Areas of expertise: Environmental Economics; Environmental Valuation, Climate Change; Natural Hazards; Geographical Information System (GIS), Spatial Analysis.
I am an Assistant Teaching Professor of Economics and Technology for Development at the Keough School of Global Affair at the University of Notre Dame. I am also a faculty fellow at the Pulte Institute for Global Development and Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies, and an affiliated faculty at the Environmental Change Initiative (ECI), Environmental Humanities Initiative (EHUM), Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society, and Minor Program in Sustainability Studies. I earned a Ph.D. in economics from Florida International University (FIU) in 2016 and a Master’s degree in policy economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (UIUC) in 2011.
My research centers on Environmental and Natural Resource Economics, with a specific emphasis on the economic aspects of climate change adaptation and the reduction of natural hazard risks. I am also deeply interested in interdisciplinary studies that integrate various disciplines and methodologies, encompassing energy, agriculture, development, socioeconomics, and geography. I am particularly intrigued by the application of spatial GIS techniques and cost-benefit analysis to the resolution of complex environmental problems.
I am currently working on several projects including household-level perceptions of climate change risks and adaptation policies, resilience of critical infrastructures in the presence of hurricanes, and analyzing the health and socioeconomic impacts of natural disasters in coastal communities.
Prior to coming to Notre Dame, I was a faculty member in Economics at the University of Colorado Denver. I also worked as a researcher at FIU’s International Hurricane Research Center and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in China.