Lab Team

Adriana is an Applied Economics Ph.D. student in the Department of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota. Her research interests are environmental economics, especially water quality, and management in developing countries. Before graduate school, she worked for multilateral organizations, where she worked in the design and implementation of impact evaluations in different latinamerican countries. She received a B.A. in Economics from Rosario University and a Master's degree in Economics from Andes University.

Evelyn Strombom is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior (EEB). Her doctoral research focuses on the management of complex trophic systems, valuation of ecosystem services, and climate- and fishing-driven changes in Arctic marine systems. She is sitting in Oslo, Norway at the Center for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis Fall ‘19-Spring ‘20.

Evelyn received her Bachelor’s degree in Biology with a Minor in Latin American Studies from Swarthmore College. Before joining UMN EEB, she worked for the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, the Mathematics Department of Uppsala University, and the Beijer Institute for Ecological Economics Global Economic Dynamics and the Biosphere programme. Side interests include the circular economy, model integration, collective behavior and commons problems, and operationalizing high-level sustainability policy at the local level.

Haku is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota. His interests are in topics that involve natural resources, environmental, energy, and agricultural economics. Haku is specializing in natural resources and land-use, regional environmental issues, policy and social-ecological analysis, and theory of economic dynamics. He recently has been working on valuing ecosystem services to urban land use design (Twin Cities in Minnesota), water pollution and resource protection, and sustainability of grassland resources management. Haku received his Bachelor’s degree in Economics at the University of Chuo, Japan.

Ian is a Ph.D. Candidate in Applied Economics interested in questions at the nexus of policy, science, and economics. His research has two main areas of emphasis:

1) Using economic and scientific models to analyze and improve conservation policy and planning.

2) Using econometric techniques to identify the impacts of natural resource policies on local communities around the world.

Before pursuing a Ph.D. in Applied Economics, Ian received his Bachelor’s Degree in Economics and Biology from Grinnell College and held a variety of research positions in international agriculture and population biology.

Libby is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota. Her research interests include ecosystem service valuation, biodiversity conservation, environmental justice, and sustainable development through community empowerment, particularly women’s empowerment. Libby earned her B.S. in Economics and Mathematics from St. Catherine University in December 2019. Prior to graduate school, she served as an economic research assistant at her alma mater and as the first program coordinator for the Minnesota Center for Diversity in Economics.

Sumil Thakrar’s research broadly involves estimating the outdoor air quality-related human health impacts of different pollution sources, in order to identify promising policies that improve health and equity outcomes by targeting emissions sources across the economy. He has a particular focus on the agricultural sector, which is of wide importance in sustainability, yet relatively little attention has been paid to its impacts on human health through air quality. He is currently working on global air quality impact assessment tools. Sumil received his Undergraduate/Masters in Physics and Philosophy at the University of Oxford. Click here to visit Sumil's professional website.

Yanxu Long is a master’s student in the Department of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota. His study focuses on the intersection of environment and development, such as environmental pollution and sustainable development, resource allocation and utilization efficiency.

Yanxu received his bachelor’s degree in Economics and Mathematics from China Agricultural University in Beijing. After graduation, he worked for Volvo Financial Service as a management trainee and then worked for Volkswagen Financial Service as a senior risk analyst. Before starting graduate school at UMN, he also received a certificate of the MITx MicroMasters program in Data, Economics, and Development Policy created by MIT’s Department of Economics and the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL).

Nfamara K Dampha, a Gambian, is currently a World Bank Consultant. He’s currently working at the World Bank and UNHCR Joint Data Center on Forced Displacement in Copenhagen, Denmark. Nfamara earned a Ph.D. in Natural Resource Science and Management and a Master’s degree in International Development from the University of Minnesota. Nfamara’s research interest focuses on climate change policy, global migration studies, natural resource economics (i.e., ecosystem service valuation), GIS-based remote sensing applications, international development practice, and disaster risk reduction, especially in developing countries. Nfamara was Director of Admin at the National Disaster Management Agency- Gambia and serves as the Founding Executive Director for Household Disaster Resilience Project (HELP- Gambia).

Saleh Mamun is a Postdoctoral Associate jointly appointed at the University of Minnesota and Natural Resources Research Institute. His research interest lies in the field of natural resource economics, energy economics, environmental economics, land economics, and forestry economics.

He obtained a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of New Mexico and an MBA in Finance from the Institute of Business Administration, University of Dhaka. He worked six years in construction, marketing and government in Bangladesh. He has experience in research on environmental issues from business, development, and engineering perspective.

Floris is a visiting researcher in Department of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota. He is currently doing an industrial PhD with Unilever in the United Kingdom. He is also affiliated with the Free University (Vrije Universiteit) of Amsterdam. His research is concerned with the effectiveness of zero-deforestation commitments and the global expansion of deforestation-risk commodity crops. More broadly, his research interests lie in the field of geospatial analysis, applied econometrics and economic modelling. Floris holds a MSc in Environmental Economics & Climate Change from the London School of Economics and BSc in Earth Sciences & Economics from the Free University of Amsterdam.

Leonardo is a third-year Ph.D. student in Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota. His main interests are development policy, energy, public policy, and the use of remote sensing data. Currently, Consultant at the Country Department Andean Group of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Formerly, he worked as a Research Fellow for the University of Minnesota and the Country Department Central America of the IDB, as well as a Consultant for a variety of think tanks, such as: the INCAE Business School in Costa Rica, the IESA’s International Center of Energy and the Environment, and the UCV’s Postdoctoral Research Center. He was also Instructor for Principles of Economics, Macroeconomics, and Microeconomics, and Teaching Assistant for Econometrics and Mathematics in Venezuela.

Leonardo earned a B.A. in Economics from the Central University of Venezuela, a Master’s degree in Applied Economics from the Andres Bello Catholic University (Summa Cum Laude), and a Micromaster’s certificate of Data, Economics, and Development Policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on edX. He has been author, co-author, and reviewer of several studies for developing countries, mainly focused on finance, macroeconomics, trade, energy, and policy analysis.

Colette is a fifth-year PhD student in Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota. Colette serves as a research assistant to Dr. Justin Johnson and is the Johnson-Polasky Lab facilitator.

Colette is a development economist, and her work broadly examines linkages between social, market, and political systems and environmental phenomena. For example, Colette’s dissertation focuses on conflict and forced displacement and interrogates the relationship between climate and conflict as well as the natural resource degradation associated with refugee camps. Colette holds an M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies and is always excited for opportunities to apply her knowledge to studies of Arabic-speaking countries. She also holds an MA in Public Policy from the University of Chicago and a BA in Political Science from Williams College.

Becky is a PhD student in the Natural Resources Science and Management Program at the University of Minnesota. Her research interests are in sustainable development, with focuses on agricultural production; food waste, loss and by-product management; and life cycle assessment. Becky received her M.S. degree in Applied Plant Sciences at the University of Minnesota, and B.S. degree in Plant and Soil Sciences at North Carolina State University.

Lyle is a recent M.S. graduate of the Applied Economics graduate program at the University of Minnesota. His research interests are youth development, environmental economics, and the economics of education, including intersections between the three fields. Before graduate school, he worked as a program specialist and retreat program leader for the nonprofit organization Ramapo for Children in upstate New York, where he designed and led outdoor experiential education programming for New York City schools and organizations and mentored and coached young adults with learning differences. He received a B.A. in Economics from Bowdoin College in 2016.