Elena Irwin, PhD

Professor, Environmental Economics, Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics, Ohio State University

Elena’s research addresses the sustainability of human-natural systems at local and regional scales, with a focus on land use, ecosystem services, and integrated models of land-water systems. She has been PI or Co-PI on funded projects totaling over $16 million, with grants from the National Science Foundation, NOAA, US Department of Agriculture, and private foundations. Her current research includes coupled human-natural systems modeling of agricultural land use and water quality; food, energy, water systems modeling of the Great Lakes regional economy; sustainability theory and assessment; and urbanization patterns and ecosystem services. Elena is also the faculty director of the Sustainability Institute at Ohio State. She has served as a science advisor for the US EPA, NSF, and National Research Council, and is currently serving a three-year term as an elected member of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association executive board. Dr. Irwin earned an undergraduate degree in German and History from Washington University in St. Louis and her Ph.D. in agricultural and resource economics from the University of Maryland.

Katrina K. Jessoe, PhD

Associate Professor, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California – Davis

Katrina specializes in environmental economics.Much of her research centers on the design and evaluation of pricing and conservation policies in the electricity and water sectors. Some recent and ongoing projects include the estimation of the price elasticity of demand for agricultural groundwater and land use, rate design in the residential water sector, the role of market-based approaches as a tool to manage water, and a framed field experiment to understand the role of defaults in commercial energy efficiency. She received a BA from Princeton University in 2002 and a PhD in Environmental and Resource Economics from Yale University in 2009.

Frank Lupi, PhD

Professor of Environmental and Natural Resources Economics and Fisheries and Wildlife, Michigan State University

Frank Lupi specializes in agricultural and resource economics with interests at the intersection of recreational demand and ecosystem service valuation. He is an expert in discrete choice and random utility models, survey design and research methods, stated preference methods for demand analysis, and is a leader in multidisciplinary research regarding the provision and values of ecosystem services. Frank holds a joint appointment in the Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics department and the Fisheries and Wildlife department, which his research reflects. He has a BS and MS from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1986 and 1988 and a PhD from the University of Minnesota in 1997.

Ariel Ortiz-Bobea, PhD

Assistant Professor, Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, Cornell University

Ariel Ortiz-Bobea is an Assistant Professor and CoBank/Farm Credit East Sesquicentennial Faculty Fellow in Production Economics and Sustainability at the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University. His research primarily investigates how extreme weather and climate change affect the economy, particularly agriculture. Ongoing projects explore climate linkages with regional and global agricultural productivity, land use change, child malnutrition, trade, migration and financial markets. He is a member of the new OECD Network on Agricultural Total Factor Productivity and the Environment, which seeks to incorporate the environment and climate into official agricultural statistics. He previously served as a Fellow at Resources for the Future in Washington, DC, and as the Special Assistant to the Minister of the Environment and Natural Resources in the Dominican Republic. He holds degrees in engineering and public management and a PhD in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of Maryland. He is also into biking.