Work with thought leaders and academic experts in global planetary change

Lea-Rachel Kosnik is a Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. She received her BA and MA from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and her PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research focuses on renewable energy and climate change, and she is considered a leading expert on the topic of hydroelectric energy generation in the U.S., and hydropower regulation by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. In recent years her research has expanded to include analyses of the academic economics profession itself, including with a focus on gender issues and DEI initiatives. Methodologically, her skill set includes textual analysis and natural language processing, along with traditional econometric techniques. In 2016 she received an honorable mention for article of the year from *Contemporary Economic Policy*, and in 2022 she gave the keynote address to the Illinois Economics Association. Dr. Kosnik is perhaps best known (in a service capacity) as the Association of Environmental and Resource Economist’s (AERE’s) Midwest representative, annually organizing the full track of AERE-sponsored environmental sessions at the Midwest Economic Association meetings. Dr. Kosnik has also served as President, Past-President, and Board Member of the Transportation and Public Utilities Group (TPUG), and as a Department Chair.

Dr. Peter Reich, a renowned expert in forest ecology and climate change science, is the Director of the Institute for Global Change Biology (IGCB) at the University of Michigan. Reich, who has conducted global change research on plants, soils, and ecosystems across a range of scales, will maintain a joint affiliation at the University of Minnesota, where he is a Regents Professor. Previously, Reich was the Chief Scientist at the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment at Western Sydney University in Australia from 2011 to 2021. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a fellow of the Ecological Society of America, and a BBVA Prize Laureate (BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Ecology and Conservation Biology). He also helped launch the science education channel, MinuteEarth, which has more than 400 million views on YouTube and other platforms. According to Research.com, Reich is the #1 scientist in the world in the field of ecology and evolution.

Hendrik Wolff is Professor of Environmental Economics at The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). * Hendrik's main research is in environmental economics, working at the intersection of transportation, air pollution, energy and health. This includes the economic causes and consequences of air pollution; the ”value of time;” the impact of energy conservation policies on electricity consumption; cost benefit analysis of the clean air act and its effects on health; the interactions between climate, local prices, wages and “quality of life; and the economics of Daylight Saving Time. He also developed new econometric estimators for large supply and demand systems that are used in agriculture and energy. He has conducted research projects in Ecuador, Germany, Mexico, Australia, Bangladesh, Ghana, England, Chile and the United States. Hendrik is a Faculty Affiliate of the UW Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology, an IZA Research Fellow, and a CESIfo Research Network Affiliate. He was a visiting professor at Resources for the Future, as well as at LMU Munich, University of Cologne and at IZA, Bonn. * Hendrik’s work has impact on both academia and policy. He won the 2009 Ralph C d’Arge and Allen V. Kneese Award for Outstanding Publication, which is awarded annually for the Best Paper in Environmental and Resource Economics. His research has led to important policy changes by the United Nations and the World Bank on the measurement of indices (the Human Development Index (HDI) and the Ease of Doing Business Index). His work is discussed on television (e.g., ABC News) and international media (e.g., The Economist, The Wall Street Journal). He has successfully obtained external funding from organizations such as the NSF, as well as CSSS and the Royalty Research Fund. In addition, he has been the chair for PhD students and Honors students, many of whom have won multiple awards. The job placements of Hendrik’s students are detailed in his CV. He has also consulted for the U.S. Department of Energy and for the President of the World Bank on important policy issues related to his research. * Hendrik is the director of [SelfDrivingCities.com](https://www.selfdrivingcities.com/) a research lab that connects academic researchers, government, and industry in the urban mobility space