Program Contributors – SETI 2024 Annual Workshop

Abraham Lartey is a researcher in the Department of Economics and the Center for Sustainable Structural Transformation at SOAS University of London. Previously, he served as a Research Fellow at the Institute for Sustainable Resources at University College London. He is also a consultant for the World Bank. His primary research areas include Energy Transition, Natural Resources and Economic Development, and Trade and the Environment.

Adolfo joined the Technology Assessment Group at the Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI) in February 2024 as a Postdoctoral Fellow to contribute to the SCENE project (Swiss Center of Excellence on Net-Zero Emissions). His main areas of interest are the socioeconomic impacts of energy transitions, studying topics such as energy poverty, air pollution, biomass combustion, and life cycle assessment.

Architect with a degree from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and a Master’s and a PhD in Forestry Sciences by Universidad Austral de Chile. Associate professor at the Institute of Architecture and Urbanism at Universidad Austral de Chile and Researcher at the Centre for Sustainable Urban Development, CEDEUS. Her research areas are: energy efficiency, energy poverty and energy policies.

I am currently a doctoral student at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, and my research interest lies in the socio-economic and equity aspects of energy access. My thesis is focused on cooking access and gender in rural India. I am also interested in the political economy and regulatory challenges of the power sector and the emerging theme of Just Transition in energy mitigation.

A quantitative economic geographer by orientation, Bishal is interested in evaluating environmental policies (energy, plastic, pollution and climate change) in heterogeneous contexts to identify strategies to make sure the policies are effective and equitable. Bishal is the Energy and Development Theme Lead (Research Fellow) at the Curtin Institute of Energy Transition, Curtin University, Australia.

I am a Ph.D. candidate in Economics at the Universidad de los Andes (Bogota, Colombia) under the guidance of Hernando Zuleta. Currently, I am part of the first cohort of graduate students in the Carbon Market Mentoring Program created as part of the Supporting Readiness for Article 6 Cooperation (SPAR6C) program, co-led by the GGGI and the UNEP. My research interests involve macroeconomics and environmental economics. My research aims to provide helpful recommendations for Carbon Markets and Just Transition policies.

Celina Proffen is a Ph.D. student at Goethe University Frankfurt, who works at the intersection of Development and Labor Economics. In her work she has evaluated the effcts of an Ethiopian electrification program, paying special attention on how youths’ time use, education and wellbeing is affected by access to electric power.

Chen Zhao is a doctoral student of National Economics at the School of Applied Economics, Renmin University of China. Her research is in the fields of poverty alleviation and sustainable development, household behavior analysis and energy economics. She is particularly interested in understanding and addressing in the inequality in these contexts.

I am an Assistant Professor of Economics at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), Mumbai. I have received Ph.D. in Economics from the Department of Economics, Delhi School of Economics, India. My research interests lie in Agricultural Economics, and Resource and Environmental Economics. My research uses modern applied econometric methods and micro-level data to address questions relating to the linkages between farm power pricing policies and groundwater irrigation, water-energy-food nexus and agricultural productivity in India. My ongoing projects focus on studying the incentive structure under crop diversification scheme in India for reduction of groundwater depletion, and relationship between armed conflict and forest resources in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Emily Pakhtigian is an Assistant Professor at the School of Public Policy at Penn State University. Her research examines human-environmental interactions at the intersection of environmental and development economics. Her research interests include environmental health, water and sanitation, air pollution, human capital accumulation, and water resource management. Pakhtigian’s recent research includes work to understand the processes by which households adopt and use environmental health technologies, the health and educational consequences of ambient air pollution exposure, and the economic implications of water resource management.

Eric Atsu Avorkpo is a PhD candidate in Economics at the University of Cape Coast, Ghana, with expertise in data management, statistical analysis, and research. He has worked as a Junior Associate at the Ghana Statistical Service and a part-time course tutor. Eric has contributed to numerous research projects and publications on economic development, public sector economy, and financial inclusion. He is proficient in STATA, R, and Python and has received numerous awards for his academic excellence. Eric is an active member of several professional networks, including the Africa Economic Research Consortium and UN ECA-Young Economist Network.

Ferrán is a public policy PhD student with a concentration in economics at Duke University. His interests are development economics and the economics of the energy transition, with intersections with labor and gender economics. He is presenting a study on the relation between women’s psychological empowerment (aspirations) and the impacts of energy access. As part of other ongoing projects, he is investigating the potential of a new technological innovation to improve mini-grids’ financial sustainability, studying a green transition subsidy program in Spain, and helping evaluate a large-scale national intervention for the reduction of intimate partner violence in Peru.

Fitsum Hagos is a researcher working on diverse areas like adoption and impact of irrigation, technical and allocative efficiency, supply chain of irrigation technologies, water valuation & payment for ecosystem services, and climate smart agriculture, its adoption and impact, policy and institution analysis, and investment climate for circular economy in Ethiopia and Kenya, and policies and strategies for food transformation in Kenya. He is the sole author or major contributor to over 40 peer-reviewed publications and more than 50 project reports.

I am a development economist currently working at the Energy Systems Research Group and studying towards my PhD focusing on economic modeling of mitigation policy in South Africa. I hold a master’s degree in economics from the University of Cape Town and have previously worked at the Environmental Policy Research Unit and Sustainable Energy Africa. My research interests include energy policy, energy transitions and local sustainable development in Africa.

Lam Do is a research associate at the Fulbright School of Public Policy and Management, Fulbright University Vietnam. Her research interests include energy and environmental economics, applied economics, and development economics. She currently works on various projects on the energy transition. She obtained her Master’s degree in Applied Economics and Econometrics at Monash University, Australia.

Laura Villalobos holds a joint position as an Assistant Professor of Economics in the Economics and Finance Department of the Franklin P. Perdue School of and the Environmental Studies Department in the Fulton School of Liberal Arts. Before joining Salisbury University, Laura was a postdoctoral researcher at the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) in Washington, D.C. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. She has over ten years of experience as an environmental economist, writing about the effectiveness of forest conservation policies, including protected areas, payments for ecosystem services, forest certification, forest concessions, and watershed management. She also studies how environmental conditions like air quality, temperature, and precipitation affect human capital.

Luis is a Post-doctoral Fellow and Labor Economist at EDF focused on understanding how climate and environmental policies affect labor markets, unemployment and the macroeconomy. He is interested in ensuring that the energy transition is just, and works on finding ways to generate international climate cooperation. Before joining EDF, Luis was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Resources for the Future (RFF). He received his Ph.D. in Economics from the W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University (ASU). Before that time, he worked as a Policy Advisor at the Mexican Ministry of Finance (SHCP).

Marta Talevi is Assistant Professor in Environmental Economics at the School of Economics, University College Dublin (UCD). Marta has a PhD in environmental economics from the London School of Economics (LSE) and was a Postdoctoral Associate at Yale School of the Environment and Assistant Professor at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Marta uses applied microeconomics methods with a focus on environmental issues, clean energy transitions, and development. Topics of interest include energy access; adaptation and resilience to climate change; forced displacement; uptake, use and maintenance of clean energy technologies and pro-environmental practices; evaluation of policies/programmes/projects; gendered dimensions of energy.

Dr. Matthew Shupler is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Epidemiology at Harvard Chan School of Public Health. For his PhD at the University of British Columbia and postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Liverpool, Dr. Shupler led the coordination of two large, multinational studies investigating variations in exposure to household air pollution from the use of polluting cooking fuels across sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and South America. Dr. Shupler previously completed a fellowship with the United Nations Foundation and collaborated with the World Health Organization to improve the methodology for assessing the health impacts of household air pollution exposure.

I’m Nassibou Bassongui, a PhD candidate in economics at the University of Abomey-Calavi in Benin. My doctoral research focuses on the issue of energy poverty in Benin by conducting cost analyses of traditional cooking fuels, examining the behavioral factors influencing fuel choices for cooking, and exploring the implications of energy subsidies on energy poverty.

Oluwasola E. Omoju is a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Economic and Social Research of the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS), Nigeria. His research interests include energy economics and climate change policy, public financial management, applied development economics, and Africa trade policy. His research has been published in peer-reviewed journals including African Insight, Renewable Energy, Energy Strategy Reviews, Journal of Cleaner Production, Energy and Environment, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, and National Institute Economic Review. He holds a doctorate in Applied Economics (Energy Economics) from Xiamen University, China.

Rishab Jagetia is a recent graduate of Duke University with a major in Environmental Sciences and Policy. Calling Houston, Texas home, Rishab has spent much of his last few years working in climate activism, environmental justice work, and researching how energy transitions are affecting rural populations. Rishab will spend the next year building upon his undergraduate thesis research by investigating how the energy transition is impacting rural, indigenous populations in La Guajira, Colombia. Specifically, he will study how local populations define human flourishing and sustainable development and how these definitions should influence environmental and economic policy frameworks in the country.

Accomplished Environmental Health Researcher with a Ph.D. in Population Studies, bringing over 8 years of advanced expertise in household air pollution and public health research. An established history of leading extensive quantitative research projects, specifically in the areas of household air pollution and clean energy solutions. Demonstrated expertise in influencing public health policies with data-driven insights. Experienced in coordinating international teams and fostering strategic partnerships to tackle environmental health challenges. Dedicated to promoting meaningful research and developing capacities to support clean energy initiatives and improve global health outcomes. Published 8 research papers in reputable peer-reviewed journals and presented 9 times at international and national conferences. Possess a wealth of hands-on experience in the Indian context.

Shefali studies energy and environmental economics. Her current research focuses on the drivers of energy demand in the residential, industrial and agricultural sectors and the impact of climate policies. She earned a Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard University and B.A. in Economics from the University of Maryland, College Park.

I am Miss Stephanie Acheampong and I am currently working as a junior lecturer at Wisconsin International University College in Kumasi, Ghana where I handle both Microeconomics and Business Finance.I am also a researcher at the Economics Department at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (Knust). I hold an MPhil degree in Economics from Knust and also aim to pursue my PhD in Economics within the shortest period of time.

Sydney Kabango Chishimba is a lecturer and Researcher at the Copperbelt University in Zambia. His research interests include climate change, energy economics, inequality, and poverty in developing countries. He is currently researching and working on household energy access, gender, and impact evaluation projects in developing countries.

I am a development economist with interests in environment, health, and gender equality. My current work focuses on the economic determinants of exposure to air pollution in developing countries and on the evaluation of public policy interventions aimed at increasing the adoption of environmental behaviors or environmental technologies. I received a PhD in Economics from Université Paris Dauphine – PSL. Prior to starting my PhD, I worked in the non-profit sector for over a decade with a focus on access to energy and clean cooking interventions in developing countries.

Tianhua Zou is a PhD student in Economics at Renmin University of China. Her research focuses on energy transition, poverty alleviation, and the Chinese economy. Her recent work has been published in Environmental and Resource Economics.

Wizaso Munthali is an environmental expert, who has worked in the Zambian environmental sector for close to 22 years. A larger portion of her professional experience has been with the Zambia Environmental Management Agency, where she worked as an environmental regulator, specializing in Environmental Impact Assessments and Pollution Control. She later joined Copperbelt Energy Corporation Plc, where her main role was to ensure corporate environmental compliance with national regulations. She holds a BSc. in Forestry from the Copperbelt University (CBU), Zambia, and a MSc. in Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation, ITC, The Netherlands. She is currently employed as a lecturer at CBU in the School of Mines and Mineral Sciences,. And is an affiliate to The Energy Poverty PIRE in Southern Africa (EPPSA) program funded by the National Science Foundation (USA). Her role under EPPSA has been to assist in the planning, design, and administration of household energy surveys in Southern Africa. Her research interests include energy transition and life cycle analysis (LCA).