Gilbert F. White Postdoctoral Fellowship Winners
2009-2010
Ali Mosleh, the Nicole J. Kim Professor and Director, Center for Risk and Reliability at the A. James Clark School of Engineering, University of Maryland will join RFF during his sabbatical for research on applications of causal models of risk to a variety of social and technical issues.
2008-2009
Dr. Wolfram Schlenker, an assistant professor in the Department of Economics and School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, and a Faculty Research Fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research, will join RFF during 2008 – 2009 to pursue research on estimating the impact of global warming on US agriculture.
2007-2008
Steve Gabriel, Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park will join RFF during 2007 - 2008 to analyze supply security in natural gas markets in the United States, the European Union, and worldwide, and to work with RFF scholars on mathematical modeling of critical energy infrastructure.
2006-2007
Arik Levinson, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Georgetown University, will be in residence at RFF to conduct research on the pollution-intensity of U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade in the decade since the North American Free Trade Agreement.
2005-2006
Robert Weiner, Professor of International Business and International Affairs and Chair, Department of International Business, George Washington University. During an academic sabbatical, Weiner will conduct research into speculation and volatility in petroleum markets. He has written widely on energy issues during his career. He is also associated with the University of Laval in Quebec and has been a visiting scholar at the JFK School of Government at Harvard and at Brandeis University. He also is a consultant to a wide range of private companies in the U.S. and abroad as well as to the World Bank, USAID, and government agencies in Bolivia, Indonesia, Korea, the United Kingdom, and Nicaragua.
2004-2005
Beatriz Avalos-Sartorio will join RFF beginning this fall to work on several complex agricultural issues in Mexico. Beatriz is a professor of economics and natural resources and the head of graduate studies at the Universidad del Mar, Puerto Angel, Oaxaca, Mexico. She has her PhD in food research and applied economics from Stanford.
2003-2004
Linda Cohen, Professor of Social Science and Law at the University of Southern California School of Law and Professor of Economics at the University of California, Irvine. Linda joins RFF to look at the effects of restructuring of the US electricity market on the rate and direction of investment in new research and development in that market. Linda has been a research fellow at Brookings, an assistant professor at the Kennedy School of Government, and an analyst at RAND. With Roger Noll, Linda co-authored a best-selling book on technology, The Technology Pork Barrel. She has also been involved in debate about California's electricity deregulation process and is currently serving on the Independent Review Panel for the California Energy Commission's research programs.
2002-2003
Tom Lyon, associate professor and Bank One faculty fellow, Dept. of Business Economics and Public Policy, Indiana University. Lyon will write a book, Corporate Environmentalism and Public Policy and work on the effect of regulation on investments in the electric power industry, particularly mechanisms for inducing investment in transmission.
Tim Considine, professor, Dept. of Energy, Environmental, and Mineral Economics, Pennsylvania State University, and director, Center for Economic and Environmental Risk Assessment. Considine will complete a book on the industrial ecology of steel and work on two additional topics: the economic value of hurricane forecast information and an empirical paper on spot and forward pricing of sulfur dioxide pollution permits.
2001-2002
Vic Adamowicz, an economics professor in the Department of Rural Economy and the Sustainable Forest Management Network at the University of Alberta, working on valuing human health in the aftermath of forest fires, and on methodological approaches to valuing children's health.
Jean-Thomas Bernard, a professor in the economics department at the University of Laval, working on electric power exchanges between regional transmission organizations, including those between Canada and the U.S.
2000-2001
Allan Mazur, of the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, continuing his research on the sociology of science, technology, and environment.
1999-2000
Ken Small, a Professor of Economics at the University of California, Irvine, working on transportation and environmental issues. He outlined in his proposal a book on public mass transit in which he models and quantifies the chain of effects that occurs when increases in the monetary price of car travel (say, through congestion fees or a gas tax) reduce car travel, making the operation of mass transit easier and faster (for instance, buses can run faster if there are fewer cars on the road). In turn, if mass transit is faster, will more people use it? Ken outlined this broader, almost general equilibrium model of the transit sector and proposed to develop it quantitatively and add in environmental effects.
Kathryn Harrison is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of British Columbia. Her research at RFF focused on a statistical analysis of whether countries relax environmental standards or forgo enforcement in order to attract new investment and retain existing industries, or whether they seek to impress environmentally concerned voters and firms with more stringent standards. She assessed this tradeoff between "race to the bottom" and "race to the top" using detailed case studies of environmental regulation in four countries.
1998-1999
Thomas Sterner, a professor of environmental economics at the University of Gotheburg (Sweden), working on climate change issues. His research focus is energy economics. Thomas has set up programs at his university for students from developing countries to study environmental economics, and has also recently published the book, Economic Instruments for Sustainable Development.
Sarah Michaels, a geographer, from her position as an assistant professor in Tufts University's Department of Urban and Environmental Policy. While at RFF, she studied the public's decisions to participate in policymaking concerning watersheds in Massachusetts.