Ending Extreme Poverty Without Endangering Ecosystems
Paul Ferraro, PhD, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor, Johns Hopkins University
Thursday, October 24, 2019: 4:00pm – 5:00pm
University of Connecticut, Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, Konover Auditorium
In the second Teale lecture of the new academic year, Dr. Paul Ferraro will discuss the relationship between poverty alleviation and ecosystem change, and share fascinating results from his unique work.
Poverty and ecosystem degradation are two great global challenges of the 21st century. Recently, scientists have argued that it is possible to protect ecosystems without interfering with, and potentially helping, poverty alleviation goals--but no one has demonstrated a connection between poverty alleviation programs and positive conservation outcomes. Research-based evidence for positive outcomes is important, given the significant amount of philanthropic funding aimed at poverty alleviation. If that investment can also advance conservation, the implication would be globally significant since endangered ecosystems are disproportionately located in regions with high levels of poverty.
Professor Ferraro’s work focuses on behavioral economics and the design and evaluation of environmental programs in the private and public sector, collaborating with scientists and engineers from a variety of social, natural, and physical science disciplines. He uses a combination of naturally occurring data and randomized controlled trials to identify the causal links between environmental policy actions and their effects
Ferraro is a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor with joint appointments in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering and the Carey Business School. He is known for his research on behavioral economics and the design and estimation of impacts of environmental programs.
Ferraro earned BA and MS degrees from Duke University, and completed his PhD at Cornell University with in 2001. Prior to joining Johns Hopkins in 2015, he was a Regents’ Professor in the Economics department at Georgia State University. He is senior editor of Environmental Evidence and ad hoc editor for Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He also serves on the editorial boards of Conservation Letters and Land Economics. He is the director of the Environmental Program Innovations Collaborative (EPIC), co-director of the Center for Behavioral and Experimental Agri-Environmental Research (CBEAR), and an affiliate of the Ideas42 Behavioral Science Lab. A former science advisor to the Global Environment Facility, he serves on scientific advisory committees for Blue Water Baltimore, the Collaboration for Environmental Evidence, and the Forests and Livelihoods: Assessment, Research, and Engagement (FLARE) network.
Teale 2019-2020: https://cese.uconn.edu/the-edwin-way-teale-lecture-series/
Sponsored by the Office of the President, Office of the Provost, Office of the Vice President for Research, College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Graduate School, School of Engineering, School of Fine Arts, School of Law, Atmospheric Sciences Group, Center for Environmental Sciences & Engineering, Center of Biological Risk, Connecticut Institute for Resilience and Climate Adaptation, Connecticut State Museum of Natural History, Connecticut Sea Grant Program, Environmental Sciences Program, Environmental Studies Program, Geosciences Program, Human Rights Institute, Humanities Institute, Institute of the Environment, Office of Environmental Policy, and UConn Library, as well as by Departments of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Economics, English, Geography, History, Natural Resources & the Environment, Political Science, and Physics.
For more information, contact: csmnh at csmnhinfo@uconn.edu