Research

Amy Luers is Director of the Sustainability in the Digital Age Initiative, Executive Director of Future Earth, and an Affiliate Professor in the Department of Geography, Planning, and Environment. Dr. Luers has over 25 years of experience working at the intersection of science, technology and policy. A former assistant director in the Obama White House and senior manager at Google, she is a member of the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations and has served on committees of the U.S. Global Change Research Program and the National Academies of Sciences. Dr. Luers started her career working in Latin America, where she co-founded Agua Para La Vida, a small NGO working with rural communities to access potable drinking water. She also spent a number of years directing the water and climate security work at the Skoll Global Threats Fund. Dr. Luers sits on several advisory boards including the Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative, the International Observatory of AI and Digital Technologies, the US National Council for Science and the Environment, and Stanford University’s School of Earth. Luers has a PhD in environmental science, and a MA in international policy studies, both from Stanford University. She has published in both peer-reviewed and popular media on big data and the digital age, science communication, climate policy, and vulnerability and resilience of human-environmental systems.