Computer drawing in air, showing the earth, with the words Drew's website on top

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Disclaimer: any errors on this website are in fact an attempt to transcend the reality circumscribed by the limits of language.


Hi, I'm Drew. Welcome to my boneless, gluten-free, organic website! I am a postdoctoral associate at the Duke University Nicholas School of the Environment and an incoming assistant professor of environmental studies and sciences at Oberlin College; also, I am not a closed, non-orientable, boundary-free manifold. Be aware that this website is very large, and some of it is randomly generated. For the full experience, reload a bunch of times and navigate as follows:

Computer!

Upcoming events

Panel: Politics of Nature in the Anthropocene: On the Advantages and Disadvantages of Models (Berlin, Ger.)

Date: 11 February 2026 at 6:30pm CET

Location: Museum of Natural History, Invalidenstraße 43, 10115 Berlin

As part of the Brecht-Tage festival in Berlin, which this year is focused on Brecht's "Green Revolution", I'll be presenting on the politics of knowledge in Earth system modeling and its relationship with Bertolt Brecht's plays and writings on science and nature. Other presenters include Hans Christian von Herrmann, Sebastian Kirsch, Tom Turnbull, and Patrick Primavesi. This is the second of three events taking place at the museum this evening, running from 5:00pm through 8:00pm CET. Entry is free! More information on the Brecht-Tage 2026 website.

Panel: »Nichtstun fürs Klima!«: Brecht's Daoism as a strategy of interventionist non-action (Berlin, Ger.)

Date: 12 February 2026 at 8:00pm CET

Location: Literature Forum at the Brecht House, Chausseestraße 125, 10115 Berlin, Germany

As part of the Brecht-Tage festival in Berlin, my co-author Troy Vettese and I will be presenting some of our work on the surprising resonances between Bertolt Brecht and Laozi: both figures praise forms of non-action and uselessness. In conversation with Heinrich Detering, we will comment on the implications for climate action. This is the fourth of four events taking place at the Brecht-Haus this evening, running from 4:30pm through 9:30pm CET. More information on the Brecht-Tage 2026 website.

Lecture: NC State Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Seminar Series (Raleigh, NC)

Date: 20 February 2026 at 3:30pm ET

Location: NC State campus (exact location tbd)

I will be presenting some of my current work on emissions quantification as part of the NC State Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Seminar Series.

Additional events, future and past, are available on my events page.

Featured science!

Pendergrass, D.C. Jacob, D. J., Balasus, N., Estrada, L., Varon, D. J., East, J. D., He, M., Mooring, T. A., Penn, E., Nesser, H., & Worden, J. R. (2025). Trends and seasonality of 2019–2023 global methane emissions inferred from a localized ensemble transform Kalman filter (CHEEREIO v1.3.1) applied to TROPOMI satellite observations. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 25(21), 14353–14369. Link to paper (open access). Link to PDF. Read a general audience explainer.

Methane LETKF trends figure

Figure: Annual posterior methane emission trends for 2019-2023 disaggregated by region and sector. Emissions are inferred using a localized ensemble transform Kalman filter applied to TROPOMI satellite observations. Panels (a) and (b) show posterior emission changes relative to 2019, disaggregated by region and sector respectively. Inset percentages show changes relative to 2019 values for selected regions/sectors. Error bars show range of the inversion ensemble for the global emission trend. Panel (c) shows 2019-2023 trends in posterior emissions by region obtained from linear regression.


You can learn more about my research on the projects page, or you can read through all of our scientific papers and presentations on their respective pages.

A featured interdisciplinary project!

Half-Earth Socialism

Half-Earth Socialism is a book I co-authored with environmental historian Troy Vettese on how we can get out of our current ecological mess. Published in April 2022 by Verso Books, you can order it from the publisher here. The book has been translated into Italian, Thai, Korean, Spanish, and Swedish; all translations can be ordered from my books page.

Pendergrass, D.C. and Vettese, T.G.W (2022). Half-Earth Socialism: A Plan to Save the Future from Extinction, Climate Change and Pandemics. Verso Books. | Read it here.

Half-earth socialism book cover.

Read more about my books here.

A random interview

Majority Report (video)

19 April 2022 | Watch here

My co-author Troy Vettese and I spoke with Emma Vigeland of the Majority Report about our book Half-Earth Socialism.

Additional interviews are available on my interviews page.

All the cool kids are using CHEEREIO!

CHEEREIO is a tool that uses observations of pollutants in the atmosphere, measured from satellites or surface stations, to correct supercomputer models that simulate the Earth. Powerful use cases for CHEEREIO include tracking pollution back to its source, even if there are no local observations on the ground, and monitoring greenhouse gas emissions in near-real-time. Read more on my projects page or the offical CHEEREIO site.

Logo for CHEEEREIO software, with name in black going through a globe schematic in yellow.

Some true statements

I am not to my knowledge a victim of a mummy's curse ... I have never advocated on behalf of, or against, the Free Silver movement ... my mind's eye exists only in a figurative sense ... I am not a substitute for a medical doctor ... you cannot prove I have sympathies for the former state of Burgundy ... I appreciate knowledge of the outcome of a given situation ... I have no trouble distinguishing my right from my left ... I proudly possess object permanence ... I hold no world records ... I have absolutely no intention of running for Senate in the great state of Minnesota ... I have never commanded an army composed of more than 100,000 soldiers ... I am a mammal ... I keep the old gods ... I have never traveled to an exoplanet ... I am reluctant to resort to black magic ... I accept the axiom of choice ... to my knowledge, there is no portrait of me that ages in my place ... I have nothing to do with explosions ...

You should google Graham Starr