Board

Claudia Aravena is an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at Heriot-Watt University. She holds a PhD in Environmental and Energy Economics from Queen’s University Belfast, UK; a certificate in Sustainable Development from University College Dublin; and a Master’s degree in Environmental and Natural Resource Economics from the University of Concepción in Chile, where she also obtained her bachelor’s degree in Economics, winning the University’s Concepción Award for best student in Economics. Previously, she was a lecturer and researcher in the Department of Economics at Trinity College Dublin, the UCD Smurfit Business School, the Department of Engineering at University College Dublin (UCD) (Ireland), and the Department of Economics at the University of Concepción. She was awarded the Mäler Fellowship in 2016 at the Beijer Institute of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Claudia has worked extensively with interdisciplinary groups, policymakers, and stakeholders in the areas of energy, environmental economics, and behavioral economics. Her experience and research interests focus on environmental valuation, energy efficiency, biodiversity, ecosystem services, hydrogen, smart grids, consumer behavior, blue and renewable energy, energy and environmental policy, and sustainable development. She is currently working on projects in developed and developing countries. Her research has been recognized for its high impact on policy and teaching, earning her the EfD Certificate of Excellence for Policy Impact in 2023 and the HWU Pioneer in Education Award in 2023. Her work has been published in several international journals, including Energy Economics, Land Economics, The Energy Journal, Environmental and Resource Economics, Energy and Resource Economics, IEEE Power, among others.

Claudia was a member of the Scientific Committee of LACEEP, the Latin American and Caribbean Environmental Economics Program, until 2017, and has contributed as a referee and advisor to various research committees in Latin America, Europe, and the United Kingdom.

LINK: https://reesefdcolombia.uniandes.edu.co/investigacion/investigadores/item/15-claudia-aravena

Óscar Melo is an Associate Professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. He holds a PhD and a Master’s degree in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of Maryland, College Park. He was Director of the Department of Agricultural Economics at the Universidad Católica between 2008 and 2014. He is currently a member of the Center for Global Change and the Center for Water Law and Management, both at the Catholic University. His research interests include water economics and climate change, the water-energy-food nexus, product and service quality regulation, sustainable development of agricultural and natural resources, and trade.

LINK: http://agronomia.uc.cl/omelo

Jorge is a professor in the Department of Economics at the University of the Andes (Bogotá, Colombia). He was also director of the Latin American and Caribbean Environmental Economics Program (LACEEP). His main research interests focus on applied economics in the areas of the environment, natural resources, and development, especially in the context of poverty and livelihoods. He has published in various journals, including Ecological Economics, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, World Development, and Environment and Development Economics. He teaches courses on environmental economics, natural resource economics, and microeconomics at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Jorge is also the editor of the journal Desarrollo y Sociedad (https://revistas.uniandes.edu.co/index.php/dys).

LINK: https://economia.uniandes.edu.co/maldonado

Danae Hernández-Cortés is an Assistant Professor in the School of Sustainability and the School for the Future of Innovation in Society at Arizona State University. Her research focuses on the distributional consequences of environmental policies and justice. She uses applied methods of causal inference alongside remote sensing techniques and atmospheric transport models to analyze the environmental justice consequences of environmental policies. Before joining ASU, she earned her PhD in Economics with an emphasis on environmental science from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

LINK: https://hernandezcortes.github.io/

Marcelo Caffera holds a PhD in Natural Resource Economics from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst (2004). He works at the University of Montevideo, Uruguay, where he divides his time between research, teaching, and coordinating the undergraduate economics program. Marcelo has published his work in journals such as the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Environmental and Resource Economics, Environmental Health Perspectives, The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy, Environment and Development Economics, and Mathematical Social Sciences. As a consultant, Marcelo has worked for the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the International Development Research Centre in Canada, as well as for private firms. During 2021 and 2022, Marcelo advised the Minister of Economy and Finance of Uruguay on climate and environmental economics issues.

Link: Marcelo Caffera Homepage (um.edu.uy)

Marcela Jaime Torres is an associate professor at the School of Business and Administration (EAN) at the University of Concepción. She obtained her PhD in Economics from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Her research focuses on the behavioral aspects of natural resource management, particularly water and energy conservation and waste management. She has also conducted empirical studies on urban air pollution from wood burning and on the behavior of small producers in the agriculture and aquaculture sectors. She has also researched issues related to social capital and subjective well-being, and the effects of the interaction between environmental policies and individuals’ responses to monetary and non-monetary incentives. She has written on the impact of climate phenomena on crop allocation and the interaction between technology adoption and agricultural insurance. She is currently director of NENRE EfD-Chile, a center affiliated with the Environment for Development Initiative (EfD), and co-directs the Sustainable Energy Transitions Initiative (SETI), together with Marc Jeuland (Duke University). She participates in the Sustainable Consumption and Production Initiative (SCOPE) and Women in Environmental Economics for Development (WinEED). She has also worked as a consulting economist for the Undersecretary of Fisheries and Aquaculture (SUBPESCA) and the Ministry of the Environment of the Government of Chile.

LINK: https://www.efdinitiative.org/about-efd/people/jaime-torres-marcela

Hernán Bejarano is an Associate Professor of Economics at CIDE (Mexico). He received his PhD in Economics from Pennsylvania State University and works at the intersection of environmental, development, and behavioral economics, using experimental and applied methods to study how individuals and communities respond to environmental risks and policy interventions. He has held a visiting position as Associate Professor in the Department of Resource Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His research focuses on climate shocks, water management, and energy adoption, and has been published in leading journals such as Environmental and Resource Economics, Energy Economics, World Development, and Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization. He collaborates with organizations including the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank, and previously served as a Visiting Behavioral Economist in the Climate Change and Sustainability Division of the Inter-American Development Bank. His projects combine laboratory, field, and survey experiments to generate policy-relevant causal evidence for Latin America, and he actively engages in training the next generation of researchers in experimental methods for public policy.