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 fair trade, organic, gluten-free 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 have never traveled to an exoplanet. 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:
- If you are interested in my SCIENTIFIC WORK: In my scientific research, I use satellite data to track pollution back to its source and monitor emissions in real time, and I maintain free open-source software that allows others to do the same. If you want to learn more, check out out my ongoing projects, research papers, conference presentations, and environmental datasets. Everything is open access, and you can find a general-audience explanation of each of the publications I led in my newsletter.
- If you are interested in my INTERDISCIPLINARY WORK: My interdisciplinary work imagines how humanity can democratically govern itself in an age of environmental crisis. With collaborators, I imagine the sorts of institutions and protocols that advance economic democracy within planetary boundaries, with an emphasis on connecting science with social movements. This work has taken the form of books, video games, public writing, and academic publications.
- If you are interested in MY CV: you can download it here.
- If you are interested in MISCELLANEOUS: This website is big because I have had it since high school and I don't delete things. If you search for it, you can find ephemera I have made over the years, including original music.
- If you are interested in HUMAN CONTACT: I can be reached at drew [at] drewpendergrass [dot] com or at the academic address in my CV. For upcoming events, check out my events page. You can follow me on Bluesky or LinkedIn. The best way to follow my work is to subscribe to my newsletter below (expect emails every six months or so at most):
Upcoming events
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., Nesser, H., Varon, D. J., Sulprizio, M., Miyazaki, K., & Bowman, K. W. (2023). CHEEREIO 1.0: A versatile and user-friendly ensemble-based chemical data assimilation and emissions inversion platform for the GEOS-Chem chemical transport model. Geoscientific Model Development, 16(16), 4793–4810. Link to paper (open access). Link to PDF. Read a general audience explainer.
Figure: Schematic of CHEEREIO runtime routines and job control procedures. CHEEREIO is run as an array of m separate jobs on a computational cluster, one for each ensemble member. These m jobs, operating in parallel, alternate between running GEOS-Chem and running the LETKF algorithm for a subset of grid cells, as shown by the light yellow boxes; the m jobs are coordinated by a single job controller shared by the entire ensemble (shown in light red), ensuring that the ensemble remains synchronized. Boxes in blue show data input into CHEEREIO processes.
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!
A feature article for Harper's on soil carbon
This story covers a long-term ecological research (LTER) site at Harvard Forest, where some scientists, inspired by the Denver Broncos' snow-melting technology, simulated the effects of climate change on a patch of forest by burying heating coils below the soil.
Pendergrass, D. C. (2020). "Ground Control: How forests adapt to climate change." Harper's Magazine. | Read it here.
Read more of my writing here.
A random interview
Tech Won't Save Us with Paris Marx (podcast)
12 May 2022 | Listen here
My co-author Troy Vettese and I talk about our book Half-Earth Socialism, and our attitude towards technology, with Paris Marx.
Additional interviews are available on my interviews page.
Play Alchemy!
"So fun you won't even need friends!"
