Disclaimer: this website is composed of symbols and images that do not in themselves carry meaning outside of a total social situation which none of us choose.
Hi, I'm Drew. My boneless, fair trade, low-sodium website is lovingly built from whatever I decide to post online. For that reason, it has a lot of stuff on it. Navigate as follows:
- If you are interested in SCIENCE: I just defended my PhD at Harvard in Environmental Engineering, and I will be starting as a postdoc at the Duke Nicholas School of the Environment in July 2025. 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. I'm also interested in fine particulate matter (PM2.5) dynamics and trends, with the goal of improving air quality. If you want to learn more, check out out my ongoing projects, research papers, conference presentations, and environmental datasets. Everything is open access.
- If you are interested in THINKING THAT ISN'T SCIENCE: Outside science, my work imagines how humanity can democratically govern itself in an age of environmental crisis. Together with social scientists, historians, and designers, I imagine the sorts of institutions and protocols that would allow humanity to democratically manage our economy and its interchange with ecosystems. This has taken the form of books, video games, public writing, and academic publications in history, architecture, and environmental studies. I am happy to do course visits, give talks, etc. on this material; you can reach me at drew [at] drewpendergrass [dot] com (or the academic address in my CV).
- 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 experimental 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. If you want to follow my work, you can subscribe to my newsletter below (expect emails every six months or so at most):
Upcoming events
Posters: Atmospheric Chemistry Gordon Research Seminar/Conference (Maine)
Date: 2 August, 2025 at time TBD
Location: Grand Summit Hotel at Sunday River, Maine
I will be presenting posters on global methane emissions and nighttime radical chemistry in South Korea. Come say hi!
Workshop: Historical Epistemologies of Planetary Modeling (Venice)
Date: 23 June, 2025 at time TBD
Location: The New Institute - Centre for Environmental Humanities (NICHE) at Ca’Foscari Venice University
I will be presenting a draft of a paper entitled "The Commodified Earth: Reductionism, Complexity, and Politics in Earth System Science" at the third HEPM workshop in Venice. More info here.
Lecture: New Institute (Hamburg)
Date: 18 June, 2025 at 12pm CEST
Location: The Hall, New Institute, Hamburg, Germany
I will be giving a lecture entitled "‘A curious natural selection’: János Kornai’s evolutionary theory of socialist institutions" at the New Institute in Hamburg. Abstract and details here.
Additional events, future and past, are available on my events page.
The latest science!
Pendergrass, D.C., D. J. Jacob, N. Balasus, L. Estrada, D. J. Varon, J. D. East, M. He, T. A. Mooring, E. Penn, H. Nesser, and J. R. Worden. 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. In revision at Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. Link to preprint (open access). Link to submitted PDF.
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 Brief Q&A
Q. Who are you?
A. Well, to start off, I am not a substitute for a medical doctor, I have absolutely no intention of running for Senate in the great state of Minnesota, I accept the axiom of choice, you cannot prove I have sympathies for the former state of Burgundy, and I am reluctant to resort to black magic. Besides that, I am a doctoral student in Environmental Engineering at Harvard University, and I freelance on the side for publications including Harper's and The Guardian. I'm also at work on a sci-fi novel and have a book under contract with Verso on economic democracy. In my activism and organizing, we work to make ecological democracy a reality in my home of Massachusetts. I am also a long-time steward in the Harvard Graduate Students Union (UAW local 5117). For more information, you can check out my projects page or my CV.
Q. How can I contact you or keep up with your work?
A. You can reach me at drew [at] drewpendergrass [dot] com (or the academic address in my CV); I'm pretty quick with email. However, if your email is unpleasant, you should direct it to grievances@drewpendergrass.com, an inbox I definitely read.
If you want to keep up with new projects, the best way is to subscribe to my newsletter. I send short emails a few times a year with major updates on science and writing. I keep my social media limited these days, but you can follow/DM me on Bluesky. My old Twitter is still up, but I don't use it anymore.
Q. Why does this page keep changing?
A. This page is randomly generated by the server on each load. Most of the page's contents are not displayed on one particular load, so for the full experience reload a bunch of times.
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.
