Research on the Welfare Effect and Social Justice of Exposure to Chemical and Nonchemical Environmental Stressors
I seek a graduate student at The Pennsylvania State University who is interested in analyzing socio-economic disparities in exposure to different environmental pollutants and the associated welfare impacts.
The student will participate in a series of research projects related to both chemical pollutants in ambient air and water, and non-chemical environmental stressors such as noise, light, and climate disasters. We will work together to explore how these environmental stressors individually and collectively affect physical and mental health of the exposed population, with a special focus on potentially disproportionate exposure and impacts among the historically disadvantaged and vulnerable subpopulations, such as minorities, low-income households, the elderly, and pregnant women. We will also investigate the mechanisms of disproportionate pollution exposure and the related social injustice problems through the aspects of migrations and intergenerational mobilities.
The student will receive training in empirical analysis and causal inference in the context of environmental economics and public health. The student will have opportunities to access and analyze several novel and exclusive databases including satellite data, cellphone GPS data, birth records, health surveys, housing transactions, and retail scanner data. This student will collaborate with applied economists from Penn State, Cornell, UIUC, University of Connecticut, Binghamton University, North Carolina A&T University, and Resources for the Future. Experience with large and spatial datasets is desired.
To learn more, please contact:
Dr. Ruohao Zhang
Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education
The Pennsylvania State University
Email: rjz5261@psu.edu
814-865-7031
Research Evaluating and Improving Agricultural Best Management Practices for Water Quality
We seek graduate students interested in nonmarket valuation and econometric analysis of water quality policies.
Students will join an interdisciplinary team funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to evaluate how natural and behavioral factors can reduce the effectiveness of best agricultural management practices to improve water quality. The student will receive training in environmental and resource economics and work on a team understanding how producer behavior affects environmental outcomes. Experience and interest in water quality, nonmarket valuation, and stated preference methods are desired but not required. You will collaborate with faculty and graduate students in engineering and help make important recommendation to water quality policy.
To learn more, please contact:
Dr. Katherine Zipp: kyz1@psu.edu and/or
Dr. Daniel Brent: dab320@psu.edu
Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education
The Pennsylvania State University
Research on Food Waste Measurement and Policy Implications
Penn State's EEFE program seeks one Ph.D. students interested in learning how to use supermarket scanner data to indirectly estimate household-level food waste and then use the results to research food policy in the U.S.
This multi-year research project five goals:
- Develop and apply novel econometric methods to estimate household-level and food category-specific food waste, based on a household utility maximization framework,
- Assess the overall trend in U.S. consumer food waste and link food waste to household and food product characteristics,
- Provide an easy-to-implement calibration tool that can be used by researchers to calculate food waste using widely available consumer purchase data sets,
- Demonstrate how to use the food-waste estimates to adjust the household-level calculations of the Healthy Eating Index, and
- Investigate whether food-waste adjustments to prior research on diet quality, food access, and the food environment would lead to different policy conclusions or recommendations.
The project team consists of researchers from the Penn State, Montana State, and Ohio State universities.
To learn more, please contact:
Dr. Edward (Ted) Jaenicke, ecj3@psu.edu
Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education
The Pennsylvania State University
Research Establishing Markets for Climate-Smart Dairy
We seek graduate students interested in the supply and demand for climate-smart agriculture.
Students will join an interdisciplinary project funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Partnerships for Climate-Smart Agriculture. Agriculture stands as a crucial player in the climate change narrative, contributing significantly to greenhouse gas emissions. The focus of the project is to work with dairy farmers in Pennsylvania to implement climate-smart practices to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, validate the extent of these reductions, and establish a market to realize the value added of these practices. The student will receive training in environmental and resource economics and work on a team to help estimate the supply and demand of climate-smart dairy products. Experience and interest in nonmarket valuation, survey methods, supply chain analysis, and the impact of agriculture on climate change are desired but not necessary. You will collaborate with faculty and graduate students in soil science, ecology, meteorology, agricultural engineering and more and help make important policy recommendations related to climate-smart agriculture.
To learn more, please contact:
Dr. Katherine Zipp: kyz1@psu.edu and/or
Dr. David Abler: dga2@psu.edu
Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education
The Pennsylvania State University
Research assistantships through the academic year will be available through the Energy, Environmental, and Food Economics (EEFE) Graduate Program. Summer support is also available.
In addition to meeting the admission requirements, successful applicants should have:
- a bachelor's or master's degree in a relevant field of study
- strong quantitative skills
- a willingness to learn new techniques and skills while interacting with an interdisciplinary team, including resource managers
- strong writing and communication skills
Students from underrepresented groups are especially encouraged to apply.
