffs between investments in education versus investment in emissions reduction, investments in vaccines versus investment in technology innovation?). 

We are also thinking about how to improve projections of potential climate damage, and how to better understand potential adaptive responses. 

We continue to dabble in both geophysical and human dimensions of climate change (e.g., energy systems, climate feedbacks, geoengineering).

If you like this kind of work, and you are within about a year of getting your PhD and would be interested in doing a postdoc with us at Stanford, please reach out. We are almost continuously able to hire.