125 years at Stanford Earth

Multimedia producer MILES TRAER has created an interactive timeline illustrating the 125-year history of groundbreaking research at the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences.

He explains, “For this project, we identified every word used in every PhD thesis title published by the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences going back to the late 19th century. We then collected the most commonly used keywords and placed them into a word cloud for each decade. These keywords help illustrate not only the focus areas of Stanford scientists, but also the broader trajectory of Earth, energy and environmental research across the world.”

In 1880, the keywords included “geology,” “quadrangle,” “Santa,” “volcanic,” “physiography” and “California.” By 2015, the words included “climate,” “sustainability,” “hazards,” “water,” “agriculture,” “data science,” “reservoir,” “structure” and “energy.”

Visit the webpage to learn more about the school’s history of discovery and watch how the keywords change from decade to decade.