Michael Schaefer, PhD

Michael works with the Landscape Decarbonization team and specializes in evaluating project benefits and risks by integrating his expertise in soil science, geochemistry, hydrology, and engineering.

Prior to Carbon Direct, Michael was a water resources consultant providing guidance to public agencies and utilities on complex water supply, management, and treatment challenges.

Michael was previously a tenure-track faculty at New Mexico Tech where he led a research group and taught graduate courses in geochemistry and contaminant fate and transport. He specializes in environmental measurements and characterization from atomic to landscape scales and has conducted field research in Cambodia, China, United States, and Vietnam. Michael was previously a postdoctoral researcher with the University of California Consortium for Drought and Carbon Management and taught courses on Pacific Basin geography and global water resources as a postdoctoral teaching fellow at Soka University of America.