Living Lab Opportunities for Faculty

Bring your sustainability priorities to life

Faculty, research teams, and academic staff can engage directly with Stanford’s real-world systems to enrich research and experiential learning. Access to campus data, infrastructure, and institutional decision-making opens opportunities for applied research, course-based projects, pilots, and campus-engaged scholarship.

Academic–operational partnerships support work on sustainability transitions, behavior change, systems optimization, technology pilots, and more.

Pathways for collaboration

There are several ways faculty partners can collaborate through Stanford’s Living Lab:

1. Sustainable Stanford Fellowship projects (year-long) and internship positions

Year-long fellowship projects pair a student fellow with operational and academic mentors to lead applied, campus-engaged sustainability work. These projects are well-suited for efforts that require substantive change management, stakeholder engagement, planning, analysis, and multi-quarter execution. Sustainable Stanford interns engage in hands-on projects that support the operational backbone of campus sustainability. Proposals for internship positions for AY 2026-27 are open and due January 15th.

2. Academic course collaborations

Faculty can integrate campus sustainability challenges into their courses. Course-based collaborations offer students real-world datasets, applied problem-solving, and hands-on work with campus systems. To inquire about a course-based collaboration, fill out the Sustainable Stanford contact form.

3. Ad hoc applied research and project collaborations

Faculty and researchers can also initiate targeted collaborations outside of formal programs. These may include data access, pilot testing, scoping studies, evaluation support, or work aligned with ongoing operational priorities.