John Bistline
Head of Science
Watershed Science
Science and research
Watershed employs a team of in-house scientists to advance climate research. Our research covers three themes: energy and electricity, AI for sustainability, and open data. Through the Cornerstone collaboration with ERG and the Stanford Sustainable Solutions Lab, the team helps maintain open emissions datasets, including the Global EEIO.
12Scientists and researchers
50+Published papers & datasets
Media inquiries or requests for scientific collaborations
Featured research
An open framework for measuring AI emissions
As data center electricity consumption rises, sustainability teams are under new pressure to account for AI emissions. Most don't have a reliable way to do it.
Watershed has developed an open framework to help companies measure their AI emissions, even in the absence of perfect data. The framework is designed to give increasingly precise AI emissions measurement as data availability improves. Our research also highlights what actions companies can take today to reduce their AI emissions.
Scientists and research leads
Watershed scientists have expertise spanning carbon accounting, artificial intelligence, and energy.
Mo Li
Scientist
Krishna Rao
Scientist, AI for sustainability
Brandon Allen
Scientist
Jake Feintzeig
Engineering and Science Manager
Jonathan Glidden
Head of Data and Climate Science
Shaena Ulissi
Scientist, AI for sustainability
Andrew Dumit
Scientist, AI for sustainability
James Joyce
Scientist
Jeffrey Seifried
Scientist
Brian Tobin
Climate data engineer
Dan Yawitz
Scientist, AI for sustainability
Our research themes
Watershed’s research focuses on three key areas of impact. These briefs offer a summary perspective and links to the individual research papers and studies within each.
Library of research
Energy and electricityGrid emission factors, electricity accounting, and how data centers and AI demand shape future emissions. |
An open framework for AI emissions measurement J. Bistline, S. Ulissi, S. J. Davis, J. Glidden, P. J. Joyce, et al. · Watershed · 2026 |
Have data centers raised your electric bill? Causal evidence from the United States A. Watten, J. Bistline, G. Blanford · arXiv · 2026 |
Impacts of the Inflation Reduction Act and One Big Beautiful Bill Act on the US energy system J. Bistline, M. Brown, R. Cui, A. Fawcett, C. Hess, et al. · Nature Reviews Clean Technology · 2026 |
AI for sustainabilityAI and machine learning methods for footprinting and LCA, with benchmarks and evaluation criteria. |
PCFBench: A diagnostic benchmark for product carbon footprint estimation |
S. Ulissi, A. Dumit, P. J. Joyce, J. Feintzeig, K. Rao, et al. · Research Square · 2026 |
Quality-aware automation for LCI database mapping A. Dumit, K. Rao, S. Ulissi, S. Watson, J. Feintzeig, et al. · Journal of Industrial Ecology · 2026 |
ATLAS: A spend classification benchmark for estimating scope 3 carbon emissions A. Dumit, K. Rao, T. Kwee, V. Gopalakrishnan, K. Tsai, et al. · NeurIPS Workshop on Tackling Climate Change with ML · 2024 |
Life cycle assessmentProduct and corporate footprint methods, including EEIO modeling and multiregional scope 3 accounting. |
The importance of multiregional accounting for corporate carbon emissions S. J. Davis, A. Dumit, M. Li, Y. Maldonado, M. Steffen, et al. · Nature Communications · 2026 |
Open dataPublic datasets and emission factors, with the code and documentation behind them, mostly through Cornerstone. |
K. Rao, A. Dumit, S. Ulissi, J. Feintzeig, P. J. Joyce, et al. · Hugging Face · 2026 |
Cornerstone Sustainability Data Initiative · Zenodo · 2026 |
Cornerstone Sustainability Data Initiative · Zenodo · 2026 |
Supply chain greenhouse gas emission factors for U.S. commodities (USEEIO) W. Ingwersen, B. Young · Zenodo · 2025 |
S. Suh, M. Li, and the Watershed climate and data science team · Watershed · 2025 |
Get in touch
Speaking, interview, and scientific collaboration requests
Email our press team with your outlet, topic, and deadline. We respond to press inquiries within one business day and can arrange cited interviews or background briefings.